6700k Skylake worth the upgrade from Sandybridge 2600k?

[bfar]

I went from a 2500k to a 6700k. In a lot of games, nothing new, they were running great already. But in a handful, such as Ryse, things are noticably more stable. I'm unfortunately highly sensitive to frame time variation. It's a curse, not a gift!

I'm only using a gtx780 though. If you're rocking a 980ti over 1080p, I dunno, I'd think about it.

There's also the whole 5820k question. If your looking at a 6700k, then you're not too far off x99 prices, although recently the gap has started to widen (edit: omg 6700k have gone back up! Ouch!) Those extra two cores are worth more to lots of folks, depending on your usage.

The z170 platform itself is a screamer.

 

[Dave2150]

Thats the issue I have with the X99, although the extra PCIe lanes are tempting but then I dont want a tri SLI/Crossfire setup.



Seems a bit far fetched that all these benchmarks are better and the conclusion is that Intel paid them off?



Waiting for pascal, have a decent monitor and I need to sort my USB out. just out of interest what motherboard do you have with your 2600k? Might be the cheapest option that Im happy with

I think it's probably best to ignore his rantings - most likely he broke his 6700k via a case of PEBKAC and so has a mission to try bash it

 

[Minstadave]

I think it's probably best to ignore his rantings - most likely he broke his 6700k via a case of PEBKAC and so has a mission to try bash it

His points are largely correct though and I think you're overselling the performance gains with Skylake. The majority of games aren't CPU limited.

 

[Purgatory]

I think it's probably best to ignore his rantings - most likely he broke his 6700k via a case of PEBKAC and so has a mission to try bash it

Dave have you done such an upgrade ? Also there is no pebkac or picnic or any other acronym .. Seriously I have been building desktops,servers for over 25 years and even built a 8bit and 16bit computer from components in the 80's and 90's. My first computer was a ZX80 and everything till now I have used, from unix,linux,dos,windows,osx and every other operating system that the general public has never even heard of as they are in-house bespoke OS's.

Dear god really, don't pass on misinformation unless you have done it. Also the Skylake cpu was a good cpu and when I benchmarked it it gave me the same results as others had cinebench etc all came out as expected and actually a touch better than their results, but again I had very expensive fast ddr4 and a expensive motherboard to go with it. Synthetic benchmarks rocked on it, real world use didn't, it was no different to my 2600k in real world use with my 3440x1440 resolution setup there was zero difference, the difference is in line with margin of error for each run of a real world use situation.

It was not worth almost £1000 for that upgrade, would you waste £1000 for no real world improvement ? I know if I did that for my business clients they would never work with us again.

I live and breath technology and I use to upgrade every generation on the cpus.. so I think I know better where my money should go and not be ripped off by these companies, cpu technology has come to a grinding halt and only minor bumps we are getting, that is the truth of the current situation. This is all down to the silicon technology in use to manufacture these components and the facts related to we are hitting the limits, Moore's Law has gone out of the window many generations ago.


Only real upgrade for a gamer these days is a better graphics card and to make sure it is at least 50% faster and then upgrade to a higher resolution screen or a new aspect ratio like 21:9 which really is an upgrade you will cherish. CPU's for gamers are now no better than Sandybridge if you use a high resolution monitor (I mean above 1080p, 1080p is dead and is soon the new 640x480. 2k,4k,8k is the new 1080p now).


People that love technology and understand it, understand they want better than they had, that means faster, better resolutions, better aspect ratios, higher bandwidth devices SSD's, USB3.1, thunderbolt etc. Things that make a real world difference. I never said Skylake is a bad CPU, I said it was not worth it as a upgrade from what I had and the new Z170 features are currently of no use to me and they can all be added as expansion cards if I need them in the future.


Now I'm left in a situation where I'm looking at a 5960X or the new 10 core Broadwell that is soon coming out, WHY ? because the Skylake 6700k is so close in performance to a 5820k that I can't see myself ever going 6 core now, so I feel my only update that will last me again 3-5 years will be this.

I don't want to rip out my system every year, I actually have a lot fo important data on the 2600k system and the most important thing to me is it is reliable and stable at all times and that means it won't corrupt my data over the time and also stability is bliss on a computer that anyone will tell you if they have intermittent faults that they just can't track down, some systems are just unstable even at stock because the system doesn't like certain components that are put together.


Anyways, I was not ranting, I was stating the facts I observed and advising a forum user that requested this information from someone that has gone threw this change.

 

[Dave2150]

Dave have you done such an upgrade ? Also there is no pebkac or picnic or any other acronym .. Seriously I have been building desktops,servers for over 25 years and even built a 8bit and 16bit computer from components in the 80's and 90's. My first computer was a ZX80 and everything till now I have used, from unix,linux,dos,windows,osx and every other operating system that the general public has never even heard of as they are in-house bespoke OS's.

Dear god really, don't pass on misinformation unless you have done it. Also the Skylake cpu was a good cpu and when I benchmarked it it gave me the same results as others had cinebench etc all came out as expected and actually a touch better than their results, but again I had very expensive fast ddr4 and a expensive motherboard to go with it. Synthetic benchmarks rocked on it, real world use didn't, it was no different to my 2600k in real world use with my 3440x1440 resolution setup there was zero difference, the difference is in line with margin of error for each run of a real world use situation.

It was not worth almost £1000 for that upgrade, would you waste £1000 for no real world improvement ? I know if I did that for my business clients they would never work with us again.

I live and breath technology and I use to upgrade every generation on the cpus.. so I think I know better where my money should go and not be ripped off by these companies, cpu technology has come to a grinding halt and only minor bumps we are getting, that is the truth of the current situation. This is all down to the silicon technology in use to manufacture these components and the facts related to we are hitting the limits, Moore's Law has gone out of the window many generations ago.


Only real upgrade for a gamer these days is a better graphics card and to make sure it is at least 50% faster and then upgrade to a higher resolution screen or a new aspect ratio like 21:9 which really is an upgrade you will cherish. CPU's for gamers are now no better than Sandybridge if you use a high resolution monitor (I mean above 1080p, 1080p is dead and is soon the new 640x480. 2k,4k,8k is the new 1080p now).


People that love technology and understand it, understand they want better than they had, that means faster, better resolutions, better aspect ratios, higher bandwidth devices SSD's, USB3.1, thunderbolt etc. Things that make a real world difference. I never said Skylake is a bad CPU, I said it was not worth it as a upgrade from what I had and the new Z170 features are currently of no use to me and they can all be added as expansion cards if I need them in the future.


Now I'm left in a situation where I'm looking at a 5960X or the new 10 core Broadwell that is soon coming out, WHY ? because the Skylake 6700k is so close in performance to a 5820k that I can't see myself ever going 6 core now, so I feel my only update that will last me again 3-5 years will be this.

I don't want to rip out my system every year, I actually have a lot fo important data on the 2600k system and the most important thing to me is it is reliable and stable at all times and that means it won't corrupt my data over the time and also stability is bliss on a computer that anyone will tell you if they have intermittent faults that they just can't track down, some systems are just unstable even at stock because the system doesn't like certain components that are put together.


Anyways, I was not ranting, I was stating the facts I observed and advising a forum user that requested this information from someone that has gone threw this change.

Again, I'd say PEBKAC, as you should have already known your mostly CPU limited at those resolutions before you bought the system. What were you expecting? It's common knowledge if you look at any review site, things become very GPU limited at 1440P and higher in the latest titles.

Even an 8 core system would be GPU limited in the latest titles at high resolution... The only way to improve performance in such situations is multi-GPU (Crossfire/SLI).

Also are you suggesting Skylake will "corrupt you data" - are you feeling ok? What makes you think Skylake would corrupt you data?..... As long as your overclock is stable, you're good to go.

Yes, I've upgraded to Skylake, from a I7 920 (first generation I7, Nehalem). I play a lot of heavily CPU bound games. I looked at the reviews, videos (such as the one I linked) and saw the good gains in IPC over Haswell, so I opted for a 6700k instead of a 5820k. For me it made more sense, as it catered well to the games I play.

 

[UKMach]

So I got really close to buying a 6700k, had it all sat in my basket but the mobo was out of stock. Then my house mate talked me down as it is a lot of money which is all based currently on a want and not so much on a need. My mobo is on its way out, which if it goes completely turns it into a need buy. Until then and also until VR is properly out Im putting buying anything on hold. He also made the point that prices for DDR4 is really high currently and the longer I wait the cheaper that will become.

Thank you all for your input! It has been really appreciated

 

[Rroff]

One aspect I'd advise caution on if you already have a relatively recent i5/7 and plan on the nVidia route - nVidia drivers/development for DX12 is currently showing the biggest performance gains on 6 core CPUs - this could very much change (AMD drivers show little difference between 4 and 6+) come future DX12 focused GPUs and when we are onto more mature DX12 supporting drivers however - it is one reason I've not been in a hurry to upgrade (not that I've ever felt my 4820K is holding me back mind).

 

[Ayahuasca]

ITT Dave2150 trying to justify his 6700k purchase again

 

[bfar]

One aspect I'd advise caution on if you already have a relatively recent i5/7 and plan on the nVidia route - nVidia drivers/development for DX12 is currently showing the biggest performance gains on 6 core CPUs - this could very much change (AMD drivers show little difference between 4 and 6+) come future DX12 focused GPUs and when we are onto more mature DX12 supporting drivers however - it is one reason I've not been in a hurry to upgrade (not that I've ever felt my 4820K is holding me back mind).

Six cores or threads? Some of the dx12 benchmarks ive seen see no advantage beyond a 4c8t cpu. Either way we won't know for sure for another year or so.

You might say 5820k owners are hedging their dx12 bets on extra cores, whereas the 6700k owners are still gambling that the extra IPC will hold sway. My own gut feeling is that by the time we know for sure, we'll all be looking at newer shinier products.

One thing is certain, the 6700k is unequivocally faster in dx11 games. Just not by a whole lot.

 

[UKMach]

You might say 5820k owners are hedging their dx12 bets on extra cores, whereas the 6700k owners are still gambling that the extra IPC will hold sway. My own gut feeling is that by the time we know for sure, we'll all be looking at newer shinier products.

I think the wisest thing to do currently it is wait. Save money and then buy the shinest product out when its needed

 

[Minstadave]

One thing is certain, the 6700k is unequivocally faster in dx11 games. Just not by a whole lot.

Or not at all if you're GPU limited.

 

[Rroff]

Six cores or threads? Some of the dx12 benchmarks ive seen see no advantage beyond a 4c8t cpu. Either way we won't know for sure for another year or so.

You might say 5820k owners are hedging their dx12 bets on extra cores, whereas the 6700k owners are still gambling that the extra IPC will hold sway. My own gut feeling is that by the time we know for sure, we'll all be looking at newer shinier products.

One thing is certain, the 6700k is unequivocally faster in dx11 games. Just not by a whole lot.

6 cores/12 threads - simplistically nVidia seem to be using an extra (real) core (but 5 core CPUs don't generally exist) to "assist" their drivers at the moment for DX12 - though whether that will hold true as the tech and hardware matures is another story.

EDIT: This is in stuff that actually uses DX12 features and not games where they've just added a DX12 render path to their current DX9-11 engine and/or maybe added in 1-2 token DX12 features.

 

[setter]

Having recently moved over from a 4790k at 4.7ghz to a 5820k at 4.5ghz. With the games ive played so far im not seeing much difference in performance tbh.

 

[bfar]

Or not at all if you're GPU limited.

Yea, but you can use that argument if you're comparing any old CPUs.

 

[bfar]

6 cores/12 threads - simplistically nVidia seem to be using an extra (real) core (but 5 core CPUs don't generally exist) to "assist" their drivers at the moment for DX12 - though whether that will hold true as the tech and hardware matures is another story.

EDIT: This is in stuff that actually uses DX12 features and not games where they've just added a DX12 render path to their current DX9-11 engine and/or maybe added in 1-2 token DX12 features.

Ashes certainly likes cores, but it remains to be seen whether it's a rule. I recken a lot will depend on the game engine.

 

[faceman123]

if you upgrade every 5 years, X99 - More pci lanes man, GPUs are gonna get much stronger and would be nice to have those extra lanes for sli etc in future. You'll also have lots of expansion options, maybe worth waiting for broadwell - E, If you're coming from a quad i would get a six core. It's essentially going to last you the 5 years Period.

 

[faceman123]

I went from a 2600k to a X99 5960x build and I love it. If you are upgrading make sure you go with X99 and not skylake. Pointless going from a 4core cpu to a 4core cpu imo, and tbh the 2600k is still a great chip.

This.

 

[Purgatory]

I went from a 2600k to a X99 5960x build and I love it. If you are upgrading make sure you go with X99 and not skylake. Pointless going from a 4core cpu to a 4core cpu imo, and tbh the 2600k is still a great chip.

True this is the best update currently, but you have to remember there are also certain software like microsoft FSX that won't use more than 4 cores, the 2600k rig is really my flight sim and gaming pc with a lot of hard drives in it to act as a back up for all my other computers and devices. That is the main use for it really FSX and why I tried Skylake for that system was because it would offer higher IPC and would still be a 4 core as FSX will not benefit from anything else.

Anyways long story short... the Skylake made no difference even for massively CPU bound title like FSX.. FSX is basically the most CPU demanding title there is, but some people don't realise that if they have never used it or used flight simulation titles.


If I got say a 15-20% boost from the Skylake compared to my 2600k I would have kept the Skylake CPU... What I got in reality was no difference.. actually zero in FSX. That's why it went back. Also other titles saw 1-5% improvements over 2600k at 3440x1440.. which is not here or there for me, but I was short of almost a £1000 and wasted time and effort rebuilding the system twice.

 

[Purgatory]

Again, I'd say PEBKAC, as you should have already known your mostly CPU limited at those resolutions before you bought the system. What were you expecting? It's common knowledge if you look at any review site, things become very GPU limited at 1440P and higher in the latest titles.

Even an 8 core system would be GPU limited in the latest titles at high resolution... The only way to improve performance in such situations is multi-GPU (Crossfire/SLI).

Also are you suggesting Skylake will "corrupt you data" - are you feeling ok? What makes you think Skylake would corrupt you data?..... As long as your overclock is stable, you're good to go.

Yes, I've upgraded to Skylake, from a I7 920 (first generation I7, Nehalem). I play a lot of heavily CPU bound games. I looked at the reviews, videos (such as the one I linked) and saw the good gains in IPC over Haswell, so I opted for a 6700k instead of a 5820k. For me it made more sense, as it catered well to the games I play.

Dave you updated from a 920 to a 6700k of course it was a huge improvement for you. It was like when I went from Q9650 to the 2600K...


The 2600K to 6700K is a minor bump.. like going from a Q6600 to Q9500.. all that sort of update did back then was reduce your power and a cooler cpu with a slight minor bump in performance.


So you have proved so far that you have no idea what a jump from a 2600K to a 6700K is in real world.. you are comparing old tech to new tech in your case. An i7 920 was only a touch better than a Q9650.. no wonder you are jumping for joy and praising your upgrade. Enjoy your PC mate that is a good upgrade. But don't advice people that have a 2500K and up that it is a good upgrade to a 6700k, because it is not, the only reason to go to a 6700k if you had a 2500k is if you go SLI and that will show a good improvement and you will get HT too.


I used my friends 980 ti classified and mine in SLI on the 6700k and 2600k and yes there was a better experience with SLI with the 6700k but it was again only about a max of 10% improvement. Now coming back to my use case, I don't like and want SLI ever again, it creates heat, extra power use and a lot of titles are just not well optimized for it, I feel ripped off with SLI and why bother with SLI if I always buy the top tier card for my setup.. I had a 780ti with a 1920x1200 resolution monitor and it was fantastic on it, then I got a 3440x1440 monitor and decided at the same time as buying it what the hell treat myself to a 980ti classified (if you heard the conversation at the time with OCUK while I was making the purchase for the monitor, you would have cracked up, because I decided at the spur of the moment to buy the 980ti and was asking the guy hey which is a nice one, he said it really is up to you, so quickly looked on their site saw the classy and asked him to add that to the order too.).

Okay so I get the 3440x1440 hook it up to my 780Ti and it ran beautifully on 90% of the games I had on ultra settings with full AA. Then the 10% needed AA dropping or turning off and then maybe a couple of settings and they ran great. Sat there thinking humm maybe return 980Ti and don't open it as the 780ti was doing great. Thought naa treat myself it was my birthday soon and xmas, so opened it stuck it in and yes was a great improvement all games now can be left at Ultra and was a nice quiet card that really was nice to use, so sold my 780ti. Was the 980ti really needed ? nope but it gave me a very good performance boost and for £600 card I felt it was worth keeping it as in some games it even doubled the frame rates or made them really smooth. So thought nice that will keep me going to high end Pascal or whatever comes out after it.

That was money well spent even at £600 for a graphics card. The Skylake system was a very poor return for the performance it gave from a 2600K setup.


I hope this may help you in the future too when upgrading as not all that is new and shiny means you are getting something better. I know this and have known this since I was 15 years old when I really started to spend a lot of money on computer stuff to the point my farther thought I went crazy when he compared my computer prices to a new car in some cases, which was true at that time.


Just curious Dave how old are you mate and what occupation are you in ?


p.s "Also are you suggesting Skylake will "corrupt you data" - are you feeling ok? What makes you think Skylake would corrupt you data?" I wasn't talking about Skylake I was talking in general about upgrading and the issues that may arise.. anyone that works with computers knows what I'm talking about. You basically didn't understand what I meant there.

 

[Dave2150]

Dave you updated from a 920 to a 6700k of course it was a huge improvement for you. It was like when I went from Q9650 to the 2600K...


The 2600K to 6700K is a minor bump.. like going from a Q6600 to Q9500.. all that sort of update did back then was reduce your power and a cooler cpu with a slight minor bump in performance.


So you have proved so far that you have no idea what a jump from a 2600K to a 6700K is in real world.. you are comparing old tech to new tech in your case. An i7 920 was only a touch better than a Q9650.. no wonder you are jumping for joy and praising your upgrade. Enjoy your PC mate that is a good upgrade. But don't advice people that have a 2500K and up that it is a good upgrade to a 6700k, because it is not, the only reason to go to a 6700k if you had a 2500k is if you go SLI and that will show a good improvement and you will get HT too.


I used my friends 980 ti classified and mine in SLI on the 6700k and 2600k and yes there was a better experience with SLI with the 6700k but it was again only about a max of 10% improvement. Now coming back to my use case, I don't like and want SLI ever again, it creates heat, extra power use and a lot of titles are just not well optimized for it, I feel ripped off with SLI and why bother with SLI if I always buy the top tier card for my setup.. I had a 780ti with a 1920x1200 resolution monitor and it was fantastic on it, then I got a 3440x1440 monitor and decided at the same time as buying it what the hell treat myself to a 980ti classified (if you heard the conversation at the time with OCUK while I was making the purchase for the monitor, you would have cracked up, because I decided at the spur of the moment to buy the 980ti and was asking the guy hey which is a nice one, he said it really is up to you, so quickly looked on their site saw the classy and asked him to add that to the order too.).

Okay so I get the 3440x1440 hook it up to my 780Ti and it ran beautifully on 90% of the games I had on ultra settings with full AA. Then the 10% needed AA dropping or turning off and then maybe a couple of settings and they ran great. Sat there thinking humm maybe return 980Ti and don't open it as the 780ti was doing great. Thought naa treat myself it was my birthday soon and xmas, so opened it stuck it in and yes was a great improvement all games now can be left at Ultra and was a nice quiet card that really was nice to use, so sold my 780ti. Was the 980ti really needed ? nope but it gave me a very good performance boost and for £600 card I felt it was worth keeping it as in some games it even doubled the frame rates or made them really smooth. So thought nice that will keep me going to high end Pascal or whatever comes out after it.

That was money well spent even at £600 for a graphics card. The Skylake system was a very poor return for the performance it gave from a 2600K setup.


I hope this may help you in the future too when upgrading as not all that is new and shiny means you are getting something better. I know this and have known this since I was 15 years old when I really started to spend a lot of money on computer stuff to the point my farther thought I went crazy when he compared my computer prices to a new car in some cases, which was true at that time.


Just curious Dave how old are you mate and what occupation are you in ?


p.s "Also are you suggesting Skylake will "corrupt you data" - are you feeling ok? What makes you think Skylake would corrupt you data?" I wasn't talking about Skylake I was talking in general about upgrading and the issues that may arise.. anyone that works with computers knows what I'm talking about. You basically didn't understand what I meant there.

You're moving goalposts. This discussion was not about my upgrade, it was about your very questionable decision to upgrade from sandybridge to skylake when you knew you were already GPU limited.

As I said in my previous post, this is simply your mistake for thinking you'd magically get more performance, when the only way to do so at that high resolution is to go multi-GPU.

If you'd spend 5 minutes looking over the 6700k reviews, you'd have seen that at high resolution (1440p, 2160p) Skylake, or even Haswell, over very little gains over Sandybridge, expect in CPU bound games (mmo's, arma3 engine, etc etc).