Upgrading from my trusty i5-2500k

orbitalwalsh · 26 Apr 2019 at 15:52

Gjiir said:
Also have a 2500k and have been looking at upgrades. I mainly play games at 1080, so dont need bleeding edge, i always go back for the buck.

Having read a bit about the new AMD cpu coming out soon i decide to hold off and see.

Will of course need a new mobo, prolly upgrade my geforce 970 at the same time too, and RAM, and Case, and.....no i think thats enough!

ryzen 3000 6 cores or intel 6 cores... clock at high as you can get

hedgey · 26 Apr 2019 at 18:19

daresso said:
Thanks for all the replies. I don’t need to be at the bleeding edge so I would rather upgrade now than wait until the summer. The i5 is struggling to keep 60 fps in the two games I am playing, Battlefield V and The Division 2. Definitely bottlenecking the GTX 2070.

The 2600 seems like a value. What about the 2700 ? Or an intel offering ? Or should I spend £100 and get an i7-2600k?

Whatever do you, don't throw £100 at an obsolete CPU. £100 is a new motherboard, which you're gonna need, or 16gb of ddr4, which you're gonna need.
Go buy either of those now and save for the CPU, after you've decided what that will be. For gaming, AMD can't touch Intel.

Dervious · 27 Apr 2019 at 12:09

hedgey said:
For gaming, AMD can't touch Intel.

I made the mistake of replacing my i5-2500K with an R5 1600. I tried playing GTA V, FC5, Doom, Wolfenstein The New Colosus, MGS V etc. They all run at well over 60fps with a GTX1070 at 2560 x 1440, very high settings.

If only I'd chosen another Intel CPU.

Orange Nexus · 27 Apr 2019 at 12:46

Dervious said:
I made the mistake of replacing my i5-2500K with an R5 1600. I tried playing GTA V, FC5, Doom, Wolfenstein The New Colosus, MGS V etc. They all run at well over 60fps with a GTX1070 at 2560 x 1440, very high settings.

If only I'd chosen another Intel CPU.

I have a different experience. I upgraded from Phenom II X 4 to R5 1600. The latter is faster than my i7 2700K OC'ed to 4.5GHz. My Ryzen, though, is oc'ed to 3.9GHz with RAM at 3200 CL14.

MassiveJim · 27 Apr 2019 at 13:50

@OP
Is your 2500K OC'ed ?

If not you can get a decent performance boost to tide you over until AMDs 3xxx series come out.

and waiting is not just about getting bleeding edge by the way, if expectations are correct, this new series will introduce a much better £/performance than we have ever seen before.

Troezar · 27 Apr 2019 at 18:19

Some really good buys at the moment. Ryzen 2700, B450 Tomahawk plus 16GB C14 RAM for under £400. Having to resist and wait for the 3XXX CPUs.

Dervious · 28 Apr 2019 at 09:53

Orange Nexus said:
I have a different experience. I upgraded from Phenom II X 4 to R5 1600. The latter is faster than my i7 2700K OC'ed to 4.5GHz. My Ryzen, though, is oc'ed to 3.9GHz with RAM at 3200 CL14.

I think you missed the sarcasm in my comment.

I was questioning this claim

hedgey said:
For gaming, AMD can't touch Intel

Orange Nexus · 28 Apr 2019 at 10:03

Dervious said:
I think you missed the sarcasm in my comment.

I was questioning this claim

My apologies.

Double07 · 28 Apr 2019 at 21:08

hedgey said:
For gaming, AMD can't touch Intel.

Or you could say that on a price/performance metric Intel cant touch AMD.

Dervious · 29 Apr 2019 at 21:03

Double07 said:
Or you could say that on a price/performance metric Intel cant touch AMD.

And you'd be right to say that. My R5 1600 cost £200 two years ago. I don't remember there being a new Intel CPU for around that price that could offer comparable performance. Decent upgrade from an i5-2500K, and still performs well in all the games I play today.

Double07 · 29 Apr 2019 at 21:34

Dervious said:
And you'd be right to say that. My R5 1600 cost £200 two years ago. I don't remember there being a new Intel CPU for around that price that could offer comparable performance. Decent upgrade from an i5-2500K, and still performs well in all the games I play today.

I just paid £145 for a 2600 about a month ago due to an enforced upgrade as a result of dead motherboard. At that price it's a great buy.

ANDREW GREEN · 30 Apr 2019 at 08:55

daresso said:
Thanks for all the replies. I don’t need to be at the bleeding edge so I would rather upgrade now than wait until the summer. The i5 is struggling to keep 60 fps in the two games I am playing, Battlefield V and The Division 2. Definitely bottlenecking the GTX 2070.

The 2600 seems like a value. What about the 2700 ? Or an intel offering ? Or should I spend £100 and get an i7-2600k?

Ryzen 2600 vs Intel 2600x

Also 2500k vs 2600k vs 3770

The best prices I found on those Intel chips are CEX. Still not much difference in chip cost between them and 2600. It's just the mobo and RAM but that will see you for another upgrade down the line (get a 450 board and not a 3 series to prolong the upgradability)

Fire_fly · 30 Apr 2019 at 11:36

@daresso

Have you got an SSD?

If not one would make a very good upgrade.

Terminal_Boy · 30 Apr 2019 at 12:26

I’m watching this thread with interest, not that I’ve found any recent AAA SP game that my 4.4GHz i5 2500K couldn’t power satisfactorily at 1080p when paired with a decent GPU.

Sounds like I’m waiting for the AMD 3XXX series to drop before they’ll be a decent VFM upgrade to last me another 7-8 years.

havenrl · 3 May 2019 at 18:13

This is just the thread I wanted to see.
Plenty of helpful hints for me.

With my current build, one of my SLI GTX660Ti just failed.
It has kept me going a far long while, about 7-8 years, so time has come for me to look for an upgrade.

I haven't decided on my budget yet, probably around £1k, as gpu needed too.

fewfe3 · 3 May 2019 at 20:49

This is a helpful thread.

Im sure my 2500k that i was running at 4.4 realised I was reading this and decided to die. It has lasted longer than i thought it would so I can't complain too much.

Now i really don't want to upgrade now with new tech just around the corner, but i just might have to. It doesnt help that i just bought a shiney new monitor and my computer is really struggling with 1440p and 144hz.

Phil2008 · 4 May 2019 at 01:18

hedgey said:
For gaming, AMD can't touch Intel.

Intel if your a gamer, amd if its mainly for a work pc and the odd game here and there. I went to the i7 8086 from my i5 2500k for the raw clock speed.

Kirby Wurm · 4 May 2019 at 10:01

The only caveat with Intel is the pricing. They're definitely faster for gaming (prior to Ryzen 3) but the extra cost isn't necessarily with it. I was lucky enough to get my 8700K last year for £300 so not much more than the 2700X at the time but with the price hikes it's harder to justify. There's also the fact that an upgrade would require a new motherboard where AMD have some scope for a new CPU without that (not sure beyond the Ryzen 3 series though).

Phil2008 · 4 May 2019 at 10:23

My i7 8086K costed £380 last july and Im hopeing it will last me a good long while, as Im thowing more money at this pc then I world normally.

flyinmunky · 4 May 2019 at 13:22

I went from a i5 2500k, 8gb RAM, gtx580, 1 TB WD HDD to ........2700X, 16gb 3200mhz RAM, a used 1080ti and a Samsung 500gb SSD. This was the best performance update for my budget i felt. Intel was not worth the extra cost for myself. Plus i can upgrade to new Ryzan with my current mobo if required in future.

Very happy with set up.