Is It Time To Upgrade Your Core i5 2500K?

chroniclard · 23 Feb 2016 at 12:44

Cant see much reason to upgrade mine yet, 4.6ghz(hardly feel the need to try and push it higher) paired with a 980 its great at 1080p.

However, if I ever decide to go widescreen/higher res/upgrade GPU it may well be worth upgrading.....but not yet.

CAT-THE-FIFTH · 23 Feb 2016 at 12:53

It makes me wonder how many people would actually notice a difference if they didn't have FPS counters always in the corner of the screen,or even knew what computer had what CPU.

Akagi · 23 Feb 2016 at 12:54

2700K here, I did have a 2500K and wouldn't have upgraded it... But I sold the i5 for more than I bought the i7 for

The 2700K will be here to stay for a few more gens yet...

slipd · 23 Feb 2016 at 18:49

I saw some of this vid on Eurogamer - assumed that was where it was from? Apologies but I didn't watch it fully or pay 100% attention

Did I get from it that gains can be made with a ram upgrade? Currently got 16gb of 1600MHz Corsair stuff, see here: http://www.corsair.com/en-gb/vengea...-dram-1600mhz-c9-memory-kit-cmy16gx3m2a1600c9

Is it worth looking at anything else for the performance increase (if any) that I would see?

Not planning on upgrading for another 18 months at least. And funny someone should mention the q6600, that's in my other machine! Still flies with an ssd and windows 10

joeyjojo · 23 Feb 2016 at 19:42

slipd said:
Did I get from it that gains can be made with a ram upgrade?

Yes, with Titan X + 1080p.

Mei · 23 Feb 2016 at 20:40

~Mike~ said:
Thought this was very interesting and worth sharing.

its a pretty good video
they tried lots of stuff atleast & didnt try to sell us anything

doesnt seem worth it to upgrade for fps still!
maybe for new features
but ud have to rly want them, the new K chips not cheap!

wam7 · 24 Feb 2016 at 09:40

joeyjojo said:
Yes, with Titan X + 1080p.

I suspect the number of people that can afford to buy a Titan X and that game at 1080p is miniscule. Therefore making the point slightly moot.

Dave2150 · 24 Feb 2016 at 17:13

~Mike~ said:
Thought this was very interesting and worth sharing.

Love the digital foundry setup. Clear and concise videos, to the point.

Skylake is indeed a worthy upgrade to Sandy, far higher minimum FPS and lower frame time latency = win

Goose · 24 Feb 2016 at 19:26

I'm seriously temped to upgrade as I've started messing about with VM's and could really do with the extra cores.

Mei · 24 Feb 2016 at 19:30

Dave2150 said:
Love the digital foundry setup. Clear and concise videos, to the point.

Skylake is indeed a worthy upgrade to Sandy, far higher minimum FPS and lower frame time latency = win

lol wow! how did you get that from the video
thats pretty insane

the only thing he advised is making sure your memory is running as fast as it can be

wam7 · 24 Feb 2016 at 19:36

Dave2150 said:
Love the digital foundry setup. Clear and concise videos, to the point.

Skylake is indeed a worthy upgrade to Sandy, far higher minimum FPS and lower frame time latency = win

Oh this is where you've been hiding Dave! We're still waiting for some proof to the comment you made in this thread...
https://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=18717926

How did you come to that conclusion from that video? Most people will come away thinking that they should overclock their 2500k, stick in some faster memory and wait till the next round of CPU's! Ah I get it; you're just being polemical!

Goose said:
I'm seriously temped to upgrade as I've started messing about with VM's and could really do with the extra cores.

Definitely upgrade if you're into VM's or anything that will use the extra cores

joeyjojo · 25 Feb 2016 at 07:56

Mei said:
lol wow! how did you get that from the video
thats pretty insane

wam7 said:
How did you come to that conclusion from that video? Most people will come away thinking that they should overclock their 2500k, stick in some faster memory and wait till the next round of CPU's! Ah I get it; you're just being polemical!

Maybe 3.40: "...the stock Skylake can run faster, borne out in this BF4 test where the Skylake CPU has the edge in terms of both minimum and average frame rates."

Or 4.40: "...Crysis 3 at its very high preset a GTX 970 can indeed spend the vast majority of its time above 60 FPS but you need the CPU power to match. Our 2500K at stock speeds with slow RAM just doesn't cut the mustard. And as you can see here the effects of overclocking and faster memory only go so far. The modern i5 at 4.5 GHz with 3200 MHz DDR4 only offers around 14% of extra performance overall. But, and this is the crucial thing, the lowest recorded frame rate rises by 30%. Both of these stats demonstrate that even an i5 2500K pushed to its limits can be CPU bound when paired with a GTX 970."

Or 6.20: "You will note that it's only the modern i5 setup here that can stay consistently north of 60 FPS."

Or 7.25: "The modern i5 simply blows both of them away."

wam7 · 25 Feb 2016 at 09:36

joeyjojo said:
[snip lots inappropriate selective quoting]

Premise: "Is it time to upgrade your core I5 2500K?"

Corollary: Given by Richard Leadbetter at 9min 20secs
"...however the 2500k may well be a relic in technological terms but for most modern games the chances are that it will stick to that all important 60fps threshold..."

So the guy who did all the testing and analysis states the above but you guys come away with the opposite conclusion. :confused:

That's just inane. (I didn't mean to write insane - though it is that as well

)

I'm looking forward to see if Jumper118 comes to the same conclusion when he gets his 6500's.

Disco_P · 25 Feb 2016 at 15:24

pastymuncher said:
It's a pretty irrelevant question really. If someone has a 2500k and it does everything they need it to do then upgrading just for upgrading sake is just a pointless waste of money. It is still a cracking cpu.

This is all that really needs to be said.

dakaiez · 25 Feb 2016 at 15:40

Disco_P said:
This is all that really needs to be said.

Exactly some people upgrade for the sake for it, others do it because they want or need more.

joeyjojo · 26 Feb 2016 at 08:38

wam7 said:
So the guy who did all the testing and analysis states the above but you guys come away with the opposite conclusion. That's just inane. (I didn't mean to write insane - though it is that as well )

I'm not sure why you're attacking me, I wrote my conclusion above and it's in line with the quote you selected. ("2500K is good enough for 60 FPS monitors, but gains can be had going to skylake. Also less stutter in many cases.")

Dave2150 said "Skylake is indeed a worthy upgrade to Sandy, far higher minimum FPS and lower frame time latency = win", you asked (quite rudely) where he got that from, I shared the quotes.

scorchedbee · 26 Feb 2016 at 09:30

I have a 2500k but unfortunately I can't oc due to the motherboard being a cheapo jobby.

So for me a upgrade will be incoming to a 5820k for extra cores and over clocking. I can't find a reasonably priced motherboard to the 2500k and by the time I have bought a new board and messed about with a re build and new Windows etc I may as well put a new cpu in there too...

That's how I'm trying to justify my upgrade anyway!

wam7 · 26 Feb 2016 at 10:55

joeyjojo said:
I'm not sure why you're attacking me, I wrote my conclusion above and it's in line with the quote you selected. ("2500K is good enough for 60 FPS monitors, but gains can be had going to skylake. Also less stutter in many cases.")

Dave2150 said "Skylake is indeed a worthy upgrade to Sandy, far higher minimum FPS and lower frame time latency = win", you asked (quite rudely) where he got that from, I shared the quotes.

Firstly I'm not attacking you so there's no need to feel attacked, though you did feel it necessary to seemingly come to Dave's defence in showing me quotes from a video I've watched myself. I just responded to that. I can see how someone can selectively take out snippets to make there own point but to then ignore the conclusion at the end of the video by Richard Leadbetter which I quoted above, now that seems strange. Where did you get this line from? "2500K is good enough for 60 FPS monitors, but gains can be had going to skylake. Also less stutter in many cases." This is not stated verbatim in the video so are you quoting yourself?

On one hand you have Dave saying "Skylake is indeed a worthy upgrade to Sandy" and on the other you have Richard Leadbetter saying "..however the 2500k may well be a relic in technological terms but for most modern games the chances are that it will stick to that all important 60fps threshold..." The two are not congruent.

What about the places in the video where the more modern chip is slower like in Far Cry 4? You have to have an overall conclusion not just take out points where the CPU you favour is marginally faster.

Secondly, you shouldn't become an apologist for what I've found seems to be Dave's agenda to defend all things Skylake because he has one (Buyer's Defence).
You can read his comments and the reply of especially Purgatory in this thread https://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=18714014

The point is not if Skylake is faster than overclocked Sandybridge but whether it is worthwhile to upgrade (~£350's worth) from an overclocked 2500k with fast memory. The answer for the vast majority of people appears to be no it is not. You mistake my rudeness for exasperation. I'm waiting for Dave to back up some of his opinions with some empirical data. When he says things like;

Dave2150 said:
...destroy in games...

it would be great to at least get some empirical data. Most people here come with at least a cogent argument.

wam7 · 26 Feb 2016 at 10:59

scorchedbee said:
I have a 2500k but unfortunately I can't oc due to the motherboard being a cheapo jobby.

So for me a upgrade will be incoming to a 5820k for extra cores and over clocking. I can't find a reasonably priced motherboard to the 2500k and by the time I have bought a new board and messed about with a re build and new Windows etc I may as well put a new cpu in there too...

That's how I'm trying to justify my upgrade anyway!

Actually that seems to me like a very good upgrade path to go from 2500k to X99. An overclocked 5820k to say 4.5Ghz is a great system and at least a 40% improvement on things that max all cores, so you should sleep well in your self justification.

dakaiez · 26 Feb 2016 at 11:53

wam7 said:
Actually that seems to me like a very good upgrade path to go from 2500k to X99. An overclocked 5820k to say 4.5Ghz is a great system and at least a 40% improvement on things that max all cores, so you should sleep well in your self justification.

That's how i justified my recent upgrade a 2500k @ 4.6 to a 5820k @ 4.5, definitely notice a difference. Will last me a good few years so it was worth it, wallet on the other hand is hurting but some extra hours at work will sort that out!