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i5-2500k vs i7-2600k

a giant fox

a giant fox

a giant fox

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Joined
21 Feb 2011
Posts
137
Location
Darford, Kent
Hi everyone

Currently running and AM3 phenom cpu and was considering upgrading to Sandybridge in the future (well depending if Bulldozer is any good).

What I was wondering is the i7 really worth the extra 80 odd pounds.

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/288?vs=287

The above comparsino shows very little difference and I will mainly be using pc for gaming only. My current spec is in my sig and the only things I would change is obviously the MB for a 1155 and I plan to SLI also in the future.

I have heard the i7 can give u more OC and I do OC a lot as I have pushed my current cpu from 3.2 to 4.2 on air cooling.

With gaming and overclocking in mind is the i7 really worth?
 
If its mainly gaming then the 2500K is more than good enough to keep your games up to date. Only heavy encoding would see a benefit from the 2600K. :)
 
If you do lots of video encoding and rendering then the i7 2600k will be better for you. But if it's gaming you're into then the i5 2500k is perfectly good enough. Looking at many benchmarks it's a close call between i7 990x, i5 2500k and the i7 2600k.

The i5 2500k can be overclocked pretty easily with air coolers (I can get from 3.7 to 4.2 Ghz on the Intel stock CPU cooler).
 
Just go for the i5, hardly any games will take advantage of the extra threads provided in an i7. Both should clock to similar speeds anyway and the i5 will be more than adequate for gaming
 
If you don't upgrade often and plan on keeping the CPU / PC for 4 years ish, would the 2600k make better sense then?
 
To be honest I was thinking the samething but as I use it mostly for games will an i7 actually make any difference at all for gaming in the future?
 
had this same predicament when choosing between them, went for the 2600k

for £60 more (back then) at least I wouldn't think "should I have spent that extra £60"

if its £100-£150 difference then fair enough but £70 (now) ... its a close call
 
The 2500K and 2600K are likely to overclock to similar levels and as both have an unlocked multiplier it's really down to psychology more than anything else, i.e. can you live with you having a 2500K if say your friend/neighbour etc. has a 2600K? :) Naturally the prudent answer is yes, the 2500K is fine.
 
Depends if you need 8 threads or not. For gaming you don't. If you do video work or run other multi-thread applications then the 2600K makes more sense...
 
by the time games make use of 8 threads we will all have moved on to something else so in other words not for a long long time. Now most games still only use 2 cores they are really now only starting to make use of quad cores.
 
4.5GHz i5 2500k = untouchable :p

Better off worrying about GPU upgrades than the i5 for gaming really :p

Even then for video encoding the i5 is very quick! 300fps to encode a DVD compared to the 150 odd I was getting on the Q9550 :)
 
I'm noticing the performance increase over my 4GHz Q9550 so the Athlon > i5 would be magnificent :p
 
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