Your current CPU - Is it time for Sandybridge?

[Rottie]

Currently have an Athlon X2 4800. Lasted me 5 years with various other component upgrades, but enough is enough!

Yup still running 3 year old Athlon X2 4800+ I am happy with it until it dies.

 

[Zenoth]

Still using my E8400 @ 3.6Ghz, I do plan to upgrade to a 2600K later this year.

 

[jlee]

i5 750 here...plenty fast for me. I will probably pick up an SSD in the next week or two and consider a video upgrade this summer, but I'm happy now.

 

[TridenT]

Intel Core 2 Duo E7200. I'd like to go sandy bridge and a new graphics card, really badly. But I don't really want to shell out $1000+ right now.

 

[Insomniator]

Yea, I'm in the same boat. I'd like to upgrade, but I'd practiclty have to give my stuff away. The only reason I could see upgrading is for SATA/USB3 and an SSD. But P35/SATA2 with and SSD is probably plenty fast enough until the next generation comes out, plus cheaper. Sounds like Tom's doesn't think SATA3 will last to long, as it's close to being saturated already and most makers are pushing USB 3 SSD's too.

I'm thinking about it now, if I could get $250 for my 9550 and 8GB (4x2) of DDR2 1000 it wouldn't cost me that much to get a 2500k with a mobo and I can get free DDR3 at work...

hmmmmmm...

 

[Dadofamunky]

I've been running a 1 MHz Z-80 for the LONGEST time. Can't beat that 9600 Baud goodness. What, you mean I'm supposed to have COLOR?

Stock P4@2.4 to a 2600K.

I can't wait!

Now THAT'S an upgrade I can believe in!

 

[Obsoleet]

I'm deeply in love with my Q9450 still. Thing is a beast in my eyes, I ordered it on launch day, OEM when retail wasn't available yet for $360 which I thought was a steal (and still do for how long I've used it).

Rips thru video encoding as fast as I need or could ask for honestly.. plays my games just fine and I'm only upgrading if Intel can truly top the ICH10R performance for storage. AFAIK that hasn't really been improved upon.
P45/ICH10R is/was just an amazing setup. Quad cores is still as much or almost even still more than most things need (outside of encoding where I feel my rig does fine).

Gimme native usb 3.0 and of course native sata6 and I'm in. Until then I'm using Asus's USB3.0 card in my current rig and it works great.

 

[imaheadcase]

I think i'm going to wait for them without the GPU on die. Seems it will be a lot cooler and slightly cheaper.

 

[Ajay]

Nah, I'm likely to stay with my Ci7 for a while. I'd like to move it to H2O cooling so I can keep it at 4.0-4.2GHz year round. I might go for a Gulftown if they drop in price next winter/spring.

 

[f4phantom2500]

those AMD options are pretty vague...i think options like K10 and K8 would be more apt. i mean, i have an athlon...ii x3 435. but 5 or 6 years ago i also had an athlon...xp 2500. back when i had a p2 rig, my best friend had an athlon...700mhz.

 

[zokudu]

Phenom II 955. Will probably last me until Bulldozer.

 

[RussianSensation]

Sandy bridge is to replace 1156 and the i5 sandy bridge arent meant to compete with the i7 1366, they simply cant

While a 3.9-4.0ghz Core i7 950 will go head to head with the i5-2500k @ 4.5-4.6ghz, the 4.5-4.6ghz i5-2600k will be a a good 25% faster than a 4.0ghz Core i7 if you assume at least a 10% improvement in IPC.
http://www.pureoverclock.com/review.php?id=1178&page=7

Now consider that it will also consume about 120-130W less power under load and about 100W less at idle as well. If smokin9 has the option of returning the 950, and grabbing the 2600k instead, I would do that.

 

[Spike]

While a 3.9-4.0ghz Core i7 950 will go head to head with the i5-2500k @ 4.5-4.6ghz, the 4.5-4.6ghz i5-2600k will be a a good 25% faster than a 4.0ghz Core i7 if you assume at least a 10% improvement in IPC.
http://www.pureoverclock.com/review.php?id=1178&page=7

Now consider that it will also consume about 120-130W less power under load and about 100W less at idle as well. If smokin9 has the option of returning the 950, and grabbing the 2600k instead, I would do that.

Wait, what? I thought that unless your talking about HT enhanced apps the 2600k and 2500k are essentially the same at the same speed. There are some differences that the extra 2MB cache but generally, at least in all the game benchmarks I have seen, there is very little difference clock per clock with the 2500 vs 2600.

The conclusions of this review certainly seem to say the 2600k is much better but that seems to disagree with the rest of the benchmarks. Though this review does seem to focus on MT apps vs the normal game heavy benchmarks.

 

[Dave3000]

I right now have an i7 920, not overclocked. I can afford to get an i7 2600 with a P67 motherboard but I most likely will skip 2600 and wait for something faster unless FSX get's a big performance boost to what I have now but someone has to compare the i7 920 to the i7 2600 at stock clock settings in FSX because I would regret buying it if the performance boost is small in FSX.

 

[RussianSensation]

Wait, what? I thought that unless your talking about HT enhanced apps the 2600k and 2500k are essentially the same at the same speed.

I concluded that at first myself. I have gone through 10+ reviews by now. Basically, if all you are doing is gaming, then yes 2500k = 2600k. But heavy excel work, some video/audio work depending on how threaded the app is, file compression/decompression, distributed computing, rendering, etc. 2600k is a lot faster.

Look at this review. A 4.77 ghz 2500k is barely faster than a 4.2ghz Core i7 875k in multi-threaded apps.
http://www.overclockersclub.com/reviews/intel_corei7_2600k_and_corei5_2500k/6.htm

If you are going to be mainly gaming, then 2500k is of course better value than 2600k.

Look at this review as well: http://www.legionhardware.com/artic..._2500k_and_core_i7_2600k_sandy_bridge,10.html
^^^^
In some cases, the i5-2500k can't even convingly beat a i7-920 2.66 despite 3.3ghz clock speed, but 2600k remains far ahead.

I did a quick summary of AnandTech's review of Core i7 975 3.33ghz vs. Core i5-2500k 3.3ghz. 2500k's performance advantage (disadvantage in red) over 975:

SYSMark 2007 = 5.58%
Adobe CS4 = 12.50%
Xmpeg + DivX = 0.00%
WM Encoder 9 = 4.35%
x264 - 1st pass = 9.92%
x264 - 2nd pass= -16.3%
x264 3.03 - 1st pass = 24.38%
x264 3.30 - 2nd pass = -11.1%
3dsmax 9 = -1.69%
Cinebench R10 - Single = 25.99%
Cinebench R10 - Multi =-0.13%
POV-Ray 3.7 =-21.47%
Blender 3D = 3.63%
PAR2 = 16.46%
WinRAR 3.80 = 4.73%
7-Zip Benchmark =-28.57%
7-Zip Compression = -1.75%
Visual Studio 2008 = -29.05%
Sorenson Squeeze = -0.44%
Excel Montel Carlo = -28.33%
Excel Math = -15.39%
Application Average = -2.23%

Fallout 3= 0.44%
Left 4 Dead = 7.54%
Far Cry 2 = 4.09%
Crysis Warhead = 5.29%
Dragon Age: Origins = -4.32%
Dawn of War II = 2.49%
World of Warcraft = 14.70%
Civilization 5 Full Render =-2.83%
Civilization 5 No Render = 1.55%
Gaming Average = 3.22%

Overall Advantage = -0.59%

Overall, 2500k is not any faster than a Core i7 975 at the same clock speeds. You can see where it loses badly are mostly multi-threaded scenarios where 2600k will easily beat the 975. Of course you can overclock the 2500 farther and it is far more power efficient. If you don't use any of those applications, 2600k makes no sense for you.

 

[scrubman]

those AMD options are pretty vague...i think options like K10 and K8 would be more apt. i mean, i have an athlon...ii x3 435. but 5 or 6 years ago i also had an athlon...xp 2500. back when i had a p2 rig, my best friend had an athlon...700mhz.

Well its still AMD and if by chance anyone is still using any of that old stuff there cant be enough to skew the poll that much.

 

[Zstream]

I have an 860 and 8gb of ram... At the current rate software uses multiple cores, I'll be sitting pretty for at least another two years.

 

[Rhezuss]

Got an Athlon II X3 unlocked to Phenom II X4 and OCed to 3.48GHz.

Still have enought guts to run my games with high settings at 1920x1080 (25+FPS is playable for me).

Don't think i'll upgrade for now.

 

[SlitheryDee]

E8400 running at stock right now.

Internet sites with flash were starting to bog my system down a bit. AT's homepage is even a bit jerky. I've been getting into some video encoding shrinking down HD video to play on my ipod which takes forever with my current setup. I'm also pretty sick of games like Grand theft auto IV and Prototype running like shit even though I've got more than enough graphics horsepower to run them.

I ordered a 2500K monday. It should be here tomorrow or the next day. Damn I'm chomping at the bit to get my new rig assembled.

 

[scrubman]

E8400 running at stock right now.

Internet sites with flash were starting to bog my system down a bit. AT's homepage is even a bit jerky. I've been getting into some video encoding shrinking down HD video to play on my ipod which takes forever with my current setup. I'm also pretty sick of games like Grand theft auto IV and Prototype running like shit even though I've got more than enough graphics horsepower to run them.

I ordered a 2500K monday. It should be here tomorrow or the next day. Damn I'm chomping at the bit to get my new rig assembled.

SWEEEEET! That's going to be a nice upgrade! How awesome that those E8400's and most of the Core2 family lasted as good as they did!

 

[ibex333]

Hey guys does anyone know how I can tell if my e5200 Wolfdale @3.1GHz is bottlenecking any games that I play? I am considering getting a Sandy right now, but I am not sure if I truly NEED it or just "want" it.

 

[scrubman]

Hey guys does anyone know how I can tell if my e5200 Wolfdale @3.1GHz is bottlenecking any games that I play? I am considering getting a Sandy right now, but I am not sure if I truly NEED it or just "want" it.

I do not but would be curious to know that as well. Sounds like a good start of a new thread!

 

[gregoryvg]

I just got finished with a minor upgrade; I upgrade my CPU from a Pentium e2180 to the Pentium e5700. This will have to hold me over until late this year, early next. Hoping the AMD Bulldozer will be released by then and be competive or I'll prolly build a new intel rig with a 4-core i5-k series.

I am a little bit dissapointed with my new CPU tho. While it is noticeably faster/stronger than my old CPU, it just seems that more and more games are liking more core's. The game that showed me the age of my current CPU (Split Second) likes the e5700 more (much more solid frame rate) but in some parts of the race it still slows and pauses (though not nearly as badly as the e2180). I suspect another core would solve this issue.

 

[smokin9]

While a 3.9-4.0ghz Core i7 950 will go head to head with the i5-2500k @ 4.5-4.6ghz, the 4.5-4.6ghz i5-2600k will be a a good 25% faster than a 4.0ghz Core i7 if you assume at least a 10% improvement in IPC.
http://www.pureoverclock.com/review.php?id=1178&page=7

Now consider that it will also consume about 120-130W less power under load and about 100W less at idle as well. If smokin9 has the option of returning the 950, and grabbing the 2600k instead, I would do that.

Already ordered! Got the OK from Newegg to return and I ordered the 2600K. Should be here tomorrow.

 

[Yourself]

Q6600 (G0 stepping) at 3.85....really shouldn't upgrade, but have a serious jones for some new gear