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My i7 2600K build is still good 10 years on - What current CPU has best VFM over the next 10 years?

ianh said:
Looking into the recommendations given here a little further (thanks for the replies) so far the 3700x really does look to be the best VFM currently, and seeing the results of the 3300X's "1 CCX" design in reviews released last night makes me think whatever Zen 3 brings will be yet another big step, if my 2600k lasts that long.

I also looked at Intel's and the 10700k looked interesting as a 9900k "refresh" but for far less cash (still £400-ish?) but with it's large increase in power requirements I'd be worried about how hot it runs even with "die thinning". However there aren't any reviews out yet so I'll wait and see how they turn out.

It's been an eye opener to catch up on the recent advances, I think the last time I looked seriously at an upgrade was around 2014-ish and there wasn't any point at all so I stopped keeping up with the CPU side of Tech and only bothered with GPU and the past 3-4 years have been a CPU game-changer which I'd completely missed.
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I'm exactly the same, spent a fortune on a high end X79 system and it has served me well. The only reason I am thinking upgrade time is because I bought a new 34 inch monitor.
I'm tempted just to upgrade the gfx card and wait for Zen 4, or the other option is to go all in on top spec Zen 3 and miss Zen 4 completely.
I always tell myself to upgrade gradually, but once I build a system, I can never be bothered taking it apart until I need a full system upgrade.
 
edgedemon said:
I always tell myself to upgrade gradually, but once I build a system, I can never be bothered taking it apart until I need a full system upgrade.
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My aim is that, once I build a new setup, it'll just require 2 GPU swaps to get it last a decade like my current one (skip alternate GPU releases) as I don't want to be swapping CPU/MoBo's as well as GPU's every 2-3 years :D
 
I'm at 6c/6t with my 8600k@5Ghz and tbf I'm seriously just considering to see just how long it lasts. Seems to feed my 2080Ti well enough, wondering if it'll be enough for a 3080Ti and be ok for another couple of years without bottlenecking?

Tempted to switch to a Zen3 setup when released but really their might just be no real poinnt!
 
ianh said:
Hi all,

My current PC was made back in 2010 with the following specs -

i7 2600K @ 4.6ghz
OcUK CPU Water-cooling with 120mm Rad
Asus P8P67 Pro Rev3.1 MoBo
16GB XMS3 DDR3 @ 1600
Nvidia GTX 580


In the ten years since buying I swapped GPU's from a 580 to a 780 to a 1070 and replaced the original "water-cooled CPU setup" with an Alpenfon Matterhorn Air Cooler (for less maintenance rather than for any extra performance), but thats all in 10 years and, with the constant GPU updates, it is still able to play all my games at 1080p at 60fps right now without issue and usually at the highest detail/quality levels.

However, while everything still works fine right now, I know that at some point my poor CPU/MoBo or RAM will eventually fail and I'll need to swap to a whole new setup but, having not had to worry about upgrades for such a long time I'm slightly "out of the loop" although a few Youtubers reviews are helping me catch up.

With that in mind I'm wondering what currently available CPU would be able to give me the same "still playable after 10 years with just GPU upgrades" i got from my 2600K for the best VFM (Value For Money) whilst doing so (no threadripper please :D)?

Thanks!

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My own opinion is that I can't believe 4C/8T will still be adequate 10 years from now, I think 6C/12T would be the absolute bare minimum and it's more likely that 8C/16T and higher would be required to buy right now to still be considered adequate (with say 2 newer GPU's like I did) in a decades time.

Of course when I got the 2600K we had a 6+ year period where Intel's dominance effectively hamstrung home/game CPU development into "4C/8T only" for far longer than it should have been (with a static effect on "multi-core" games development too) plus we were generally "stuck" at 1080p for a long time. So now AMD's resurgence has seen home CPU core counts skyrocket and 4K and 144hz gaming taking off I can see the next decade being where games/software really starts to heavily leverage this new "core race" and it makes me wonder if even 8C/16T will be enough in a further 10 years time for whatever the future of PC's looks like?
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In my opinion, now is bad time to buy. in 2021, 2022 we'll see major new technologies released:

DDR5
PCI-Express V5
USB4
Intel brand new architecture for first time in 5 years (Alder Lake, on LGA1700)
New Zen cores

If you want the best VFM, I'd not buy into a dead DDR4/USB3/PCI-E v3, v4 platforms at this point.

Also the release of the PS5 and new Xbox will outperform 99% of gaming PC's, which should hopefully force the PC hardware prices to become more reasonable.
 
2500K. I have never ever kept a CPU this long. 8+ years now.

Before that I think I kept a CPU for about a couple years before ugprading.
 
I'm in a similar position to you, been wanting to upgrade for a while now and had settled on a 3700x & B450 board - glad I didn't now, given the recent news about B450 Zen 3 support.

I've decided to wait for B550/ Tomahawk X570 boards to become available - I'll then weigh up against the new intel offerings and make my decision.
 
Still rocking I5 2500k here to. I switched from a I7 920 so it was a side grade really like 9 years ago to play with something new.

Its held up well but would like to change as i use to switch cpu/mobo every couple of years before this. I miss playing around in the old days getting mega overclocks and benching but getting older now, less time and frankly limited improvements. GPU prices last few years has also spoilt it. Still have a GTX980ti which i bought 3-4 years ago for £330ish as couldnt justify a GTX1080 for £600 (not enough improvement over a GTX980ti) and when the GTX1080ti came out i thought id hold off for the RTX2080ti. Its been a long 4 years of disappointment which doesnt look like its ending anytime soon.

Im hoping the new consoles **** all over pcs at least in terms of price/performance cause its shocking right now. But ill hold onto what i got right now, im shocked how long my pc is holding it together. Corsair 1000HX from like 12 years (?) ago, I2500k/board/memory from 9 years ago, gpu from 4 years ago, water pump for like 5 years to (surprised its last so long, expected it to break in like 2 years). It still plays everything i throw at it.
 
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Found my way here after some stalking after you posted in my thread... I built my PC at pretty much the same time, with an i5 2500K and an old stock GTX480, I upgraded to a 2700K a few years ago because one came up cheap, and things like GPU's I have obviously upgraded periodically, but most of it is the same still.

I feel absolutely no need to upgrade the "core system" yet, which is incredible given the age of the PC! I was 14 when I built it... I'm now almost 25... :o

It may help that my i7 is a golden chip though, and sits at a stable 5GHz with just 1.42v... :D
 
Acme said:
Found my way here after some stalking after you posted in my thread... I built my PC at pretty much the same time, with an i5 2500K and an old stock GTX480, I upgraded to a 2700K a few years ago because one came up cheap, and things like GPU's I have obviously upgraded periodically, but most of it is the same still.

I feel absolutely no need to upgrade the "core system" yet, which is incredible given the age of the PC! I was 14 when I built it... I'm now almost 25... :o

It may help that my i7 is a golden chip though, and sits at a stable 5GHz with just 1.42v... :D
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The flip side of that is how painfully slow CPU progression has been for 10 years ;) Nice investment for you though. I suspect we'll all be looking at much more rapid upgrading in the next 10 years now we have some competition.
 
If you're in no rush i would wait for Zen 3, rumours are they are going to be better than Intel in every measurable aspect, much higher IPC, much much more power efficient.
 
Ha.. Such a topical thread for me. I am looking at upgrading my system at some point in the next few months, and can't decide between new GPU or new CPU/mobo/RAM/case combo. Have around £600 to spend.. 2500k with a moderate overclock has lasted me since 2010 or 2011. It's not like I need a new CPU, but Ryzen does get me more excited than anything that Intel churned out recently. Will probably just end up waiting for further developments as Nvidia is supposed to launch their new GPUs at some point this year and with AMD developing new tech all the time, potentially Ryzen will drop in price even more ;) decisions, decisions..
 
I dont' intend to upgrade this CPU for quite some time yet, everything is working like a dream so will simply uprgade and upgrade the GPU instead like usual. I don't need cutting edge CPU's so for me, I actually don't care about the current or next gen really! Unless you're rendering and stuff where absolute multi core is essential and just gaming, I really think the need for the latest and greates just isn't there... but that's just me personally.
 
Its difficult to say, we can't accurately predict what Intel and AMD has in store for us in the next 10 or so years. If it wasn't for Intel having its 4 cores 8 threads stagnation period, your CPU lifespan would have been cut quite a bit. I think if you need to upgrade soonish wait for the Ryzen 4000 series, if not grab B550 mother and purchase Ryzen 3600 for now, you can then add 4000/5000 ryzen cpus later on when the higher core/higher thread CPUs come at a lower price in the next 2 gens. e.g. 5700x 12 core 24 threads.
 
Now we've got more info from the new 10th Gen Intel release there's nothing there that makes me think "wow, gotta get that!!!" despite the fears of running very hot being less than expected (still hot but not that bad TBH).

As I don't know what I'll be doing over the next decade I'm not sure focusing on a pure "gaming" Intel CPU over a more rounded AMD one just because you get 10-15% FPS in "some" games is going to me a sound decision. Don't get me wrong, if 10th Gen was say 30%+ faster FPS but with comparable "everything else - workflow" performance to AMD at the same price point then it'd make more sense to buy that but right now (before Zen 3 is released) I think that the difference just isn't big enough right now, and when Zen 3 comes out it'll hopefully catch-up/reduce that FPS difference whilst further increasing the "workflow" side too.

@Acme -Stalker :D
 
Troezar said:
The flip side of that is how painfully slow CPU progression has been for 10 years ;) Nice investment for you though. I suspect we'll all be looking at much more rapid upgrading in the next 10 years now we have some competition.
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Personally I think I'll likely only upgrade my core system once in the next 10 years.

I'm sure I can easily get another 3 or 4 years out of the 2700K.

It helps that I don't play latest releases, I'm always a year or two behind. Just a casual gamer these days. And for everything else I do (mild video editing and heavy photo editing) the i7 still chews through it without breaking much of a sweat.
 
Acme said:
Personally I think I'll likely only upgrade my core system once in the next 10 years.

I'm sure I can easily get another 3 or 4 years out of the 2700K.

It helps that I don't play latest releases, I'm always a year or two behind. Just a casual gamer these days. And for everything else I do (mild video editing and heavy photo editing) the i7 still chews through it without breaking much of a sweat.
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Fair enough. As long you're not buying high end GPUs pushing high refresh rates you sound like you'll be fine.
 
Dave2150 said:
In my opinion, now is bad time to buy. in 2021, 2022 we'll see major new technologies released:

DDR5
PCI-Express V5
USB4
Intel brand new architecture for first time in 5 years (Alder Lake, on LGA1700)
New Zen cores

If you want the best VFM, I'd not buy into a dead DDR4/USB3/PCI-E v3, v4 platforms at this point.
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I second this personally. Your current rig has got you this far so unless you're desperate to upgrade then waiting for DDR5 platforms at least increases the possibility of your next build lasting several years.

I've had my 8700K for 2 years and can see it lasting another 2 at least for gaming, especially as I'm much more of a casual gamer right now.
 
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