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
Test Bed and Setup
As per our processor testing policy, we take a premium category motherboard suitable for the socket, and equip the system with a suitable amount of memory running at the manufacturer's maximum supported frequency. This is also typically run at JEDEC subtimings where possible. It is noted that some users are not keen on this policy, stating that sometimes the maximum supported frequency is quite low, or faster memory is available at a similar price, or that the JEDEC speeds can be prohibitive for performance. While these comments make sense, ultimately very few users apply memory profiles (either XMP or other) as they require interaction with the BIOS, and most users will fall back on JEDEC supported speeds - this includes home users as well as industry who might want to shave off a cent or two from the cost or stay within the margins set by the manufacturer. Where possible, we will extend out testing to include faster memory modules either at the same time as the review or a later date.
| Test Setup | |||||
| Intel | i7-9700K | ASRock Z370 Pro Gaming i7 |
P3.20 | TRUE Copper | Corsair Vengeance 4x8GB DDR4-2666 |
| Intel | i7-7700K | GIGABYTE X170 Extreme-ECC |
F21e | Silverstone AR10-115XS* |
G.Skill RipjawsV 2x16GB DDR4-2400 |
| Intel | i7-2600K (OC) | ASRock Z77 OC Formula |
P2.40 | TRUE Copper | GeIL Evo Veloce 2x8GB DDR3-2400 |
| Intel | i7-2600K | ASRock Z77 OC Formula |
P2.40 | TRUE Copper | G.Skill Ares 4x4 GB DDR3-1333 |
| GPU | Sapphire RX 460 2GB (CPU Tests) MSI GTX 1080 Gaming 8G (Gaming Tests) |
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| PSU | Corsair AX860i Corsair AX1200i |
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| SSD | Crucial MX200 1TB | ||||
| OS | Windows 10 x64 RS3 1709 Spectre and Meltdown Patched |
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| *VRM Supplimented with SST-FHP141-VF 173 CFM fans | |||||
Many thanks to...
We must thank the following companies for kindly providing hardware for our multiple test beds. Some of this hardware is not in this test bed specifically, but is used in other testing.
| Hardware Providers | |||
| Sapphire RX 460 Nitro | MSI GTX 1080 Gaming X OC | Crucial MX200 + MX500 SSDs |
Corsair AX860i + AX1200i PSUs |
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| G.Skill RipjawsV, SniperX, FlareX |
Crucial Ballistix DDR4 |
Silverstone Coolers |
Silverstone Fans |
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HStewart - Friday, May 10, 2019 - link
I think one needs to look at more than just the basic benchmarks and especially multithreading.. Single thread performance has almost triple in new machines also with AVX,I think it would be nice to see what quad core cpus of Sandy Bridge and new ones do without hyperthreading. it would be nice to see the effects of hyperthreading on and off on different. benchmarks.
RSAUser - Saturday, May 11, 2019 - link
How many AVX2 workloads do you have? Adobe's suite has AVX, FF as well, past that can't think of anything that needs AVX2 support where it would be noticeable in my day-to-day stuff, pretty much nothing is interdependent in games, and even those cases where it is, it's not worth the effort of implementation for a tiny gain.AVX512 is pretty much in the ML space, wouldn't be running most of that stuff on my home machine.
HStewart - Friday, May 10, 2019 - link
"we seem to be back to Athlon vs. P4 days"This time instead of just adding frequency - they are adding cores instead of architexture on both sides currently. Maybe 2nd half will be different.
Targon - Tuesday, May 14, 2019 - link
AMD isn't sitting still, and IPC improvements from Ryzen 3rd generation are expected to be in the 13-15 percent range compared to the second generation. Clock speeds are also expected to be significantly higher, though a lot of Intel fans seem to really be pushing that AMD won't have faster than a 4.7GHz clock speed from the new generation. That IPC improvement is all about architecture improvements, clock speed is from the fab process jump.IVIauricius - Friday, May 10, 2019 - link
I've got mine paired with an RX Vega 56 in a Hackintosh. Still gets it done when compiling games for iOS. I had to move to more cores on my main PC, though. Thank you Amazon for that $250 1920X when Threadripper 2 dropped last year! :)BunnyRabbit - Friday, May 10, 2019 - link
Keeping my 3770 until probably next year when there is ddr5 + PCI Express 4.0/5 + usb 4 support.znd125 - Friday, May 10, 2019 - link
Great article. Conclusions are clear and fair.Khenglish - Friday, May 10, 2019 - link
I'm using a 3920xm at 4.4ghz, which is the mobile equivalent of the 3770K. This review just reaffirms that for 4K there is no benefit to something new.With how much the 9700K leads the 7700K at lower resolutions though this makes me think that old quads without HT are really suffering now. I am curious how the 2500K and 3570K are fairing. Probably not well.
poohbear - Friday, May 10, 2019 - link
I upgraded from a 2500k (also a legend!) to a 4790k, it was an ok upgrade, and i said next time im gonna upgrade only when its 8 cores. So, i guess that time has come, but im waiting for 10nm. So...from what im reading about 10nm for desktops ill be waiting until 2021....utmode - Friday, May 10, 2019 - link
why not AMD 7nm? unless you are in tribalism.