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Thoughts on if I need to upgrade , running the Sandy at 4600 now.

I have the same proc and I've been wondering the same thing. My sandy has been running reliably, cool, and surprisingly quiet at 4.7 for three years now, and that includes long hours of doing Premiere/After Effects renders with all eight threads pinned, and it's doing fine. If you look at the performance gains in the stock clocked Ivy and Haswell cpu's, and then factor in the more modest overclocking headroom on those chips, I can't really see the value in upgrading Sandy is there yet. Does anyone else have any direct experience with this?

I think you have more then enough power for most things, so unless you really need a few more fps when u game or need to to shave more time rendering something where every second costs money, i'd wait if i were you.

I am running a i7-3770 (non K) with 16GB ram and a SSD and my system is always snappy, lighting fast, 4 cores, 8 threads.

However, if I was using it for photo/video rendering stuff, and it was a tool for work, then I may upgrade if it made me money by working faster.

That is when I would go to a 6 core / 12 thread system, 32GB /64GB of ram, and multiple SSDs in raid.

If I wanted to game better, and had the cash, then I'd probably upgrade my displays and video system.

What is your system used for on a regular basis?
Also, is it possible you have the "upgrade bug" like we get from time to time?

Ive got the same proc, as well, and it can handle pretty much anything I throw at it at the moment. If you're jonesing to upgrade, I'd wait a little and get a Devil's Canyon CPU, one of the 9 Series mobos, and a really nice water cooler. That should put you ahead of the curve a bit. Unless you got a $1K to spend on an Ivy-bridge E, which would work, too.

There is no way I'd spend money to upgrade an overclocked quad Sandy Bridge system right now. I don't think Broadwell is even going to change the game too much. The only thing your system is "missing" is Intel's native USB 3.0 controller, but even the third party controllers on those boards are fast enough for things like external hard drives.

I went from a Sandy Bridge i3 to a 3570K and OC'd the crap out of it. I'm at 4.5GHz, and believe me - the CPU isn't what slows down my system.

Quad-core Sandy is a god among megahurtz, an upgrade would bring nothing noticeable. If I was you--which running a 2500k I basically am--I wouldn't bother with upgrades until at least Skylake or K12, and only if it comes with meaningful new features like DDR4 and USB3.1.

tsoulier wrote:

Do I need to upgrade my Sandy Bridge Core i7-2600K (running at 4.6 GHz)?

In a word: No.

Intel hasn't offered much improvement in processor performance since Sandy Bridge was released on January 8, 2011. Performance has gone up only slightly and retail prices haven't come down (though they have made process improvements to significantly reduce their manufacturing costs).

If you're itching to upgrade something, start saving your pennies now for a nice IPS or *VA 3840x2160 DisplayPort 1.2a monitor and a 20nm GPU in early 2015.


P.S.: I paid $333 to buy a Core i7-2600K on launch day. What does a similar processor cost today?
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductLi ... geSize=100

Unless you could guarantee that a 6-core chip overclocks to at least 4.3GHz you would probably suffer a downgrade by trying to upgrade. For the majority of tasks, the speed of a single thread is key and the improvements from Ivy and Haswell have added maybe 6% on average (less for gaming, more for encoding/compute). Increasing the core count won't help in a huge number of progams, either because they flatline after two or three threads.

I swapped out a 2500K for a 3770 and my virtual machines run much better. Gaming seems less smooth, I guess that's what happens when you lose 1100MHz of clockspeed.

JustAnEngineer wrote:

retail prices haven't come down (though they have made process improvements to significantly reduce their manufacturing costs)

I hadn't even considered this. We're blinded by the improved IGP which is worthless on a desktop and the power consumption reduction - also worthless alongside 200W graphics card(s).

We need AMD to be less of a joke now more than ever.

thanks , I am good with the Sandy for now then , that is what I was thinking anyways.

I can hear your 2600k through the static of the Contact machine.......It is saying I'mm Good To GO!

2600k is still a beast at 4.6 GHz.

Just keep upgrading your GPU, the CPU won't hold you back for years to come.

tsoulier wrote:

Thoughts on if I need to upgrade , running the Sandy at 4600 now.

Of course you do... [/sarcasm]

Spend the money on graphics or an SSD or something, as the CPU isn't going to be slowing you down anywhere. I'm rocking dated hardware in that dept and still don't have any problems - I can play modern games at 1200p with high details ok.

geekl33tgamer wrote:

Spend the money on graphics or an SSD or something.

He's running a GeForce GTX780 and a Samsung 840 Pro. I am nearly certain that those will be adequate at least until the end of the year.

tsoulier wrote:

Thoughts on if I need to upgrade , running the Sandy at 4600 now.

You don't need to upgrade.

If you have money burning a hole in your pocket, a kick-ass sound system, 1440 or 1600p IPS screen, gaming mouse, mechanical keyboard or even a new desk/chair.

I just splurged on a pair of gas-lift floating VESA mounts for my desk. Cost more than a 780Ti but I already have great peripherals and a very high-spec machine in every regard. Totally worth it!

Not unless you lust after something new. (Note: I lusted after something new).

With dual Radeon R9 280x cards, my i7-2600K clocked at 4.2GHz (stock voltage) ranked at the 97th percentile on 3DMark 11. I just swapped the mainboard and CPU tonight, so I haven't fully tested Devil's Canyon yet, nor have I tried clocking it up, but I did it as much because I wanted to play with new tech and had had my other board for awhile. My i7-2600K and the Gigabyte Z68XP-UD5H were truly a rock-solid combination; I just had a chance to try something new.

What was the point of necro'ing this thread?

What are you going to do with that 2600k and killer Gigabyte Z68XP-ud5 motherboard? Man if it was running at 4.2 ghz on stock volts you might have yourself a diamond of a chip that will run at 5ghz at around 1.45v and you probably would not need anything better then a h-80i AIO or a good air cooler ND-14 or 15 to keep the temps in check.
Are you keeping the 2600k and motherboard? Believe it or not the 22nm trigate process on the 4770k use more voltage under load then a 2600ks 32nm process when they are all clocked at 4.5ghz. Here is the 2600k vs 3770k vs 4770k gaming performance review article that is a interesting read. http://www.ocaholic.ch/modules/smartsec ... 164&page=1

"mine will only do 4.1ghz on stock V's" but will hit 5+ ghz with 1.48v but my h55 AIO with 2 cougar vortex fans in push pull configuration will not keep it under 70c so I an running at 4705mhz @ 1.365v 102.4x46" But to be honest 4.7 ghz is plenty fast and does not hold back my SLI'ed 770 classifieds at all. But that is besides the point I would love to try a devils canyon setup out just for fun:)

Would also love to give you like $100 for that 2600k and MB:) since you went all devils canyon on us:)

I'm a little (read: a lot) people even ask if they should upgrade from a 2600K at this point. Unless your concerns are the platform as a whole (M.2, SATA Express) the default answer is almost always no. When you factor in the overlockability, if you're doing that, of SB it's a no-brainer.

I assume your are having performance issues, so most likely doing heavy rendering/compression?

You could go with a i7-4930k, they seem overclock to 4.6ghz. And that would give you a major speedup. ~60%
In Blender, roughly a 30min render would now take 20min... Not sure its worth it, but thats up to you.

I'm still on a i7-920 and even though I've searched for a reason to upgrade, I haven't found one.

vargis14 wrote:

What are you going to do with that 2600k and killer Gigabyte Z68XP-ud5 motherboard? Man if it was running at 4.2 ghz on stock volts you might have yourself a diamond of a chip that will run at 5ghz at around 1.45v and you probably would not need anything better then a h-80i AIO or a good air cooler ND-14 or 15 to keep the temps in check.
Are you keeping the 2600k and motherboard? Believe it or not the 22nm trigate process on the 4770k use more voltage under load then a 2600ks 32nm process when they are all clocked at 4.5ghz. Here is the 2600k vs 3770k vs 4770k gaming performance review article that is a interesting read. http://www.ocaholic.ch/modules/smartsec ... 164&page=1

"mine will only do 4.1ghz on stock V's" but will hit 5+ ghz with 1.48v but my h55 AIO with 2 cougar vortex fans in push pull configuration will not keep it under 70c so I an running at 4705mhz @ 1.365v 102.4x46" But to be honest 4.7 ghz is plenty fast and does not hold back my SLI'ed 770 classifieds at all. But that is besides the point I would love to try a devils canyon setup out just for fun:)

Would also love to give you like $100 for that 2600k and MB:) since you went all devils canyon on us:)

You're kidding me, right Smalls?

The CPU alone goes for a fair bit more than $100 used on Fleabay, and the board is one of the best Gigabyte made.

.

LoneWolf15 wrote:

You're kidding me, right Smalls?

Much lulz, especially since I was looking up various i5/7 prices the other week to see if there was any worthwhile upgrade path from my current i5-2500K (nope). And I, too, would like to get a $350 barebones upgrade for 70% off.

ludi wrote:

LoneWolf15 wrote:

You're kidding me, right Smalls?

Much lulz, especially since I was looking up various i5/7 prices the other week to see if there was any worthwhile upgrade path from my current i5-2500K (nope). And I, too, would like to get a $350 barebones upgrade for 70% off.

I'm actually planning on $200 for the combo, once I have my new rig up for a few days and burned in. I figure that's a happy medium for a board and proc that performs as phenomenally as this one has (and still does). My last three boards have been Gigabyte, because I've been so impressed with the stability and performance.

I do not need another CPU and mb..but would love to have it.

I was figuring you would keep it and build another rig since it is no slouch and has tons of life left in it.

If you put it in the bargain basement and start from 200 or best offer. Smalls thinks it worth a good 300$ especially since the CPU hits 4.2 on stock volts and that motherboard is awesome it has so many power phases.

bthylafh wrote:

What was the point of necro'ing this thread?

Not sure....

I think Lonewolf just wanted to show off his shiny, new toys.

DancinJack wrote:

I think Lonewolf just wanted to show off his shiny, new toys.

Actually, I missed the date on the thread at the time. D'oh!

Sold the 2600K and board today locally.