CPU Is an OC'd 2500K better than my 4670K? (Shameless self-promotion alert)

I bought an i5 2500K from TMDD recently (sold on behalf of Kronos) and was interested in how well it would overclock, and so was at least one other:

I was also interested in whether an i5 2500K overclocked as hard as it can go would be better than my 4670K which doesn't overclock for toffee and runs so hot it could cook your Sunday roast. So I tested it.

 

Not a lot of difference in most of those tests you ran.
The 2500k was\is a hell of a CPU.

 

nice to know the cpu still has some life in it.. changed it to stock for now.. don't feel like i need to oc it at the moment

 

Really interesting stuff, thanks BLC.
I was thinking about going 4670K from my current i3 4130, but the lack of overheat and hot running is a bit offputting. I may have to look at the 4690K or delidding.

My friends with Z68/2500K and Z77/3570K are both running at 4GHz with no problems with heat.

I am now really regretting on passing on 2 Maximus V Gene boards with 2500K CPUs... (even though they are mATX and I'm running ITX)

 

The 2500K is still an epic chip.

You can bet Intel will never make that mistake again.

 

They had to beat a strong chip before in the 2500k case. It was competing against the i7920 which was another beast of a overclocker. Then they added the 980 and 990 both of which offered alot of performance.

 

The 2500K was a large step up from the i7 920.

My 920 needed a 50% OC to compete with my stock 2500k.

 

I'm still using my i5 2500k at 4.8ghz. I nearly bought a used i7 2600k on ebay as I really would like bit more performance for 3d rendering but the way to go is GPU rendering. Even a 6 or 8 core Intel won't give anything like the performance I'd get from a GPU renderer.

I guess for games and regular stuff my i5k is fine.

 

This^

Depending on what you're rendering on, a GPU will definitely take the strain better.
I have a friend doing Blender work and bought an X99 Hex core, which will do a good job, but his single GTX970 is 3x faster every time.

It is interesting how poor the 4670K TIM is, I hadn't realised they ran so hot, the cooler 2500K OC than stock 4670K is a real eye opener for Haswell owners like me.

 

Yup, I have to get into blender. I have it installed.

You should buy a de-lid kit and drop those temps!

Or...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PGJ4YkEHx34

 

TheMadDutchDude who is offering delidding on the MP is 20mins away, so I could call on him as & when to do the deed - before he emigrates.
Much better than taking your expensive CPU and putting it in a vice yourself.

 

Makes me feel bad that my i5 2500K is on server and streaming duty. keep debating on if I should switch it round with my FX6300 and have that as the server and the i5 as my gaming system.

 

I can tell you from prior experience in driving my chip to the limit; the 2500K will be faster, by far. For most applications; the i5 will straight monster the 6300, the single-thread difference is insane, it's something to the order of 60% faster in single-threaded applications at around the same clock speed.

I'm not surprised that the 2500K comes so close to the 4670K under sane cooling though, later Intel chips absolutely suck at getting heat out of the Die in a hurry, I've seen a couple of friends munch through different Intel offerings and they've all seen similar issues, hitting some hard volt walls and thermal issues past about 4.6.

 

What are u waiting for? I know it's scary because you think about your warranty and what if anything goes wrong? I've never had an intel CPU fail on me and I have overclocked since the days of 486DX.

Use your 2500k for gaming!

I think 4.4 to 4.6 was the brick wall I hit with those CPU's when I built systems for a few people.

My 2500k is on 4.8 and used to be 4.9.

Was looking to upgrade to a 6 or 8 but 8 is way too expensive and my main reason would be for 3d rendering. A 6 core intel isn't going to make a massive difference even for rendering.

It seems the 2500k isn't a bottleneck for gaming when overclocked.

What do we think about the i7 2600K? One sold on ebay for £85 recently.

 

I have the i7 2700k, same CPU slightly different bin. It is running at 4 GHz happily doing BOINC no problem. 70c maximum temperature with a lazy fan speed on D14. Turbo boost to 4.2 GHz for 1 core, and 4.1 GHz for 2 cores.

If you can spend a few extra quids for the i7, it's totally worth it.

 

It's only not a bottleneck at 4K resolution. You will lose both min and average fps below this point.

 

Good. Has u been above that speed with it?

I do not understand... It is bottleneck lower than 4k res?

 

According to my spreadsheet, I have benchmarked and tested to be stable at 4.5 GHz, turbo to 4.8 GHz. But temperature and voltage is a bit high for my liking, also too much airflow/noise for normal usage. For me, 4GHz is the sweet-spot in noise and performance. It's also a nice round number

If I don't set single/dual core turbo boost, I could probably manage 4.6 GHz with lower voltage, or 4.2 GHz for normal use. But I like the idea of automatic boost only when needed.

 

With the latest gpu it would be, but only for bench purposes. Which is all we have to go on.

SLI also easily requires more than even the best CPU can offer with 2 1070s or 2 1080s both heavily bottlenecked below 4K.

1 1070 is faster than 2 in certain games due to driver and CPU overhead on a 6 core CPU at 4.6ghz guru3d did the benches.

 

Can confirm that SLI bottlenecks hard on some processors, even with vastly slower cards, I have difficulty hitting full utilisation in a fair few games, especially newer games that are more processor intensive.