About to pull the trigger on a 2500K?

[Am*]

I'm really tempted to buy a 2500K now.


Currently rolling on my Celeron SB chip and wondering if it is the right time to upgrade back to a high end chip? The 2500K has dropped by about £40 since its launch price, which covers the whole price of my Celeron chip , which will see use probably about a year down the line in another motherboard. I almost swore to myself that I wasn't going to upgrade until PCIE 3.0 CPUs hit, but after seeing the 3750K reviews I don't see prices dropping in the next 6 months at least (I don't see AMD changing this in any way this year), since Ivy seems pretty much the same as far as processing power goes (don't care about GPU improvements, my mobo will disable it anyway). My usage is playing games (Saints Row 3, L4D2, GTA IV etc) and some sound editing programs. My current chip scrapes playable framerates in SR3 and is not playable in GTA IV.

So what do you reckon folks? To buy, or not to buy a 2500K?

 

[phanbuey]

buy it and over clock it...

The SB chips are really not that much slower than the IB chips... That would be a nice chip to OC and it will last you a LONG time.

I mean I still have my i5 750 OC'ed and it is still relevant clock for clock to the 2500K in games. Crank it 4.0Ghz, and you will have yourself a rig that will run like hell for years.

Although... if I had to choose anything in your system to upgrade, it would be that 460 or that Monitor... 1080P 22-24" is super cheap these days.

 

[Soup]

Will you be overclocking? If not, have you thought about a Xeon E3?

 

[Kantastic]

Only if you're paying less than $140 for one.

 

[Am*]

buy it and over clock it...

The SB chips are really not that much slower than the IB chips... That would be a nice chip to OC and it will last you a LONG time.

I mean I still have my i5 750 OC'ed and it is still relevant clock for clock to the 2500K in games. Crank it 4.0Ghz, and you will have yourself a rig that will run like hell for years.

Although... if I had to choose anything in your system to upgrade, it would be that 460 or that Monitor... 1080P 22-24" is super cheap these days.

Will upgrade the monitor as soon as I upgrade my GPU. Definitely a good idea though, I'll look into this in the not too distant future.

Will you be overclocking? If not, have you thought about a Xeon E3?

Will be overclocking at stock voltage. The mobo is only 4+1 phase, I think. Xeons are probably out of my budget.

Only if you're paying less than $140 for one.

Well I'm in the UK, and for most of the stuff we seem to be paying the same amount as you Americans, only in pounds... we don't have rebates and cutthroat retailers like you lucky folks do, heheh. So, yeah it's about £140.

 

[Dippyskoodlez]

2500K is a very solid chip. For a good price, Its totally worth it.

I love mine, and have no motivation/desire to get an Ivybridge other than OMG MHZZZZZ, really.

Especially if you're coming from a celeron. 7-10% performance is overhyped when with a 2500k you will never really really put stress on it with modern games.

 

[Am*]

Few more questions

1. Outside of gaming, is there a major "real world" difference between the 2500K and my Celeron (doing web browsing and general multitasking). I've seen some folks claim to not notice a major difference outside of gaming from their E8400s/8500s, and my Celeron is about as fast as a stock E8400 in most stuff.
2. Will the 2500K at around 4GHz, beat my old 965 BE@4.2GHz, and by how much roughly (in gaming and sound editing)?

 

[Vulpesveritas]

Few more questions

1. Outside of gaming, is there a major "real world" difference between the 2500K and my Celeron (doing web browsing and general multitasking). I've seen some folks claim to not notice a major difference outside of gaming from their E8400s/8500s and my Celeron, which is about as fast as a stock E8400.
2. Will the 2500K at around 4GHz, beat my old 965 BE@4.2GHz, and by how much roughly (in gaming and sound editing)?

1. Yes. You have more cores to draw on so multitasking will be smoother.
2. Yes, about 20% faster on the CPU end.

 

[Am*]

Well I finally upgraded to the 2500K today and clocked it up to 4GHz straight off the bat on a £13 cooler, that still manages to keep it under 25C at idle and less than 50C with a silent fan and at 100% load. Very impressive (was gonna buy a DH-14 for it, that's about 5 times more expensive). My friend's 2500K in my exact same rig loaded at 61C with the exact same settings used.

The only downfall is this thing obviously uses a LOT more power. My Celeron idled at 55W at the wall and loaded at 85W, now I'm idling at 94W and loading at about 153W with the current overclock. No doubt I will put my Celeron to good use later on in another build, as it is still one kickass little CPU that nothing can beat for the money. Time for me to see what this 2500K is really capable of...

 

[Fourstaff]

You are going from 1C2T to 4C4T with a hefty OC, obviously its going to drink much more power.

Enjoy your power

 

[Am*]

You are going from 1C2T to 4C4T with a hefty OC, obviously its going to drink much more power.

Enjoy your power

Well it's actually a 2C2T CPU, but you're right. I was expecting it anyways.

And thanks now the waiting game begins for my next GPU upgrade ...

 

[Yo_Wattup]

Well I finally upgraded to the 2500K today and clocked it up to 4GHz straight off the bat on a £13 cooler, that still manages to keep it under 25C at idle and less than 50C with a silent fan and at 100% load. Very impressive (was gonna buy a DH-14 for it, that's about 5 times more expensive). My friend's 2500K in my exact same rig loaded at 61C with the exact same settings used.

The only downfall is this thing obviously uses a LOT more power. My Celeron idled at 55W at the wall and loaded at 85W, now I'm idling at 94W and loading at about 153W with the current overclock. No doubt I will put my Celeron to good use later on in another build, as it is still one kickass little CPU that nothing can beat for the money. Time for me to see what this 2500K is really capable of...

You've got plenty of room.go improve that overclock ....

 

[acepwnsyou]

I'm really tempted to buy a 2500K now.


Currently rolling on my Celeron SB chip and wondering if it is the right time to upgrade back to a high end chip? The 2500K has dropped by about £40 since its launch price, which covers the whole price of my Celeron chip , which will see use probably about a year down the line in another motherboard. I almost swore to myself that I wasn't going to upgrade until PCIE 3.0 CPUs hit, but after seeing the 3750K reviews I don't see prices dropping in the next 6 months at least (I don't see AMD changing this in any way this year), since Ivy seems pretty much the same as far as processing power goes (don't care about GPU improvements, my mobo will disable it anyway). My usage is playing games (Saints Row 3, L4D2, GTA IV etc) and some sound editing programs. My current chip scrapes playable framerates in SR3 and is not playable in GTA IV.

So what do you reckon folks? To buy, or not to buy a 2500K?

save for another few days and get the 2600K for the hyperthreading

 

[FreedomEclipse]

save for another few days and get the 2600K for the hyperthreading

Hyperthreading does very little for gaming. It has been known to cause micro stuttering and CTDs.

I think I heard of a member running his 2600k or 2700k with HT off as having it on would totally make BF3 unplayable.

HT is great for media encoding and crunching though.

 

[Dippyskoodlez]

Hyperthreading does very little for gaming. It has been known to cause micro stuttering and CTDs.

I think I heard of a member running his 2600k or 2700k with HT off as having it on would totally make BF3 unplayable.

HT is great for media encoding and crunching though.

I was running a 2.2i7 in my laptop for a while, and have a 2500 in my desktop; HT is quite overrated. Benchmarks show this.

Media OTOH may show a little bit of a gap, but thats nothing a few Mhz can't take care of

When I rebuilt my desktop, HT has not convinced me to part with the cash to upgrade from i5->i7. (Especially with how little my CPU is stressed compared to my GPU.)