Performance jump from Q6600 to i7 2600/2700k

R.O.S.S.I · 24 Apr 2012 at 13:35

Hi all.... just wondering what people can tell me about this jump....

I mainly use my PC for music producing, some video rendering, quite a bit of photoshop (going to start doing 3d stuff too) and the usual internet browsing and film watching etc.

I am wanting to study for my MS qualifications and so will be looking at running some VM's on my machine with all this one etc...

What I want to know is, currently I have a Q6600, am I going to notice a huge jump in performance going from that to an i7-2600k?

Will I see massive improvements in performance?

Purgatory · 24 Apr 2012 at 13:42

Yes you will see a huge jump, I came from a clocked Q9650 @ 4Ghz to a 2600k at stock and noticed the difference right away and when overclocked it distroys the Q9650 @ 4Ghz.

It's a good upgrade plan you have there and the ability to use 16Gb+ of cheaper faster ram will help you a lot in the tasks you want to use it for.

R.O.S.S.I · 24 Apr 2012 at 13:44

Cool thanks Purgatory. How easy are the 2600/2700k's to overclock? I gave up on all that stuff years and years ago, but have read these are very good overclockers and easy to do so - will they overclock well on stock coolers?

R.O.S.S.I · 24 Apr 2012 at 13:59

In fact my next question is, is there a huge jump between the i5 2500k and the i7 2600k when looking at video editing, photoshop, audio processing and rendering and VM's?

Krono5 · 24 Apr 2012 at 14:53

2600k's are easy to overclock for anything less than trying to push the chip towards it's limits, you'll probably want to get an aftermarket cooler though even if it's just a cheap one like the tranquillo as that will give a very solid OC compared to stock for only £20.

There's a reasonable jump in programs that utilize HT. It's definately worth the extra money if you spend all day doing rendering etc depending upon just how much you'll use it. Check out some of the benchmarks for these 2 chips and that'll give an idea of just how much.

PaulyD · 24 Apr 2012 at 15:05

CPU comparison from Anandtech

HT will make a difference and from what I understand quite a lot of what you do will benefit

PiKe · 24 Apr 2012 at 15:12

I think a 2500k get like 4-5 times as many gflops as a stock q6600.

Webster · 24 Apr 2012 at 17:32

Slightly OT but reccomend checking out things like testking etc for your MS qualifications, as there's doing things the right way, and then doing them the MS way

Passed all mine using testking, think of the exams as building blocks.

OptimaLnrg · 24 Apr 2012 at 17:47

R.O.S.S.I said:
Hi all.... just wondering what people can tell me about this jump....

I mainly use my PC for music producing, some video rendering, quite a bit of photoshop (going to start doing 3d stuff too) and the usual internet browsing and film watching etc.

I am wanting to study for my MS qualifications and so will be looking at running some VM's on my machine with all this one etc...

What I want to know is, currently I have a Q6600, am I going to notice a huge jump in performance going from that to an i7-2600k?

Will I see massive improvements in performance?

Astronomical performance jump.

R.O.S.S.I · 24 Apr 2012 at 17:49

Webzta said:
Slightly OT but reccomend checking out things like testking etc for your MS qualifications, as there's doing things the right way, and then doing them the MS way

Passed all mine using testking, think of the exams as building blocks.

Cheers fella will check them out!

And thanks everyone else, got a i7 2700k on its way!

R.O.S.S.I · 24 Apr 2012 at 17:50

Hm a final question and not quite sure if its in the right sub forum but would i be better off getting a Z77 board for the 2700k or sticking with buying a Z68?

sick-lizard · 24 Apr 2012 at 18:00

z77 gives you native usb3 on the intel chipset the z68 gen3 has usb3 on a separate chip, as far as I know that's the only difference.

WingZero30 · 24 Apr 2012 at 19:30

PiKe said:
I think a 2500k get like 4-5 times as many gflops as a stock q6600.

That's with the use of AVX instructions set which Q6600 lacks as it only features up to SSSE3.

Theoretical Peak Flops (double precision) (Multi-Add)

[email protected] : 2.4GHz x 4cores x 4multi-add = 38.4GFlops

[email protected] (AVX): 3.33 x 4cores x 8multi-add = 106.56GFlops

So technically 2500K can execute 2.775 times more gflops than Q6600. Ofcourse depends on the software that makes use of AVX instructions set along with architecture itself and ram.

2500K is generally twice as powerful as Q6600 anyway so those gflops do give approximate indication of the difference between the compute potential of both cpus within that specific situation.

Krono5 · 24 Apr 2012 at 23:49

Get Z77.

mecca · 25 Apr 2012 at 01:44

i went from a q6600 @ 3.2ghz to a 2600k at 4.4ghz

i encode max quality avchd encodes using ripbot and x264

my encode times were 35-40 hours for the q6600, and 6 hours max for my 2600k

just to give you an encdoing benchmark, thats 500-700% increase roughly for encoding alone, my 2600k goes up to 5.3GHz and thats without using intel quicksync as i use a p67 mobo, would be even better using quicksync so im told :-)

They are awesome, i noticed the difference massively in everything i did.

added to that the down clocking when not being used and you have a perfect CPU.

sxndy · 25 Apr 2012 at 09:09

I upgraded from a Q9550 to a 2700k @ 4.6ghz

Q9550 never overclocked that well but the difference is massive between it and the 2700k. It takes less than half the time to convert avi to dvd formats

You will notice the difference and for me it was worth it.

Got over £100 for my old Q9550

Barry1987 · 25 Apr 2012 at 09:43

I went from a Q6600 2.4GHz (3GHz) to a i7 3820 3.6GHz and noticed a considerable difference. Bargain at £230 and you don't need to go higher than 3820/2600k/2700k tbh.

R.O.S.S.I · 25 Apr 2012 at 10:21

Quality guys, so would I need to buy an after market cooler to squeeze some more out of the 2700k? I didnt really want to have to spend any more dollar lol, Im not wanting insane overclocks just a nice push haha.

Do I need a specific motherboard or will any do? Looking at either MSI Z77A-G43 or Gigabyte GA-Z77-D3H. Will they be OK?

Barry1987 · 25 Apr 2012 at 10:43

R.O.S.S.I said:
Quality guys, so would I need to buy an after market cooler to squeeze some more out of the 2700k? I didnt really want to have to spend any more dollar lol, Im not wanting insane overclocks just a nice push haha.

Do I need a specific motherboard or will any do? Looking at either MSI Z77A-G43 or Gigabyte GA-Z77-D3H. Will they be OK?

Yeah, Z77 is compatible with the 2700k because both use the LGA1155 socket.

You should also consider going for an X79 (LGA2011) board and an i7 3820. The X79s are better boards and aren't THAT much more expensive than the Z77s. i7 3820 is LGA2011 and is also on par with the 2700k, are newer and like £30 cheaper.

EDIT: My boss came past my desk so had to minimise, lol. Check the i7 and MSI motherboard in my signature (hyperlinked). The MB comes with a free dual cooler.

R.O.S.S.I · 25 Apr 2012 at 11:02

Thanks but I think I'll pass on that Barry as it seems way overkill for what I need lol, the mobo is over £200!!

I'll just stick with it at stock for the moment, if I want to overclock in the future then its going to be no hardship buying a new cooler!