i7 920 to i7 2600K isn't upgrading within the same architecture, though.
Haha, if it wasn't the same CPU in a new package they wouldn't have called it the I7 again .
stock 920 vs stock 2600k
http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/47?vs=287
or if you want to compare an overclocked 920 to a stock 2600k, this should be fairly close
http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/157?vs=287
So a SB-based 'Pentium' is the same as a first-gen 'Pentium' at 90hz?
I would wait and see as well unless you love upgrading and want the best performance on day 1. An OC'd 2500K/2600K will be faster than an OC'd 920 but only around 20% unless you get a great 2500K that can get close to 5.0 Ghz.
I agree with most here its a sidegrade don't bother.
I personally don't try to upgrade unless its a 50% improvement in performance.
So I did 4890 to 6950 and Opteron 170 to i7 920 which was a huge upgrade and far bigger than my 50% improvement minimum.
I would either wait for SB-E or even Ivy bridge.
I myself am thinking of going the 970 route and skipping SB-E all together and going straight to Ivy which will be a nice performance boost and quite the reduction in power. However i'm uncertain at this time that it will offer my 50% minimum.
Sandy Bridge-E is the LGA 2011 implementation of Sandy Bridge. The quad-core SB-E models will perform identically to the LGA 1155 parts in most cases. They will, in some synthetic benchmarks, see a bit of a performance boost from memory bandwidth. That's it.
Ivy Bridge will likely overclock better than Sandy Bridge. Waiting for an extra 500 MHz, however, seems a little ridiculous. Almost every 2500K/2600K will hit 4.5 GHz without being pushed very hard. An equivalent Ivy Bridge may hit 5.0 GHz, but (assuming linear clock scaling - rarely the case) that would only result in an 11% performance increase.
Can we please stop saying "wait for SB-E" and "wait for IB?"
Sandy Bridge-E is the LGA 2011 implementation of Sandy Bridge. The quad-core SB-E models will perform identically to the LGA 1155 parts in most cases. They will, in some synthetic benchmarks, see a bit of a performance boost from memory bandwidth. That's it.
Ivy Bridge is a die shrink. Northwood was a die shrink of Willamette. Cedar Mill was a die shrink of Prescott. Penryn was a die shrink of Conroe. Westmere was a die shrink of Nehalem.
Northwood's L2 cache was increased from Willamette. Penryn added SSE 4.1. Westmere added AES instructions.
Willamette to Northwood yielded big performance gains from its boosted clock speed and (eventually) doubled FSB. Conroe to Penryn resulted in a negligible performance boost. Nehalem to Westmere resulted in an equally small performance boost.
"But IB is a tick+"
Yes. The IGP is getting beefed up and the CPU should, as a whole, be a lot more energy efficient. That doesn't change the fact that, clock-for-clock, it will perform almost identically to Sandy Bridge.
Ivy Bridge will likely overclock better than Sandy Bridge. Waiting for an extra 500 MHz, however, seems a little ridiculous. Almost every 2500K/2600K will hit 4.5 GHz without being pushed very hard. An equivalent Ivy Bridge may hit 5.0 GHz, but (assuming linear clock scaling - rarely the case) that would only result in an 11% performance increase.
Ivy Bridge hitting 5.0 GHz on average is also a complete bullshit guess, honestly. Intel is more concerned with energy efficiency with this release. Modern CPUs are becoming increasingly sensitive to voltage increases. Just to make a complete "out of my ass" statement, I'd guess that most SBs can hit 5.0 GHz stable. No one attempts to push it (including me) because no one really knows what kind of voltage Intel's 32nm process can take. The 22nm process, for all we know, could be more fragile in regard to voltage.
Nehalem to Sandy Bridge is an upgrade, even if only slight.
Sandy Bridge to Ivy Bridge is purely a sidegrade.
Neither "upgrade" is worth it.
How can you say this and be sure you are correct?
You are somewhat mis-informed. IB may be a die-shrink, but Intel has been very vocal stating the power consumption will be 1/2. Yes, 1/2. IB brings some interesting new technologies outside of the 22nm process, and is more than just a shrink.
Unless Intel really misses the mark, 5.0ghz+ for IB should be very attainable, especially for quads. Obviously this is not known yet, but I would imagine we will start seeing some early observations pretty quickly.
Edit: Please also show me the 'comparable' 1155 model to the upcoming 6-core SB-E CPU. That's right, you cannot.
It's an upgrade, but a very minor one at that. Since it looks like you do mild over-clocks on your CPUs, a 2600K at 4GHz would give you a boost of around 10% in gaming. So, in a nutshell: no, it's definitely not worth it. Your CPU shouldn't produce any bottlenecks, so go for the GTX 580 and forget the 2600K. As for the RAM, leave it as-is. The most you're gonna get in performance in gaming using DDR3 1600-1866MHz instead of 1333MHz is around 2%.
Also, just so you know: there's no difference in gaming between the 2500K and 2600K.
I got everything up and running this evening after a snafu with crossfire. This setup is so nice.Funny, I am actually going from a 920 to a 2600k. Should get my order from newegg tomorrow.
My mobo was crapping out on me, and I figured I might as well go with a 1155 board. I also got 16GB of DDR3 and two 2GB 6950s :awe: I've got the money to burn so I figured why not.
Plus I've already got an SSD and my 920 was never a good overclocker.