i5 2500K - When Will It Die?

Akagi · 13 Feb 2017 at 17:25

Isn't it barely 6 years old?

Anyway, I have an i7 2700K right now and really don't see a reason to upgrade. At 4.8GHz it is plenty fast enough for anything I chuck at it.

We bought at the right time.

DragonQ · 13 Feb 2017 at 21:29

Dave2150;30499734 said:
We're each entitled to our own opinion. There are no rules saying one opinion is banned and cannot be expressed, so best to refrain from demanding I stop posting my opinion in whichever thread I want to.

I didn't demand you stop posting, please re-read my post if you think that. I completely agree you are entitled to your own opinion, my point is that it's rather tiresome when you pop into these threads often to post pretty much the same thing every time; we already know your opinion. Note that I'm just talking about the quick "this hardware is crap, move on already" type posts, I am all for actual discussion.

Dave2150;30499734 said:
It's perfectly fine that some like to use old CPU's, such as X58 or Sandybridge CPU's. Many people like to use black and white TV's, listen to FM radio, use incandescent lightbulbs, walk everywhere. This is their own choice and there's nothing wrong with it.

Black and white TVs seems like an appropriate (if hugely exaggerated) analogy. Using an HDTV rather than a UHDTV is more apt, I think. Incandescent bulbs is funny because older systems certainly are more power-hungry than their newer brethren.

The other examples aren't really appropriate since they still retain some kind of advantages over their alternatives.

Dave2150;30499734 said:
It's also obvious that X58 and Sandy Bridge CPU's can still play every game out there, so can Pentium 4's, Core 2 Duo's etc. What must be realised is that they cannot provide anywhere close to the experience that a Kabylake @ 5.0Ghz+ can, and it's silly to claim otherwise.

I don't think it's silly to claim otherwise at all, it completely depends on your requirements and circumstances. I don't play any games that remotely stress my CPU but I'm sure there are some games that would cause it to struggle. I certainly wouldn't say the experience would be very different if I had a newer generation CPU; my GPU is far more of a bottleneck right now. As I said before, not everyone is overly concerned with getting 100% perfect frame times or going from 70 to 80 FPS in a particular game, especially in return for spending £600.

Personally I'm saving up for Vega and when it arrives I'll see how it performs. If it turns out it's being noticeably bottlenecked by my system then I'll think about upgrading (most likely to Ryzen).

Minstadave · 13 Feb 2017 at 21:49

Dave2150;30499734 said:
What must be realised is that they cannot provide anywhere close to the experience that a Kabylake @ 5.0Ghz+ can, and it's silly to claim otherwise.

What guff. You said the same when you were feverish about Skylake and yes a faster CPU gives plenty of benefits - primarily better minimum frame rates. To say you can't get anywhere close to the experience of Kaby is laughable. In most games if you turn off your FPS counter you probably couldn't tell which is which.

We were hitting 5Ghz with Sandybridge years ago, Kaby finally undoes the slow decline in max achievable clock speeds we've seen since Sandy. So all your left with is the IPC benefits which are pretty pathetic given we've had Ivy/Haswell+Devils Canyon/Broadwell (sort of) and Skylake inbetween.

eidolon · 13 Feb 2017 at 22:54

The509;30498234 said:
Still rocking a 2500k, on a P67 Gigabyte I think.

Same here. I haven't even overclocked mine, never felt the need but after reading this thread maybe I should unlock my free extra power.

Minstadave · 13 Feb 2017 at 22:56

eidolon;30500794 said:
Same here. I haven't even overclocked mine, never felt the need but after reading this thread maybe I should unlock my free extra power.

Got to be done.

Jono8 · 13 Feb 2017 at 23:14

Minstadave;30500616 said:
What guff. You said the same when you were feverish about Skylake and yes a faster CPU gives plenty of benefits - primarily better minimum frame rates. To say you can't get anywhere close to the experience of Kaby is laughable. In most games if you turn off your FPS counter you probably couldn't tell which is which.

We were hitting 5Ghz with Sandybridge years ago, Kaby finally undoes the slow decline in max achievable clock speeds we've seen since Sandy. So all your left with is the IPC benefits which are pretty pathetic given we've had Ivy/Haswell+Devils Canyon/Broadwell (sort of) and Skylake inbetween.

In fairness, in some gaming scenarios, a modern i7 wipes the floor with a 2500k.

eg:

http://forums.joinsquad.com/topic/5973-my-2500k-vs-6700k-upgrade-fps-results-hefty-fps-increase/

voidshatter · 14 Feb 2017 at 11:11

Thanks to AMD's inability, the i5-2500K has become the best deal in the CPU history.

chroniclard · 14 Feb 2017 at 11:34

While they are still great CPU's and will give a decent gaming experience people are deluding themselves a bit.

silversurfer · 14 Feb 2017 at 14:59

Posted October 18, 2015

The engine behind Squad was updated, should work better now. Might even be equal between 4 and 8 threads not sure. I got an 8 core thinking it'd help that game, turns out it was the game more then the cpu at fault apparently. The 2500k lacking more then 4 threads is what might cause it to be slower more then its speed or age.
Ryzen is the perfect excuse to upgrade though, I do think more cores will be used overall in future but I expect progress to be quite slow for games. GTA and BF engines like lots of threads?

DragonQ · 14 Feb 2017 at 15:03

silversurfer said:
Posted October 18, 2015

The engine behind Squad was updated, should work better now. Might even be equal between 4 and 8 threads not sure. I got an 8 core thinking it'd help that game, turns out it was the game more then the cpu at fault apparently. The 2500k lacking more then 4 threads is what might cause it to be slower more then its speed or age.
Ryzen is the perfect excuse to upgrade though, I do think more cores will be used overall in future but I expect progress to be quite slow for games. GTA and BF engines like lots of threads?

For sure, I think the whole "games don't use more than 4 cores" trope is pretty dead at this point. Bear in mind that those benchmarks compare an i5 to an i7, so whilst it shows the i7-6700K is obviously less of a bottleneck for that 980 Ti, it's not exactly a fair generation-to-generation comparison.

andy_mk3 · 14 Feb 2017 at 16:35

Jono8 said:
In fairness, in some gaming scenarios, a modern i7 wipes the floor with a 2500k.

eg:

http://forums.joinsquad.com/topic/5973-my-2500k-vs-6700k-upgrade-fps-results-hefty-fps-increase/

Hardly fair comparison though, i5 vs i7, it's going to be better in pretty much any modern game.

I'm not denying a 7700k would be a decent upgrade over my 2600k, BUT while I'm getting 100fps+ in most games on full settings at 1440p, then there is no reason to upgrade in my view, as it's not going to be a night and day difference.

Jono8 · 14 Feb 2017 at 22:30

andy_mk3 said:
Hardly fair comparison though, i5 vs i7, it's going to be better in pretty much any modern game.

I'm not denying a 7700k would be a decent upgrade over my 2600k, BUT while I'm getting 100fps+ in most games on full settings at 1440p, then there is no reason to upgrade in my view, as it's not going to be a night and day difference.

OP didnt say anything about not comparing it to an i7.

Deus Ex · 14 Feb 2017 at 23:13

Well thats what happens when consoles rule and there is a lack of competition in the market.

Random Guy · 15 Feb 2017 at 10:27

Tech Report also posted a very interesting article on the topic - 2600k vs 7700k: http://techreport.com/review/31410/a-bridge-too-far-migrating-from-sandy-to-kaby-lake/2

TLDR: It is subjective and game-dependent but huge gains can be made depending on your specific use-case.

fewfe3 · 15 Feb 2017 at 13:37

Sometimes I wish that my 2500k would die, so then it would give me an excuse to upgrade my system. It hardly seems worth it otherwise.

I keep saying to myself when the next architecture comes out I will upgrade, but then it comes out and I think will it really make that much difference. One of the things that really makes me want to upgrade is to get a m.2 ssd but then I think will I even see that much of a performance increase with one of them.

It just seems that the sandybridge era was the best time to buy a cpu, hopefully ryzen will give us something to push cpu tech forward.

Troezar · 15 Feb 2017 at 13:55

fewfe3 said:
Sometimes I wish that my 2500k would die, so then it would give me an excuse to upgrade my system. It hardly seems worth it otherwise.

I keep saying to myself when the next architecture comes out I will upgrade, but then it comes out and I think will it really make that much difference. One of the things that really makes me want to upgrade is to get a m.2 ssd but then I think will I even see that much of a performance increase with one of them.

It just seems that the sandybridge era was the best time to buy a cpu, hopefully ryzen will give us something to push cpu tech forward.

Agreed, what you should be doing is sitting there looking smug knowing you've saved a fortune in upgrades

I just ask myself "does my current setup stop me from doing anything" whilst I keep saying no I keep my money in the bank.

HangTime · 15 Feb 2017 at 23:54

Be careful what you wish for, I thought I had killed my CPU a couple of weeks ago when I was experimenting with a more aggressive OC but then when I started looking at upgrade options it seemed like a lot of money to pay for not very much i.e. about £400 for a 7600K considering I'd also need a new mobo and RAM. In the old days if I was going to drop that sort of money I'd be wanting something approaching a 100% performance increase.

C64 · 16 Feb 2017 at 00:16

What you will find is it will slowly start requiring more voltage or max voltage and a lesser overclock until it stops working.
My amd barton 2500 still going strong and i5-750 with a slight voltage degradation few more notches up now to achieve same clock.

Alexrose1uk · 16 Feb 2017 at 16:01

Judging on the rumoured prices/performance, I think for me Ryzen will be the pusher.
Intel's iterative improvements just haven't been worth the overall price it'd cost. However, if for the same cost I can get improved IPC, newer tech, AND more cores at the same time, then I'm far more interested; there are games that push my PC a bit and it'd be good to do a big overhaul all at once with notable improvements.

In all honesty my current kit would either be sold, or go to my father-in-law/family.

Bluntwrapped · 16 Feb 2017 at 19:00

When it comes to degradation and voltage bumping, I wouldn't rule out the motherboard VRM over a prolonged period of time. The CPU itself may be fine, but hindered by degraded power delivery.