i7-2600k vs i7-6700T.. Rebuilding my gaming rig and have both of these available, which to use?

[samcat]

As per title, I have both a i7-2600k and i7-6700T (and an I5 3470t).. Rebuilding my gaming/development rig into a far smaller size and have both of these available, which to use?

Looking on benchmark/comparison sites and they both seem to come out fairly close, in which case I am inclined towards the lower thermals of the 6700T.. and it has better VM support, but am open to thoughts!

Would be paired with a single 980ti and both CPU and GPU would be Watercooled.

This all came about as I am consolidating kit and shrinking the home lab and HTPC farm... I currently have the following CPUs available:
i7-2600k
i7 6700t
i5 3470t
Celeron G1610T

And mobos:
ASRock Z68 Extreme 4 gen3
ASRock Z170M-itx/ac
ASRock Z77E-itx
ASRock H61MC-itx

What doesnt get used will be sold..

Thanks in advance!

 

[eddiew]

Looks like the 6700t has a base frequency of just 2.8ghz, so I guess that's what you can expect on highly threaded loads. Fairly sure the 2600k @ 4.5 will beat that on performance, but as you say, will kick out more heat in doing it.

Do you have the option to run them side by side and see how they stack up for your typical usage?

 

[edscdk]

if you are water cooling sell all those crappy slow CPUS and get a man sized 6700k ?

 

[DragonQ]

If you can override TDP throttling, the i7-6700T will be 3.4-3.6 GHz. So you can more or less make up for the lower IPC of Sandy Bridge just by getting a standard overclock on the i7-2600K. It will kick out more heat, use more power, and restrict you more in terms of upgrades going forward though - using the i7-6700T means you can replace it with a Coffee Lake CPU in the future (probably). If, however, you can't override any TDP throttling on the i7-6700T then it will probably spend a lot of time down at 2.8 GHz, which will definitely make it the slower choice.

 

[samcat]

Do you have the option to run them side by side and see how they stack up for your typical usage?

Sort of... The 2600k /z68 extreme4 gen3 is currently built and in use (with a pair of 980ti's), so can turn off SLI/remove a 980ti and see how it benches.. Build up the 6700t/z170m-itx/ac and move one of the 980ti's over for comparison. Only issues are the PSU is only a 450watt sfx (should be enough with the low tdp 6700t..), no cpu cooler (got EVERYTHING else for a spare watercooling loop!)..

New build would be limited to an SFX psu, so realistically 600watt max.

Good call on the compare tbh, thanks!



The other thought that occurs is that the 2600k previously has happily clocked to 4.9ghz, and is worth not a lot second hand, the 6700t is worth a chunk more second hand...

 

[ubersonic]

Looks like the 6700t has a base frequency of just 2.8ghz, so I guess that's what you can expect on highly threaded loads.

It has a turbo of 3.4-3.6 GHz depending on the amount of cores in use. You never see an i7 at it's base clock under load unless there's a cooling issue.

 

[DragonQ]

It has a turbo of 3.4-3.6 GHz depending on the amount of cores in use. You never see an i7 at it's base clock under load unless there's a cooling issue.

The i7-6700T is 35 W though, not 65 W. I doubt it'll stay at 3.4+ GHz for long under normal circumstances.

 

[voidshatter]

I have a mini-ITX case (Lian-Li Q21). I have recently replaced the i7-6700K (91W) with an i7-7700T (35W). Due to the very limited cooling, the T version actually performs better than the K version because in the 2.9GHz - 3.8GHz territory the T version runs at lower voltages and therefore the T version is throttling less. However, keep in mind that this is only for limited cooling.

 

[samcat]

Thanks for that.

Build is coming along nicely:

, tons of room in the case (NCase M1), so used to doing builds in 1u HTPC chassis these days I feel spoilt by all the space to work and hide cables!.

Cable management was progressing nicely, but on test with load the (old) sfx psu has fan rattle.. Gonna strip apart and replace the fan with a Noctua 92mm (externally, it needs a slim fan otherwise), and need to do some fan wiring hacks (joining them together for shared connection.. 3 case fans, one chassis fan header and 2 cpu fans and one cpu fan header...
Thats a job for tonight if I dont get too caught up welding on the project (car).

 

[samcat]

So, finished building it up aircooled (my preference is water, but that can wait).
3dmark run on both:

http://www.3dmark.com/compare/spy/1824897/spy/1821290#

Same gpu (980ti), same amount of memory (8gb), the 6700T won by about 10% over the 2600k (on its daily use OC)
4462 vs 4057.. And the GPU began throttling back on the 6700t build due to thermals (wont be an issue once watercooled)

Decision made, the small Ncase build stays and gets watercooled (external, mounted to desk) and the Primo case gets stripped and parts sold.

 

[eddiew]

Huh, I would not have expected that. Does the 6700T spend most of its time at boost? Even if it's 3.5ghz vs 4.5ghz, that's more per-clock than I thought you'd get moving from Sandy to Skylake... really should hurry up and replace this old rig of mine

 

[samcat]

Huh, I would not have expected that. Does the 6700T spend most of its time at boost? Even if it's 3.5ghz vs 4.5ghz, that's more per-clock than I thought you'd get moving from Sandy to Skylake... really should hurry up and replace this old rig of mine

No idea, wasnt monitoring it.. Just wanted a quick line in the sand to aim decision making.. Nothing fancy of clever, just dont get the time to game much anymore but want the option when I get a chance... So this really suits, nice and small.. Will be watercooled this weekend so will be near silent too.

 

[eddiew]

Well, if you get chance to watch task manager some time when you're running heavy tasks, it'd certainly be interesting to know, but either way you've made me realise how much a 7700k at a conservative 4.8 would thrash my 2500k @ 4.2

Of course, now there's Coffee Lake on the horizon ¬_¬ Held off upgrading for years due to lack of progress, and now as soon as there is some, I don't want to buy because the "next big thing" is just a couple of months away - and may continue to be xD

 

[RavenXXX2]

Grab the non k overclocking bios for an asrock and get some free performance out of the 6700.

 

[samcat]

Grab the non k overclocking bios for an asrock and get some free performance out of the 6700.

Oooh, now theres an idea! Soon be under water (with 2x 120.3 radiators), and the 450w psu is getting upgraded... so plenty of headroom!

Held off upgrading for years due to lack of progress, and now as soon as there is some, I don't want to buy because the "next big thing" is just a couple of months away - and may continue to be xD

The next big thing is ALWAYS on the horizon... Pick your moment then jump.
Trust me on this, been overclocking since the days of 33mhz cpus , watercooling since athlon XP processors that you overclocked by drawing on the cpu with a conductive pen.. There is ALWAYS something better coming in the future.. Pick your moment then jump, and dont stress it.

 

[eddiew]

The next big thing is ALWAYS on the horizon... Pick your moment then jump.
Trust me on this, been overclocking since the days of 33mhz cpus , watercooling since athlon XP processors that you overclocked by drawing on the cpu with a conductive pen.. There is ALWAYS something better coming in the future.. Pick your moment then jump, and dont stress it.

It hasn't been for a while though, frikking 10% incrementals

...I think my first overclock was an AMD 350MHz or something... ran at 450. I remember the motherboard having 2 levels of cache, so I had L1, L2 and L3 available. After that I hopped to an Intel "coppermine" 600Mhz, overclocked to 800 ^^;