intel i5 2500 upgrade question

[kaesden]

So i'm wondering for my next upgrade what to go for, if anything.

Currently I have an intel i5 2500(non-K) cpu that i have running on a 104 bus speed, turbo up to ~3.98ghz under full load 100% stable. 16gb ram @ 1600mhz. This setup is several years old already as I bought it when sandy bridge was the cool new thing to have. Foolishly I decided to save a few bucks and get the non-K version of the processor thinking i'd never want to bother with overclocking, but thats all water under the bridge.

would it be worth it for me to go to ebay and pick up a 2500k as an upgrade and overclock it to ~4.4ghz? I have a noctura cooler that should be more than up to the challenge. Or would it be more worthwhile to just save up and get a skylake cpu/board/memory upgrade down the road a bit after prices come down to something a bit more reasonable?

Would there be a very noticable performance gain in games at all going either route? (video card is a gtx970) Would PCIe 3.0 benefit me much over the 2.0 i have now?

 

[LTC8K6]

Save up for a new system, imo.

I don't think the K version will be a noticeable upgrade.

Maybe if you dropped in an i7-2600K, it would be noticeable, but they are still expensive, I think?

 

[dave_the_nerd]

I don't think there'd be much benefit to getting an extra 400MHz. If you were to move to an i7 2600K, 2700K, or 37xxK, there are a few games that would notice.

PCI-E 2.0 vs. 3.0 isn't likely to be bottlenecking you.

 

[Charlie98]

Save up for a new system, imo.

I don't think the K version will be a noticeable upgrade.

Maybe if you dropped in an i7-2600K, it would be noticeable, but they are still expensive, I think?

I agree. OP, your system isn't that bad... minus the non-K chip :sneaky: Even used 2500Ks are still over $100, you would be better off saving up for a new system when your current system fails to deliver.

You didn't really mention how you use your PC, or what games you are playing, if any.

I bought it when sandy bridge was the cool new thing to have.

...still is, as far as I'm concerned.

 

[NTMBK]

You won't see much difference; you still have a pretty great CPU! Keep saving up for now.

 

[aaksheytalwar]

Get a 6700k with 32 GB DDR4 3200 RAM.

In games like Fallout 4 you'll double your avg FPS and probably triple your minimum FPS. With the same GPU.

In other games your minimum FPS will probably increase by 50-100%.

A 6700k should last a good 2-3+ years as the top dog. Hopefully.

And 32 GB DDR4 3200 will last the lifetime of your platform.

Upgrade the 970 to a newer GPU in a yr or so.

 

[bystander36]

^ You may be over selling it a tad. You don't want to him to be disappointed after the upgrade.

 

[sm625]

Get a 6700k with 32 GB DDR4 3200 RAM.

In games like Fallout 4 you'll double your avg FPS and probably triple your minimum FPS. With the same GPU.

LOL. What can I say? Buy a 6700K. ... ... Then run for office, because you got a real talent here for exaggeration. I'd like to see even jsut one example of a 6700K getting 3 times the minimum fps vs a 4.0GHz i5-2500.

 

[kaesden]

Get a 6700k with 32 GB DDR4 3200 RAM.

In games like Fallout 4 you'll double your avg FPS and probably triple your minimum FPS. With the same GPU.

In other games your minimum FPS will probably increase by 50-100%.

A 6700k should last a good 2-3+ years as the top dog. Hopefully.

And 32 GB DDR4 3200 will last the lifetime of your platform.

Upgrade the 970 to a newer GPU in a yr or so.

even if this is true, fallout 4 is an outlier at best. I'm not upgrading my system for just one game, even if it is one i'm playing.

 

[kaesden]

You didn't really mention how you use your PC, or what games you are playing, if any.

...still is, as far as I'm concerned.

Good point.

I do play games with my pc, anything from fallout 4, to wow, to whatever happens to grab my attention on sale from steam at the moment really.

 

[frozentundra123456]

Is the cpu limiting your performance in games or other uses? If not, I would stick with it. I would save up for a complete rebuild, rather than upgrading what you currently have. With a single 970, pci-E 3.0 vs 2.0 would not show any appreciable performance gain.

Edit: You would see a considerable performance gain, with an overclocked 6700k. Probably about 10% in clockspeed, 25% in ipc, and another 20% or so from hyperthreading in games or apps that use it. Whether you need that or it is worth it is up to you I guess. With only a single 970 you are probably gpu limited in most games anyway.

 

[skipsneeky2]

Would there be a very noticable performance gain in games at all going either route? (video card is a gtx970) Would PCIe 3.0 benefit me much over the 2.0 i have now?

PCIe 3.0 won't do much for you,your i5 2500 non k i believe is good enough for big Pascal next year.Having the same cpu but stock and at one point a 970 with it,i was more or less always wanting more gpu for 1080p.

I even had another rig with a i7 3770 non k that housed the 970,outside of bottlenecks at 768p on a t.v i had at one point it wasn't honesty worth the swap from the i5 for 1080p on a IPS monitor i ended up purchasing and gaming on later on.Same fps nearly on both cpus with the 1080p resolution.

Assuming the bottlenecks i had at 768p on my 970,given i wasn't held back at 1080p kind of gives you a idea how much wiggle room you got left.