• Competitor rules

    Please remember that any mention of competitors, hinting at competitors or offering to provide details of competitors will result in an account suspension. The full rules can be found under the 'Terms and Rules' link in the bottom right corner of your screen. Just don't mention competitors in any way, shape or form and you'll be OK.

2500k or 2600K??

TRACEY_BLAKE

TRACEY_BLAKE

TRACEY_BLAKE

Associate
Joined
1 Jan 2011
Posts
120
Hi

I'm about to order all components for a new set up & had my sights set on a 2600K CPU but have just received a post from somebody on here stating that the only difference between the 2 chips is that the 2600K has hyper threading & has suggested I save my money here & buy the 2500K!! I'm only using the pc for digital audio mixing & recording & as a hobby some photo/video editing, (I'm not an overclocker or gamer) therefore is hyper threading important to me?? Is the extra cost of the 2600K worth it for my needs?? Please help!

If your answer is to go for the 2500K, then will this support the Intel HD 3000 graphics with quick sync as I need this, (will not have a discrete card)??

Thanks in advance :confused:
 
I would look at the 2500k, the new Sandybridge chips have the gpu built into them so this will carry the HD 3000 gpu.

If you were using the system as your profession then I would look at the 2600k.
 
Does the 'K' version of the 2500 (like the 'K' version of the 2600) unlock the HD3000 graphics with quick sync then?

The audio mixing & recording is not a profession, but it is a serious hobby. As for the photo/video editing, this is just an occasional hobby. Bearing this in mind, would I benefit from hyper threading?? Thanks.
 
Make sure you get a Z68 motherboard with video outputs (some Gigabyte boards don't have them) if you want to overclock and use the HD 3000 graphics.
 
I will be going for Z68 even though I don't overclock, I may want to add a discrete card in the future. My question is; Do I buy the 2500K or the 2600K? In other words do I need hyper threading if I'm only using the pc for digital audio mixing & recording (serious hobby) & photo/video editing (occasional hobby)?? Thanks for the replies.
 
TRACEY_BLAKE said:
Hi

I'm about to order all components for a new set up & had my sights set on a 2600K CPU but have just received a post from somebody on here stating that the only difference between the 2 chips is that the 2600K has hyper threading & has suggested I save my money here & buy the 2500K!! I'm only using the pc for digital audio mixing & recording & as a hobby some photo/video editing, (I'm not an overclocker or gamer) therefore is hyper threading important to me?? Is the extra cost of the 2600K worth it for my needs?? Please help!

If your answer is to go for the 2500K, then will this support the Intel HD 3000 graphics with quick sync as I need this, (will not have a discrete card)??

Thanks in advance :confused:
Click to expand...

To answer your question.
(I once asked this very same question on another forum) ;)
You would benefit from buying the 2600K, with a Z68 motherboard!
2500K (3.3Ghz 6MB L3 Cache)
2600K (3.4Ghz 8MB L3 Cache + Multithreading)

As long as your intended applications use multi-threading?
What video an photo-editing applications you using precisely?
Most over-clockers members are purely gamers, like myself where we won't see a performance increase from the 2500K.
Also over-clocking, would see you gaining a performance boost, even if its only 4.5Ghz especially when handling HD video, or Very high resolution photo's!
Also consider 8-16GB Ram an a SSD for application loading, depending on your budget!
 
Seanoog said:
To answer your question.
(I once asked this very same question on another forum) ;)
You would benefit from buying the 2600K, with a Z68 motherboard!
2500K (3.3Ghz 6MB L3 Cache)
2600K (3.4Ghz 8MB L3 Cache + Multithreading)

As long as your intended applications use multi-threading?
What video an photo-editing applications you using precisely?
Click to expand...

Thanks for your reply. Haven't chosen a photo/video editing software yet so when I do do I just make sure it says on it that it supports multi threading?

Do I need multi threading for audio mixing & recording?

No overclocking here. Thanks.
 
TRACEY_BLAKE said:
Thanks for your reply. Haven't chosen a photo/video editing software yet so when I do do I just make sure it says on it that it supports multi threading?

Do I need multi threading for audio mixing & recording?

No overclocking here. Thanks.
Click to expand...

Your welcome.

I done a quick google search an couldn't get conclusive results, but:
Aperture 3 (Mac / Multi-thread Supported)
Adobe Elements 8 (PC + Mac / Multi-thread Supported)
Adobe Lightroom 3 (PC + Mac / Multi-thread Supported)

As a photographer, i use my Mac Book Pro with Aperture 3, an it uses the Dual Core (No Multi-thread Support) extensively when importing, saving an exporting photos.

However, I did read that Adobe applications generally make poor use or the extra power available in a Quad core (8 Virtual Core Multi-threaded processor)
So, if money is priority, you could save an buy the 2500K.
As the real world benefits of buying the more expensive 2600K will be Minimal.


Yes, by all means look, that your pre-fared photo-editing / video-editing software supports multi-threading, but don't let it decide your choose of application.
As for audio mixing / recording I can imagine it would help with the processing, if you have large amounts of sources (Correct Term?) but again the real world benefits won't be massive!

To conclude briefly, the real world benefits of buying a 2600K won't be 80-100% faster processing of photos or audio, over the 2500K. Realistically a 10-30% improvement can be expected with Multi-threading support, so please take that into consideration when pressing BUY!
But there both excellent processors for the money! Cant wait to I buy mine in the next few days! ;) :o

And don't totally dismiss over clocking, a light over clock to 4/4.5GHz VERY easy to achieve with many motherboards auto-overclock feature, an will see you gain unto 50% performance increase when encoding photos or audio or video compared to the stock speed.

Any more question please feel free to ask!
 
Is the 2mb extra cache on the 2600k required because of the hyperthreading? That is, what benefit / difference does the extra 2mb give?
 
The 2600K is quite a bit faster than the 2500K in multithreaded apps. You're not going to get the best answers here as most of the users are only looking to build gaming rigs, and on gaming the 2500/2600 runs practically the same, but throw some apps at it which can take advantage of the extra threads and the 2600k pulls away by quite a margin.

A couple of links which clearly show the advantage the 2600K can have with apps that can utilise it properly
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/sandy-bridge-core-i7-2600k-core-i5-2500k,2833-15.html
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/sandy-bridge-core-i7-2600k-core-i5-2500k,2833-16.html

In my opinion the 2500K is an excellent chip for the money and there is nothing else I would recommend for gamers or users on a budget. But if it were my PC (and it soon will be) I'd be buying the 2600K. It IS the better/faster chip.
 
I remember doing audio recording on my Amiga 1200 with 25MHz 68030 accelerator and separate maths co-processor - pretty sure you don't need an i7 for that job :)

More seriously...

Music Software
Regarding music synth/mixing software, it's really not that CPU intensive is it? Hobbyists have been mixing tracks for over a decade, and it has never required the most top end rig. You're only playing back sound files at specified intervals, after all. LMMS for example recommends a mighty 1GHz processor and 512MB memory.

Obvious question: does your current system feel slow and unresponsive when working on music tracks? If not then don't fret about the CPU because it's not an issue here.

MP3/Compression
How much audio data are we talking about generating? Are you creating multi-gigabyte wav files, or just tens of MB? There is (according to the benchmarks above) a slight performance advantage to the i7 in compression to mp3 - but you're talking 5 seconds for a CD worth of music.

Photos
Adobe's photo editing suites all slightly benefit from an i7, but again by the benchmarks, you're talking a few percent.


Exec Summary
Do you do not need an i7. It might prove to be slightly faster, but you do not need one. You may in fact never see the difference. Whether you want one is another question! Plenty of people on these forums will own an i7 just because they want to own an i7, rather than because they have a requirement for it :D

I would suggest posting your entire intended spec - people here will happily suggest where you could put the money saved on the CPU to better use :)
 
Given the current difference in prices with the i5 going up and the i7 going down due to demand, it's becoming less and less of a good idea to restrict yourself to the i5. As mentioned it /is/ faster, has more cache and HT.
It will also have a better resell value, as the s/h market will be flooded with i5s a few months from now...
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom