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i7 2700K Upgrade Opinions

Andy321

Andy321

Andy321

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11 Mar 2013
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210
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Staffordshire
Hi their,

I have a i7-2700k @ 4.6Ghz and while it is and has been a great CPU, I really have the upgrade itch. I have put off changing my CPU/motherboard so many times as I keep reading that it's just not worth it for 90% of things, but this still doesn't stop me having the itch.

If I was to upgrade I'm looking at either a 6700k/5820k or 6800k. Also at the same time I would buy a M.2 drive with the new setup, but as well are these worth it compared the "conventional" SSD drives?

Now here comes the thing. I use my PC mainly for gaming and I know the gains won't really be noticeable in that department, I would like to try doing a bit of streaming someday. So I was wondering if I could have some opinions from you wise lot :) Have any of you upgraded from the same or similar CPU, and how did you find it? Did you actually notice FPS gains? Or was your minimum FPS increased ect?

If choosing between those CPU's, which would you go for? I know the 6700k is the marginally better gaming chip, but I am worried if I go for the 6700k that in the future at some point the extra cores of the other CPU's might be useful. Will a 4 core CPU be plenty future proof in gaming? I plan to keep the new CPU/MB/RAM as long as I have my sandybridge setup.


I game on a 2560x1440 144Hz monitor. PC specs are in my sig. Thanks in advance all :)
 
It's hard say how well a quad core will hold up in a few years, but the only way I would even consider upgrading at current prices would be if something failed and I couldn't find a replacement part for sub £250.

Fact is Intel's development had been so sideways that an i7 2600k at 4.6Ghz is still a top end machine. Hold out for AM4 and Zen.
 
IMO if you're going to make a proper upgrade, go quad-core to hexa-core. Never ever go quad to quad. It's a sideways upgrade with poor gains. Gaming wise your GPU is far more important.

The 5820K pretty much costs the equivalent to Skylake and old Haswell, and you can get an incredible OC with it. In fact, Haswell-E was the best upgrade since Sandybridge. The six core 5820k is/was very reasonably priced, and although DDR4 at the time drove the price up, it's now very fairly priced.

Either go 5820K or wait for Skylake-E.
 
So when I do upgrade you recommend that going for a 6 core CPU would be the wiser and sensible choice? Like I said, I would be keeping hold of the CPU/MB/RAM for a fair few years unless something came along which was game changing. I don't see that happening anytime soon though with the way things have been over the past few years.

Also IF I did go for a 5820k or 6800k what would be the best speed RAM to pair it up with?

The wiser man inside me knows I should stick with my current 2700k, but at the moment I'm in a position where I can upgrade. Where as in the future it may not be a possibility/priority with children and other commitments ect. I don't part easy with my money, hence owning my sandy setup for this long :p
 
Best for gaming right now? A 6700K with a bit of an overclock and some 4K-DDR4 modules. The highest single thread performance coupled with much higher minimums thanks to the DDR speed.

If you want to try and do the future proof thing then you could try a 5820K/6800K on a new X99-A board. It won't be as fast as the Skylake in today's games but perhaps in the future more than 4 cores will become a thing.
 
Upgraded from a 2700K (4.6ghz) to 6700K (4.7ghz) recently and it has been a largely pointless upgrade. I only did it because much like you, I also had the upgrade itch and lots of free time with nothing better to do. :D

Don't get me wrong, the 6700k is a beast, chews through everything I've thrown at it but then when you've gotten over all the numbers, you realise that the end experience is no different to how it was with the 2700k. In virtually every game, I simply can't notice a difference. I believe a few such as GTAV do show some noticeable improvements, but it's probably in the 100fps+ region where you wouldn't notice a difference anyway. From what I've seen when you get down to the 60fps region (where changes in fps are very noticeable), it's the GPU that is almost always the limiting factor.

I also happened to switch from a normal SATA SSD to a M2 PCI-E Nvme SSD and again, another pointless upgrade. Can't notice a single bit of difference other than getting higher numbers in benchmarks and maybe loading into games 1 or 2 seconds faster.

I'm sure these faster components will shine in some application, but gaming is definitely not one of them (at least not with current games anyway). I don't think it's necessarily a bad thing to upgrade, especially since the motherboards in these Sandybridge systems are getting old now and lacking features (such as PCI-E 3.0). Just don't do it expecting a big performance jump in games.
 
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titaniumx3 said:
Upgraded from a 2700K (4.6ghz) to 6700K (4.7ghz) recently and it has been a largely pointless upgrade. I only did it because much like you, I also had the upgrade itch and lots of free time with nothing better to do. :D

Don't get me wrong, the 6700k is a beast, chews through everything I've thrown at it but then when you've gotten over all the numbers, you realise that the end experience is no different to how it was with the 2700k. In virtually every game, I simply can't notice a difference. I believe a few such as GTAV do show some noticeable improvements, but it's probably in the 100fps+ region where you wouldn't notice a difference anyway. From what I've seen when you get down to the 60fps region (where changes in fps are very noticeable), it's the GPU that is almost always the limiting factor.

I also happened to switch from a normal SATA SSD to a M2 PCI-E Nvme SSD and again, another pointless upgrade. Can't notice a single bit of difference other than getting higher numbers in benchmarks and maybe loading into games 1 or 2 seconds faster.

I'm sure these faster components will shine in some application, but gaming is definitely not one of them (at least not with current games anyway). I don't think it's necessarily a bad thing to upgrade, especially since the motherboards in these Sandybridge systems are getting old now and lacking features (such as PCI-E 3.0). Just don't do it expecting a big performance jump in games.
Click to expand...

Thanks for this. If you had your time again would you still upgrade? If so would you take the same route or jump to a X99 setup?
 

You'd certainly see some decent gains by moving to Skylake, especially in minimum framerates. Whether it's worth the large outlay involved is up to you. I think I'd probably hold out another year to see how Zen does, whether we get a hexa core Cannonlake, or if not Skylake-E. X99 really doesn't offer much for a gaming machine unless you're going for 3 or 4-way SLI/Crossfire.
 
I've decided to stick a plaster on my upgrade itch for the time being and stick with my 2700k for a bit longer.

I know it's the wise choice to make as the gains in games would be completely negligible especially as I game at 2560x1440, therefore the GPU being the limiting factor majority of the time.

I've never owned a CPU/MB this long, really was a great choice picking up a 2700k back then.
 
The only worthwhile upgrade for things like you mentioned like streaming etc is a 5820k. For this you will notice a difference, but from actual users (not review sites that may have allegiances) that I have seen go from overclocked SB to Skylake, they have all said it was not really worth it.
 
Andy321 said:
Thanks for this. If you had your time again would you still upgrade? If so would you take the same route or jump to a X99 setup?
Click to expand...

I don't regret the upgrade as I found it fun building a new system from scratch, using windows 10 and having a far quieter system, but if I could go back in time I probably would have saved my money and waited for Zen most likely. I think x99 would be an even bigger waste as I don't do anything very CPU intensive outside of gaming.
 
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