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: F1 2018
Aside from keeping up-to-date on the Formula One world, F1 2017 added HDR support, which F1 2018 has maintained; otherwise, we should see any newer versions of Codemasters' EGO engine find its way into F1. Graphically demanding in its own right, F1 2018 keeps a useful racing-type graphics workload in our benchmarks.
We use the in-game benchmark, set to run on the Montreal track in the wet, driving as Lewis Hamilton from last place on the grid. Data is taken over a one-lap race.
| AnandTech CPU Gaming 2019 Game List | ||||||||
| Game | Genre | Release Date | API | IGP | Low | Med | High | |
| F1 2018 | Racing | Aug 2018 |
DX11 | 720p Low |
1080p Med |
4K High |
4K Ultra |
|
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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F1 2018 shows that the overclocked 2600K and the 7700K are basically equal from 1080p and higher.
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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.