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

ianh · 7 Jul 2021 at 12:29

As a blast from the past, about 14 months after my initial post and things have changed dramatically in the "availability" of PC parts!

I've eventually decided to go with the AMD R9 5900x for it's 12C/24T just to give me some future expansion (over an 8C/16T CPU) if I end up keeping this one for the next decade. As a bonus I managed to find an extremely good bundle (CPU/MoBo/Ram/GPU) from a direct competitor which includes an EVGA 3080 XC3 Ultra for only £70-ish more than its MSRP which is amazing at this time!

Hopefully everything arrives tomorrow and I should be able to make some money back when I sell the GTX 1070, although I'll keep it for a bit as a back-up just incase.

HangTime · 9 Jul 2021 at 10:29

Good choice I think, 10 years is a very long time so you need both good IPC and plentiful cores.

As for VFM, well normally it's hard to justify a £480 CPU but if you can get away with it for 10 years then it may stack up.

BUDFORCE · 9 Jul 2021 at 13:18

ianh said:
As a blast from the past, about 14 months after my initial post and things have changed dramatically in the "availability" of PC parts!

I've eventually decided to go with the AMD R9 5900x for it's 12C/24T just to give me some future expansion (over an 8C/16T CPU) if I end up keeping this one for the next decade. As a bonus I managed to find an extremely good bundle (CPU/MoBo/Ram/GPU) from a direct competitor which includes an EVGA 3080 XC3 Ultra for only £70-ish more than its MSRP which is amazing at this time!

Hopefully everything arrives tomorrow and I should be able to make some money back when I sell the GTX 1070, although I'll keep it for a bit as a back-up just incase.

I bit the bullet in December 2020 went for a 5800x build, then about a month ago was very lucky to get hold of a 3070 on OCUK forum deals for way cheaper even now then you'd ever get hold of one otherwise.

It is quite a difference in some games (the CPU that is) obviously the GPU just lets you up all the settings and upper frame rates.

I said I'd frame the old 2600k but donated to my 14 year old and it's still going strong. Once he's done with it I will frame it.

Saying that this 5800x is really impressing me, all bit it runs warmer, see if this lasts 10 years.

Dave2150 · 9 Jul 2021 at 14:15

ianh said:
As a blast from the past, about 14 months after my initial post and things have changed dramatically in the "availability" of PC parts!

I've eventually decided to go with the AMD R9 5900x for it's 12C/24T just to give me some future expansion (over an 8C/16T CPU) if I end up keeping this one for the next decade. As a bonus I managed to find an extremely good bundle (CPU/MoBo/Ram/GPU) from a direct competitor which includes an EVGA 3080 XC3 Ultra for only £70-ish more than its MSRP which is amazing at this time!

Hopefully everything arrives tomorrow and I should be able to make some money back when I sell the GTX 1070, although I'll keep it for a bit as a back-up just incase.

Very odd time to upgrade. You've waited 10 years, only to upgrade to a dead end, obsolete DDR4 platform that's soon to be replaced with AM5, LGA1700, DDR5, PCIEv5 platforms from AMD/Intel.

Joxeon · 9 Jul 2021 at 14:21

Dave2150 said:
Very odd time to upgrade. You've waited 10 years, only to upgrade to a dead end, obsolete DDR4 platform that's soon to be replaced with AM5, LGA1700, DDR5, PCIEv5 platforms from AMD/Intel.

He can always swap out the board, ram and CPU in 5 years. Nothing forcing him to keep it for another 10 years.

faceman123 · 9 Jul 2021 at 14:35

lnoton said:
My 3900x which cost me £350 will be the best. No doubt it.

THIS

ianh · 9 Jul 2021 at 18:56

Dave2150 said:
Very odd time to upgrade.

Dead MoBo (I think) kind of forced the issue rather than just a desire to upgrade, as I mentioned way back in the OP.........

ianh said:
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

greatash · 10 Jul 2021 at 14:18

BUDFORCE said:
I said I'd frame the old 2600k but donated to my 14 year old and it's still going strong. Once he's done with it I will frame it.

Heh my brother is still using my i5 2500k. 2500k/2600k are legendary CPUs, I think I will make mine into a keyring when he's done with it or it dies.

andy_mk3 · 10 Jul 2021 at 14:25

Sold my 2600k setup on ebay earlier this year, made good money on it.

The 3900x that replaced it should last me a very long time I think, I may upgrade to a 5900x or 5950x in future but certainly no plans to as of yet.

ianh · 10 Jul 2021 at 15:14

greatash said:
Heh my brother is still using my i5 2500k. 2500k/2600k are legendary CPUs

I was still 1080p gaming with a GTX1070 on mine without issues until a week ago, such an awesome chip and definitely where Intel screwed up as they realised themselves just how game-changing it was and decided to screw users over initially with all the chips afterwards and screw themselves over as they did almost nothing for 4-5 years, missing out on all that dev time!

dave28 · 10 Jul 2021 at 15:44

Not sure any current CPU`s will fare as well as the 2600K over 10 years.

AMD has made intel pull their finger out now and stop them from releasing slightly better CPU`s year after year like they were doing after sanybridge.

The higher end AMD CPU`s would certainly a huge upgrade in mulitasking i think

turbot1984 · 10 Jul 2021 at 16:22

2500k/6700k sorted me out for nearly 10 years, thats great value. Problem is they all have a shelf life with latest top end gpu's unless you are happy with some bottlenecking (which most of us aren't)

Moeks · 13 Jul 2021 at 15:03

dave28 said:
Not sure any current CPU`s will fare as well as the 2600K over 10 years.

AMD has made intel pull their finger out now and stop them from releasing slightly better CPU`s year after year like they were doing after sanybridge.

The higher end AMD CPU`s would certainly a huge upgrade in mulitasking i think

Indeed, I don't think it's realistic to expect the same from anything on the market now, becuase the pace of change over the last 3 years has really picked up a lot, if it slows down again at some point in the future you might get somehting like this happen again but I wouldn't count on it. I will say this though ...why would you want to keep it for 10 years ? ...I know not everyone here is actually a computer enthusiast but that is fundamentally what this forum was/is for, don't you get the urge to upgrade? ...sure a 2600k still works now, but it's been quite some years since it's really been what I would call ....fast, 2017 it really got knocked off it's pedestal by Ryzen ...however it's single core performance especially when overlcocked to speeds like 5Ghz was still competative, but then Ryzen 2 came out in April 2018 and it's just been burried since then for various reasons.

Zarax · 13 Jul 2021 at 15:13

Moeks said:
Indeed, I don't think it's realistic to expect the same from anything on the market now, becuase the pace of change over the last 3 years has really picked up a lot, if it slows down again at some point in the future you might get somehting like this happen again but I wouldn't count on it. I will say this though ...why would you want to keep it for 10 years ? ...I know not everyone here is actually a computer enthusiast but that is fundamentally what this forum was/is for, don't you get the urge to upgrade? ...sure a 2600k still works now, but it's been quite some years since it's really been what I would call ....fast, 2017 it really got knocked off it's pedestal by Ryzen ...however it's single core performance especially when overlcocked to speeds like 5Ghz was still competative, but then Ryzen 2 came out in April 2018 and it's just been burried since then for various reasons.

I can answer this as 3770k owner: it still does 1080/60ish on most games (provided it's paired with a decent GPU) and if he's anything like me (I mostly buy discounted games from GOG) his games requirements are closer to 2018 than 2021.

BUDFORCE · 13 Jul 2021 at 19:31

The only reason I upgraded my system is because I'm keen on PUBG and being a competitive online game (I'm not a particularly competitive player a hasten to add!) But my 2600k was limiting my FPS, particularly at high action points, where you need the smoothness the most.

Plus I got a higher refresh 144hz monitor, 2600k just wouldn't have put out those frames.

For literally anything else I played it was fine.

Grim5 · 14 Jul 2021 at 04:27

You won't be able to buy a cpu today that will deliver that value in 10 years

the 2600k spent its first few years enjoy similiar ipc to its replacements along with historically exceptional overclocking ability

In 2021 CPU's no longer overclock well so you have little headroom to improve should you need it and IPC is jumping up 20% to 30% every generation. To demonstrate this - a 10900k only has double the IPC of the 2600k, but at current rates in 10 years whatever CPU is for sale theme won't just be double the 10900k but it will be triple or quadruple

Dave2150 · 15 Jul 2021 at 12:06

ianh said:
Dead MoBo (I think) kind of forced the issue rather than just a desire to upgrade, as I mentioned way back in the OP.........

It doesn't mention that the motherboard died in any post that I saw. Of course a dead motherboard changes things!

markymoo · 16 Jul 2021 at 08:16

I'm still rocking a 2600k (@4.3ghz), 16gb Ram and an Overclocked Vega 56.
I have just switched this week from a 22" 1080p to a Dell 2722DGFA panel and the PC is still doing decent in most games.

I keep thinking of doing a full upgrade. However, whilst I can still play my games at decent frames, I'm holding on for one more cycle. I have so so many games on my virtual shelf that I could be happy for many years to come. With no other PC gamers to compare to, I don't feel like being involved in a race for the best machine.

Though, I think I will look hard again next summer, hopefully when new tech (that can actually be bought) is out.

ianh · 16 Jul 2021 at 14:27

markymoo said:
I keep thinking of doing a full upgrade. However, whilst I can still play my games at decent frames, I'm holding on for one more cycle. I have so so many games on my virtual shelf that I could be happy for many years to come.

I think the next AMD Ryzen and GFX card generation (Nvidia and AMD) will be epic and, had I been able to, I'd have preferred to hold out 1 more year too.

Calin Banc · 16 Jul 2021 at 15:35

dave28 said:
Not sure any current CPU`s will fare as well as the 2600K over 10 years.

AMD has made intel pull their finger out now and stop them from releasing slightly better CPU`s year after year like they were doing after sanybridge.

The higher end AMD CPU`s would certainly a huge upgrade in mulitasking i think

Moeks said:
Indeed, I don't think it's realistic to expect the same from anything on the market now, becuase the pace of change over the last 3 years has really picked up a lot, if it slows down again at some point in the future you might get somehting like this happen again but I wouldn't count on it. I will say this though ...why would you want to keep it for 10 years ? ...I know not everyone here is actually a computer enthusiast but that is fundamentally what this forum was/is for, don't you get the urge to upgrade? ...sure a 2600k still works now, but it's been quite some years since it's really been what I would call ....fast, 2017 it really got knocked off it's pedestal by Ryzen ...however it's single core performance especially when overlcocked to speeds like 5Ghz was still competative, but then Ryzen 2 came out in April 2018 and it's just been burried since then for various reasons.

Don't know where Intel is right now, but at last a 5900x/5950x should last for a long time when it comes to gaming. Perhaps an exception here and there, however most games are made around the consoles which are still "yesterday's tech" with 8c/16t Ryzen chips (3xxx performance, not 5xxxs).