Is 2500K still the best buy for i5 and overclocking?

[Angilion]

It seems like a silly question, especially when simplified to a few words for a subject header, but I've been looking at new bits recently (I'm still on S775 - got my money's worth from that but it's a bit past it) and my impression of the situation is this:

1) There's little performance increase per clock from i5 2xxx to i5 6xxx.
2) i5 2500K usually overclocks more than later i5s, which usually at least mostly offsets the slightly lower performance per clock.
3) i5 2500K sells second hand for less than more recent comparable i5's.

6600K would probably be better overall, but a 6600K and motherboard is over 3 times the price of a 2500K and motherboard.

2500K, being much older and probably running heavily overclocked for years, will probably fail sooner, but modern chips usually last donkeys years anyway unless they're overvolted so I think it's a good bet.

Am I wrong?

 

[LePhuronn]

To be honest I think you'd be wasting your money jumping on the old chip now. The reason people still rate the 2500K highly is because every new chip since hasn't been a real significant improvement in IPC, so incremental updates haven't been worth the money, especially with socket changes too, but if you jump from Sandy Bridge to Skylake in 1 hit then you'll see a big difference.

If you're gaming then I'd also skip Sandy Bridge purely because it's still PCI-E Gen 2 - without changing any settings my original Titan gained about 5fps just plugging it into the new Skylake board.

If you don't want to drop money on Skylake then Devil's Canyon and Z97 would be my next choice, but they're still highly sought after so I'm not sure you'd get them much cheaper.

As you say, you can OC the 2500K to keep up with Skylake and PCI-E 2.0 isn't that much of a hit, but honestly I'd see if you could drop cash on Skylake - if S775 has lasted you this long then you may never need another rig with Skylake

 

[Angilion]

I blame Bethesda, since it was Fallout 4 that nudged me into deciding to upgrade. Maybe OcUK will take bottlecaps as currency

I strongly dislike Windows 10 because of the extent to which it gives Microsoft access to the user's PC and control over it. If a third party did the same, it would be classed as spyware and possibly also a rootkit. So I'll probably be moving to console for gaming in 2020. Whatever I buy now is almost certainly my last gaming PC. I doubt if linux will gain much ground for PC gaming.

I could drop cash on Skylake, but I'm looking at ~£200 for new bits other than mobo and CPU (I can keep a few bits from my current PC, including the graphics card for the time being). So with an i5 2500K I'd be looking at a total cost of ~£290 and with an i5 6600K I'd be looking at a total cost of ~£500. That's a very big difference in cost for a very small extra difference in performance compared with what I have now ([email protected], 8GB DDR2-800). That's a Radeon 480X worth of difference. It would be different if the overall costs were going to be higher, but I'm looking at the lower end. £35 case, £60 PSU, that sort of price range.

I'm still undecided.

 

[faceman123]

I blame Bethesda, since it was Fallout 4 that nudged me into deciding to upgrade. Maybe OcUK will take bottlecaps as currency

I strongly dislike Windows 10 because of the extent to which it gives Microsoft access to the user's PC and control over it. If a third party did the same, it would be classed as spyware and possibly also a rootkit. So I'll probably be moving to console for gaming in 2020. Whatever I buy now is almost certainly my last gaming PC. I doubt if linux will gain much ground for PC gaming.

I could drop cash on Skylake, but I'm looking at ~£200 for new bits other than mobo and CPU (I can keep a few bits from my current PC, including the graphics card for the time being). So with an i5 2500K I'd be looking at a total cost of ~£290 and with an i5 6600K I'd be looking at a total cost of ~£500. That's a very big difference in cost for a very small extra difference in performance compared with what I have now ([email protected], 8GB DDR2-800). That's a Radeon 480X worth of difference. It would be different if the overall costs were going to be higher, but I'm looking at the lower end. £35 case, £60 PSU, that sort of price range.

I'm still undecided.

Don't bother. You won't see more then 15% boost at MOST.

 

[Disco_P]

PCIe Gen 2 vs Gen 3 doesn't make any difference. The biggest hurdle for going sandy bridge is the cost of an overclocking board as people are charging an arm and a leg for them. 2500K costs about £50, 8GB of ram is like £30 but boards cost £100+.

For what it is worth I will soon be pairing a 3570K or a 2550K with a 1080 for 1440p gaming.

If you dislike windows 10 for their access and control then a console won't do you any better. It's the future of all operating systems unfortunately. Personally I don't care.