I5 2500K - Will it be enough.....

cwhitehead

cwhitehead

cwhitehead

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I have a new system so looking at giving the old one to my 7 year old, doesn't play anything massively demanding and only needs to last a few years.

Could i stick a 1050ti in and be done?
I don't want to end up with a bottleneck at CPU or GPU level ideally.

Systems nothing special

I5 2500k (not overclocked)
8GB DDR3 hyper X
240 SSD
1TB mechanical.
It has a 1000w modular PSU in there for some reason (I must have got it cheap from somewhere) So powers not an issue.

Do i need anything else?
 
i would overclock it. it's easily done and will boost it's power by 33%. i got to 4.4ghz on stock volts on mine.

i'd pick up a second hand 1060 6GB if you can. £150 ish would be a good price.

also get another 8GB of DDR3 second hand. £20-£30

good to go for another 3-4 years.
 
Thanks for that, id of thought the 1060 would be too much for the processor but ill go with that if it runs ok.

Ill grab some more ram too for that price, didn't realise DDR3 had gone so cheap.
 
An overclocked 2500k won't noticeably bottleneck anything until you get to 1080/1080TI levels.

Still got mine with a GTX 970 and 16GB of RAM and overclocked (4.7GHz here) it'll play pretty much anything you throw at it on ultra settings at 1080p no problem.

Battlefield 1 runs poorly with frame dips to around 50fps in heavy scenes but I've read so much online with high core AMD chips and i7's getting the same thing so I expect it's just terribly optimised (it used to run 70fps no drops till a recent update).

A GTX 1060 will certainly be fine.

EDIT: If it does begin to struggle in the next year or so bump it up to the i7 2600k for £50 ish.

6:48 of this video says it all compared to the newer chips...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gMFd0aVhVKU

Sad really how cocky Intel got in recent years/little effort they put in.
 
I did almost exactly the same thing - gave my ocd 2500k, 16gb ram, and gtx 780 ti to my 6 year old, it plays everything at 1080p with no noticeable perfomance issues. 780ti sits probably between 1050ti/1060 3GB and 1060 6GB performance-wise
 
Perfect thanks guys, that's exactly what i needed to hear!

Out of curiosity what motherboard are you running? from memory I think mines a budget P8Z68 LX maybe...
 
Overclock that 2500k, had mine at 4.9ghz and it still stood up well to most games. Even ran it alongside a 1080Ti for a couple of weeks whilst waiting for various upgrade parts to arrive and was getting some very impressive performance even in CPU dependant titles.
 
ChrisUK1983 said:
Overclock that 2500k, had mine at 4.9ghz and it still stood up well to most games. Even ran it alongside a 1080Ti for a couple of weeks whilst waiting for various upgrade parts to arrive and was getting some very impressive performance even in CPU dependant titles.
Click to expand...

I have sellers remorse.... Best processor that I've ever had.
 
MissChief said:
Son uses an i5 2500k @4.2Ghz with no issues. Paired with 8gb ram and a 980 it plays everything at 1080p.
Click to expand...

Heh, I still use this as my main setup. Overclocked to 4.5Ghz but the same otherwise. So far most games can be played at close to max settings at 1080p.
 
FuF said:
Heh, I still use this as my main setup. Overclocked to 4.5Ghz but the same otherwise. So far most games can be played at close to max settings at 1080p.
Click to expand...

Not much point in upgrading IMO, unless of course going for a 4k setup or streaming etc.

They made very good quality components around the 2500k era.
 
Vapo Reaper said:
I have sellers remorse.... Best processor that I've ever had.
Click to expand...
Gotta agree, fantastic little chips. Still got mine in the cupboard, tempted to build the kids a nice little gaming machine with it. Too attached to it to ever sell it, many happy hour spent trying to hit 5ghz, just could never quite get it stable.
 
3570k @4.5ghz ran BF 1 with stutter however a 2500k will run any game you throw at it, it's only the most demanding games from 2016 onwards it struggles with so for a 7 year old it'll be fine. With a 1050ti it would be the perfect pairing, overclock it and it'll do him till high school. For the price they are still the best bang for buck second hand if you can get them on the MM, although motherboards can be hard to find for a decent price you already have the hardware so why not.

If you don't have a GPU get MM access and pick up a HD 7970 for £45 =, it'll run anything @1080p with half decent settings.
 
I'm looking at your post and thinking that while I don't have an i5 2500k, I am running an old Phenom 11 x 4 955BE and mobo with 8 Gb DDR 3 which I put together in 2011 and I'm going to install that into an old case and use it as a backup computer but while making up my mind to decide which mobo and CPU etc to buy as an upgrade for entry level gaming on my current computer, I stuck in a GTX 1060 3Gb which can be had for only £30 more (on new price) than a 1050Ti and to be honest it handles anything that I throw at it including Fortnite at highest settings albeit using a 20" VGA 1680 x 1050 monitor so your son should be more than happy with the results of the i5 2500K build for most of the games he's likely to play.
 
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