Upgrading from an Intel Core i7-2600K: Testing Sandy Bridge in 2019
by Ian Cutress on May 10, 2019 10:30 AM EST- Posted in
- CPUs
- Intel
- Sandy Bridge
- Overclocking
- 7700K
- Coffee Lake
- i7-2600K
- 9700K
Gaming: Final Fantasy XV
Upon arriving to PC earlier this, Final Fantasy XV: Windows Edition was given a graphical overhaul as it was ported over from console, fruits of their successful partnership with NVIDIA, with hardly any hint of the troubles during Final Fantasy XV's original production and development.
In preparation for the launch, Square Enix opted to release a standalone benchmark that they have since updated. Using the Final Fantasy XV standalone benchmark gives us a lengthy standardized sequence to record, although it should be noted that its heavy use of NVIDIA technology means that the Maximum setting has problems - it renders items off screen. To get around this, we use the standard preset which does not have these issues.
Square Enix has patched the benchmark with custom graphics settings and bugfixes to be much more accurate in profiling in-game performance and graphical options. For our testing, we run the standard benchmark with a FRAPs overlay, taking a 6 minute recording of the test.
| AnandTech CPU Gaming 2019 Game List | ||||||||
| Game | Genre | Release Date | API | IGP | Low | Med | High | |
| Final Fantasy XV | JRPG | Mar 2018 |
DX11 | 720p Standard |
1080p Standard |
4K Standard |
8K Standard |
|
All of our benchmark results can also be found in our benchmark engine, Bench.
| AnandTech | IGP | Low | Medium | High |
| Average FPS |  |
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| 95th Percentile |  |
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For Final Fantasy, all chips performed essentially the same from 4K upwards (the OC run failed at 8K for some reason), but at 1080p resolutions the OC chip still sits between the 2600K/7700K at stock almost easily in the middle.
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djayjp - Friday, May 10, 2019 - link
Hey, I know! Let's benchmark a CPU at 4K+ using a mid-range GPU! Brilliant....Ian Cutress - Friday, May 10, 2019 - link
Guess what, there are gaming benchmarks at a wide range of resolutions!eva02langley - Friday, May 10, 2019 - link
I am not sure what is the goal of this? Is it for saying that Sandy Bridge is still relevant, Intel IPC is bad or games developers are lazy?One thing for sure, it is time to move on from GTA V. You cannot get anything from those numbers.
Times to have games that are from 2018 and 2019 only. You cannot just bench old games so your database can be built upon. It doesn't represent the consumer reality.
BushLin - Saturday, May 11, 2019 - link
Yeah, why benchmark a game where the results can be compared against all GPUs and CPUs from the last decade. </s>StevoLincolnite - Sunday, May 12, 2019 - link
GTA 5 is still demanding.Millions of gamers still play GTA 5.
It is one of the most popular games of all time.
Ergo... It is entirely relevant having GTA 5 benchies.
djayjp - Friday, May 10, 2019 - link
Then the GPU is still totally relevant.MDD1963 - Saturday, May 11, 2019 - link
Of course it is....; no one plays at 720P anymore....PeachNCream - Sunday, May 12, 2019 - link
I'd argue that hardly anyone ever played PC games at that resolution. 720p is 1280x720. Computer screens went from 4:3 resolutions to 16:10 and when that was the case, most commonly the lower resolution panels were 1280x800. When 16:9 ended up taking over, the most common lower resolution was 1366x768. Very few PC monitors were ever actually hit 720p. Even most of the low res cheap TVs out there were 1366 or 1360x768.Zoomer - Friday, June 14, 2019 - link
Doesn't matter, the performance will be similar.fep_coder - Friday, May 10, 2019 - link
My threshold for a CPU upgrade has always been 2x performance increase. It's sad that it took this many generations of CPUs to get near that point. Almost all of the systems in my upgrade chain (friends and family) are Sandy Bridge based. I guess that it's finally time to start spending money again.