My media PC went Q6600 -> i5 750 -> i3 2120. I also discovered some invoices on Scan recently which shocked me somewhat - damn, DDR2 was expensive (as was 4Gb of DDR3 when I bought the 750...) PS Sorry Nick, this has sort of become a nostalgic reminiscing session!
Reminiscing is good, I bought an E6300 on the day it came out, made a tasty upgrade from an Athlon XP2400+ Replaced it with the E6600 as soon as I realised it was a cripple. Don't make me reminisce about the time I upgraded a Celeron 533 to a Celeron 733 and saw absolutely no benefit because both chips were dogs anyway...
Yes I too have wanted one and have constantly fought the urge to buy one and just stick with my 2500k. I finally relented last week after I convinced myself that seen as I was going to buy a new CPU for a HTPC, rather than buy a slower, lower powered chip for the HTPC, I could use my 2500k. Then I could buy a 2700k for my main rig. I convinced (fooled) myself that: 1.) I don't need a low powered chip in HTPC as it won't be on constantly 2.) I do lots of video encoding. Reality is, I should have bought a lower powered chip for HTPC and I don't really need to worry about waiting another 30 minutes for encoding to complete. But, I am happy as my chip has 200 more!!!!!!!!!!!! The itch I've had to upgrade has been scratched
Well I went from in i5 2500k > i7 2700k > i7 3770k. I don't know why I did as the combination of my i7 2700k and gene IV were giving me an overclock of 5.2ghz. I think it was the fact that it was NEW and SHINY was the reason I moved to IB. Also it's epeen I could show off that I don't have to settle for a mid range CPU I can get top of the range. Stupid really!!
Isn't it funny how the entire enthusiast PC industry is geared towards telling us that we need that next upgrade as it'll be faster, better and generally more awesome, whereas in reality those incremental upgrades tend to be a case of diminishing returns - as a hypothetical example, 10% extra "performance" is nice, but is it worth £150? Especially when you'll probably barely notice that additional performance in the real world It's a different story when you're skipping a couple of generations, in fairness. There's certainly a balance to be struck between cutting edge, bleeding edge and legacy, but there's a real obsession with having the best kit, even if the best is only a fraction better than the next best - as an example, look at hardware reviews and chuckle as they describe a GPU that can only produce 65fps when the best is doing 68fps as "slow", or an motherboard that is 0.5% slower in benchmarks as having "poor performance" - the reality is that both of these products will be very good, but we don't want very good, we want the best! Of course, this is all moot as most non-productivity users probably have massively over-specced rigs anyway
Ah but it's all about those couple of extra FPS, right? Skipping a couple of generations makes a difference, but you're right - incremental upgrades give such little benefit, it's hardly worth it! Oh, and I've been down the totally overspecced HTPC route. It's brilliant, I admit, but who needs a quad core HTPC for watching blu-rays?!
Welp I ain't upgrading my 2500k any time soon. Seeing as this thread is turning into "which CPU's did you go through" here's my input: I went from an Athlon K6-II (333MHz?) to Pentium E5200 to i5 2500k all in the last 5-7 years or so! Talk about massive jumps. On the topic of nostalgia, before that I had a 486 based Windows 3.1 dos monster from Ambra. An absolute beauty if ever there was one. Used to play Prince of Persia (original DOS version) and Captain Comic on that. Perhaps that's why everyone does have 2500k's
Video transcoding benefits from more threads but to be honest when I'm transcoding on my OC'ed 2500K it so quick I can't see a 2600K/2700K saving me more that a few minutes per transcode. Don't really transcode on my rig anymore since I upgraded the NAS and got a smart TV. Just stream straight from the NAS to the TV now.
The 2500k is such a beautiful chip. As was the E6600 up until a few years ago. Reminiscing made me remember this thread I started a few years back.
I remember using the 2500K I had and it was a decent chip. My whole upgrade from when I actually started buying cpu's etc myself went like this: AMD 5200 X2 > AMD 6000 X2 > Intel Q6600 > Intel Q9450 > Intel I7 920 > Intel I7 950 > Intel I7 2600K > Intel I5 2500K > Intel I7 2700K > Intel I7 3930K Spent quite allot over the years lol As for the upgrade question at hand, I don't think it's worth the cost if you are only gaming. I mainly game on mine but because I also am getting back in to the video and photo editing stuff I decided to upgrade to a system that will reduce that time. I just now need to find the right settings for a overclock on my cpu, but I just have not had the time.
Wow, I've only ever had 4 chips. AMD K62-475 -> Pentium 4 3Ghz -> i5 750 -> i5 2500K. All of these provided decent jumps in speed. The 2500K mainly because its such a wonderful overclocker.
I had the "real deal" when it comes to naming processors "2500", the mighty Athlon 2500XP-M, also the 2500XP+, 2400XP+ and 3200XP+ Jumped from the 2500XP-M to the 3700+ San Diego (beauty of a chip), then a dual core Opteron 165. Since then I've owned in sequence Q6600, E2160, E6600 and now an i7 920. The Intel dual cores were a separate machine. I suddenly fancy building up my old Athlon 2500XP-M rig, I've still got most of important bits, CPU/MOBO/MEM, i did have some BH-5 (I fear only a few remember these chips), but I needed more memory for 3D work so I have 2GB of Corsair Pro XMS LED Ram PC4000. Real overclocking
I've had, in the time that I've been buying PC bits myself (if memory serves correct (and my memory is like Sheldon Cooper's): AMD K5 -> AMD K6 -> K6 II -> Athlon XP 2100+ -> Athlon 64 3200+ -> Athlon 64 X2 3500+ and P4 2.8 -> Athlon 64 X2 5200+ -> E6300 -> E6320 (don't ask) -> E6600 (I've had a few of these) -> Q6600 and Pentium D 940(?) -> QX6850 -> Q9450 -> i7 2600k and i5 750 and i3 2120 and E8400 I've still got a Q6600, a Pentium D, an E8400, an i5 750, an i7 2600k and an i3 2120 in 'live' machines. When do we start on mobile chips? Ha! Just looking back at this (and my obsession with audio gear) it's a wonder I've actually got a girlfriend...
If I went further back to the point where I was given cpu's etc then I would be going back along way. The 1st pc I ever had that I actually used properly was I think a old 486.
