Intel i7-2600 vs Intel i5-4690K

[JellyfishRave]

Hi everyone! So here's the situation:
My graphics card is very old, and is starting to work less efficiently/break. Upon ordering a replacement, the Radeon r9 380, I found out it's not compatible with my motherboard. The issue is, the current processor is an i7-2600, which uses an LGA 1155 socket, which are very old. Looking for new processors with more updated sockets so I can get a newer motherboard, the i5-4690K looked decent, but CPU Benchmark says it's about 550 points worse than the 2600. Is that because the 2600 has 2 logical cores per physical core? How much does that really matter in a practical situation? Price isn't necessarily a huge object, but obviously low price high quality is preferred. Any advice here is appreciated! Thanks!

EDIT: It turns out that the Dell XPS 8300 BIOS is incompatible with the R9 380. Thank you all so much for the help, I truly appreciate it!

 

[Mr Hat]

Hi everyone! So here's the situation:
My graphics card is very old, and is starting to work less efficiently/break. Upon ordering a replacement, the Radeon r9 380, I found out it's not compatible with my motherboard. The issue is, the current processor is an i7-2600, which uses an LGA 1155 socket, which are very old. Looking for new processors with more updated sockets so I can get a newer motherboard, the i5-4690K looked decent, but CPU Benchmark says it's about 550 points worse than the 2600. Is that because the 2600 has 2 logical cores per physical core? How much does that really matter in a practical situation? Price isn't necessarily a huge object, but obviously low price high quality is preferred. Any advice here is appreciated! Thanks!

Hey, it would be nice if we knew your budget, are you willing to buy *for example* a B150 mobo and a i5-6500, or is that out of you price range?

 

[sizzling]

What motherboard do you have, I can't think why a 380 wouldn't be compatible as PCIE is backwards compatible?

I'd be more concerned about what make and model PSU you have?

 

[Mr Hat]

What motherboard do you have, I can't think why a 380 wouldn't be compatible as PCIE is backwards compatible?

I'd be more concerned about what make and model PSU you have?

That's what I thought too...

 

[DonkeyOatie]

Why do you say it is not compatible with your motherboard? PCI 2 is capable of driving that card., or is it a physical fit problem? If you want to upgrade, that's fine, but you may not have to.

When comparing CPUs, you need to distinguish the difference between 'depth' and 'width'. The individual cores of the Haswell i5 are better by a decent amount, when running at the same clock speed as your i7 (this is 'depth') However, the i7 has Hyperthreading and behaves, throughput-wise, as if it has about 5.5 cores, rather than the 4 physical cores it has. The greater number of cores is 'width' If a task or benchmark can fully use all the available cores, then the results are like what you observed.

HOWEVER, gaming often uses one or two cores, and very rarely uses more than four, so for gaming, a faster four core processor is better than a lower eight core, six core, or Hyperthreaded processor.

Check the benchmarks for the CPU I have in this computer, the Xeon 1231v3, against your i7 and the i5 you are looking at. It costs about the same as the i5, is a bit slower, but has Hyperthreading.

1. Check things our to see if you can keep your exiting system.
2. Compare benchmarks for the task you are doing or the games you are playing.
3. Although it may need RAM consider Skylake as an option, it is about 5% faster than Haswell, per core.

 

[JellyfishRave]

What motherboard do you have, I can't think why a 380 wouldn't be compatible as PCIE is backwards compatible?

I'd be more concerned about what make and model PSU you have?

I thought that as well at first, but I heard it was an issue with the stock Dell motherboard. It's an XPS 8300, which came default with the computer from like 5 years ago(super old, I know). Got a new PSU for the 380. It's a Rosewill RD 700-M. As far as all my calculations went, it should have had much more power than it needed, but the card just lit up, fans spun, but I got no display when I had the 8pin connector in. 6 pins and I got a display directly from the motherboard, but nothing from the VGA port, but still no luck. Sent it back because I thought it was defective, but the new one did the same thing. Hopefully that's enough info, but I can give more detail if you need it. Thanks!

 

[JellyfishRave]

Hi everyone! So here's the situation:
My graphics card is very old, and is starting to work less efficiently/break. Upon ordering a replacement, the Radeon r9 380, I found out it's not compatible with my motherboard. The issue is, the current processor is an i7-2600, which uses an LGA 1155 socket, which are very old. Looking for new processors with more updated sockets so I can get a newer motherboard, the i5-4690K looked decent, but CPU Benchmark says it's about 550 points worse than the 2600. Is that because the 2600 has 2 logical cores per physical core? How much does that really matter in a practical situation? Price isn't necessarily a huge object, but obviously low price high quality is preferred. Any advice here is appreciated! Thanks!

Hey, it would be nice if we knew your budget, are you willing to buy *for example* a B150 mobo and a i5-6500, or is that out of you price range?

Hmm, well it would be nice to not have to spend much more than 500, but definitely not more than 700.

 

[Mr Hat]

Hi everyone! So here's the situation:
My graphics card is very old, and is starting to work less efficiently/break. Upon ordering a replacement, the Radeon r9 380, I found out it's not compatible with my motherboard. The issue is, the current processor is an i7-2600, which uses an LGA 1155 socket, which are very old. Looking for new processors with more updated sockets so I can get a newer motherboard, the i5-4690K looked decent, but CPU Benchmark says it's about 550 points worse than the 2600. Is that because the 2600 has 2 logical cores per physical core? How much does that really matter in a practical situation? Price isn't necessarily a huge object, but obviously low price high quality is preferred. Any advice here is appreciated! Thanks!

Hey, it would be nice if we knew your budget, are you willing to buy *for example* a B150 mobo and a i5-6500, or is that out of you price range?

Hmm, well it would be nice to not have to spend much more than 500, but definitely not more than 700.

What currency is that? A B150 mobo, and a i5-6500 cost about $400 together. That's an awesome combo, and it's able to handle all games! If you want more performance, you can always buy a 6600(K) or 6700(K), but that 6500 is the sweet spot in my opinion.

 

[JellyfishRave]

Why do you say it is not compatible with your motherboard? PCI 2 is capable of driving that card., or is it a physical fit problem? If you want to upgrade, that's fine, but you may not have to.

When comparing CPUs, you need to distinguish the difference between 'depth' and 'width'. The individual cores of the Haswell i5 are better by a decent amount, when running at the same clock speed as your i7 (this is 'depth') However, the i7 has Hyperthreading and behaves, throughput-wise, as if it has about 5.5 cores, rather than the 4 physical cores it has. The greater number of cores is 'width' If a task or benchmark can fully use all the available cores, then the results are like what you observed.

HOWEVER, gaming often uses one or two cores, and very rarely uses more than four, so for gaming, a faster four core processor is better than a lower eight core, six core, or Hyperthreaded processor.

Check the benchmarks for the CPU I have in this computer, the Xeon 1231v3, against your i7 and the i5 you are looking at. It costs about the same as the i5, is a bit slower, but has Hyperthreading.

1. Check things our to see if you can keep your exiting system.
2. Compare benchmarks for the task you are doing or the games you are playing.
3. Although it may need RAM consider Skylake as an option, it is about 5% faster than Haswell, per core.

As for the compatibility thing, I read that it was an issue with the stock Dell motherboard. I made a thread about the issue a month or two ago here: http://www.tomshardware.com/answers/id-2939319/gigabyte-380-startup-issues-dell-xps-8300.html
It fits physically just fine, but it's the part where it actually does anything that's the issue.

Also, your processor doesn't seem to be showing up on the CPU Benchmark.

 

[JellyfishRave]

Hi everyone! So here's the situation:
My graphics card is very old, and is starting to work less efficiently/break. Upon ordering a replacement, the Radeon r9 380, I found out it's not compatible with my motherboard. The issue is, the current processor is an i7-2600, which uses an LGA 1155 socket, which are very old. Looking for new processors with more updated sockets so I can get a newer motherboard, the i5-4690K looked decent, but CPU Benchmark says it's about 550 points worse than the 2600. Is that because the 2600 has 2 logical cores per physical core? How much does that really matter in a practical situation? Price isn't necessarily a huge object, but obviously low price high quality is preferred. Any advice here is appreciated! Thanks!

Hey, it would be nice if we knew your budget, are you willing to buy *for example* a B150 mobo and a i5-6500, or is that out of you price range?

Hmm, well it would be nice to not have to spend much more than 500, but definitely not more than 700.

What currency is that? A B150 mobo, and a i5-6500 cost about $400 together. That's an awesome combo, and it's able to handle all games! If you want more performance, you can always buy a 6600(K) or 6700(K), but that 6500 is the sweet spot in my opinion.

Ah, sorry, it's USD! That doesn't sound too bad if it comes down to it! It almost sounds like there's another issue with the motherboard not being able to run the 380 by some of the replies here though, so an upgrade might not be necessary, but would be nice to keep in mind!

 

[sizzling]

Oh a Dell, yeah all bets are off with what is compatible. You need to go with what Dell say will work

 

[JellyfishRave]

What motherboard do you have, I can't think why a 380 wouldn't be compatible as PCIE is backwards compatible?

I'd be more concerned about what make and model PSU you have?

That's what I thought too...

That's what everyone seemed to say when I first researched it, but there was absolutely no fix that worked with that regard, and the PSU is like, 200W over what it should need, until one person mentioned something about the Dell XPS 8300 default motherboard not being compatible with the card, which was contradictory to what everyone else said.

 

[Mr Hat]

What motherboard do you have, I can't think why a 380 wouldn't be compatible as PCIE is backwards compatible?

I'd be more concerned about what make and model PSU you have?

That's what I thought too...

That's what everyone seemed to say when I first researched it, but there was absolutely no fix that worked with that regard, and the PSU is like, 200W over what it should need, until one person mentioned something about the Dell XPS 8300 default motherboard not being compatible with the card, which was contradictory to what everyone else said.

I know companies who block/do not allow upgrades in the mobo bios. Maybe Dell's bios just isn't capable.

 

[DonkeyOatie]

It's a BIOS problem. Dell A6 is alleged to support the R9 270X, but all other AMD R9s will not work with any Dell BIOS available for that motherboard. NVidia cards will work.

Dell removed support and BIOS updates in 2011 for that board IIRC. So you are definitely SOL.

 

[JellyfishRave]

Oh a Dell, yeah all bets are off with what is compatible. You need to go with what Dell say will work

Was afraid that was the case. Thanks very much though for confirming! I appreciate it!

 

[JellyfishRave]

I know companies who block/do not allow upgrades in the mobo bios. Maybe Dell's bios just isn't capable.

That seems to be the general consensus about Dell. Thanks for the advice!

 

[Mr Hat]

I know companies who block/do not allow upgrades in the mobo bios. Maybe Dell's bios just isn't capable.

That seems to be the general consensus about Dell. Thanks for the advice!

No problemo!

 

[JellyfishRave]

It's a BIOS problem. Dell A6 is alleged to support the R9 270X, but all other AMD R9s will not work with any Dell BIOS available for that motherboard. NVidia cards will work.

Ah, dang. Let's say I keep the 380 and upgrade the motherboard and CPU to prevent future issues, what would you recommend for that sort of combination?

 

[Mr Hat]

It's a BIOS problem. Dell A6 is alleged to support the R9 270X, but all other AMD R9s will not work with any Dell BIOS available for that motherboard. NVidia cards will work.

Ah, dang. Let's say I keep the 380 and upgrade the motherboard and CPU to prevent future issues, what would you recommend for that sort of combination?

i5-6500 with a B150 is a pretty cheap, and great solution with that GPU

 

[JellyfishRave]

It's a BIOS problem. Dell A6 is alleged to support the R9 270X, but all other AMD R9s will not work with any Dell BIOS available for that motherboard. NVidia cards will work.

Ah, dang. Let's say I keep the 380 and upgrade the motherboard and CPU to prevent future issues, what would you recommend for that sort of combination?

i5-6500 with a B150 is a pretty cheap, and great solution with that GPU

The 6500 looks great, but searching B150 comes up with a few results. Is this the one you meant? https://www.asus.com/us/Motherboards/B150-PRO-GAMING-D3/

Also, as far as the 6500 goes, cpubenchmark scores it 1200 points lower than the 2600, which seems odd because of the huge difference in age. Then again, as someone who's kind of new at this whole thing, cpubenchmark might not mean much. Are the ratings on that site that accurate/worth paying that much attention to?

 

[DonkeyOatie]

When you say CPU Benchmark, do you mean Passmark or something else, if else, please link to it?

Passmark measures 'area'; 'width' x 'depth' The top CPUs all have huge numbers of slowish cores and are all weak gaming choices, as well as being crazy expensive.. Passmark is a mostly worthless guide for gaming systems because as long as it is 'wide' enough (has enough cores) all that matters is 'depth'; core speed and throughput.

Passmark measures total throughput. The top chips are like locomotive engines of 20,000h.p., but no use for a race car.

On Passmark, my CPU scores 9620, your i7 scores 8267, the 4690K 7717, and the 6600K, 7795, all at stock. Overclocked, an i5 4690K gets to 9006.

 

[JellyfishRave]

When you say CPU Benchmark, do you mean Passmark or something else, if else, please link to it?

Passmark measures 'area'; 'width' x 'depth' The top CPUs all have huge numbers of slowish cores and are all weak gaming choices, as well as being crazy expensive.. Passmark is a mostly worthless guide for gaming systems because as long as it is 'wide' enough (has enough cores) all that matters is 'depth'; core speed and throughput.

Passmark measures total throughput. The top chips are like locomotive engines of 20,000h.p., but no use for a race car.

I'm pretty sure this is Passmark: http://www.cpubenchmark.net
Your explanation would make perfect sense for as to why despite being super old, the 2600 is almost impossible to beat in score. You've been a huge help this far by the way and I appreciate it, thanks a bunch!

 

[Mr Hat]

For the B150, that's indeed what I meant, I bought the MSI B150M Night Elf, for under a €100, and it's even got fancy red lighting xD. It's a great board if you're not planning to OC, I highly suggest it.

 

[DonkeyOatie]

When you say CPU Benchmark, do you mean Passmark or something else, if else, please link to it?

Passmark measures 'area'; 'width' x 'depth' The top CPUs all have huge numbers of slowish cores and are all weak gaming choices, as well as being crazy expensive.. Passmark is a mostly worthless guide for gaming systems because as long as it is 'wide' enough (has enough cores) all that matters is 'depth'; core speed and throughput.

Passmark measures total throughput. The top chips are like locomotive engines of 20,000h.p., but no use for a race car.

I'm pretty sure this is Passmark: http://www.cpubenchmark.net
Your explanation would make perfect sense for as to why despite being super old, the 2600 is almost impossible to beat in score. You've been a huge help this far by the way and I appreciate it, thanks a bunch!

My CPU score 9620 ! It is decent for gaming and great for computation.

If you do an 'upgrade' you are essentially building a new system.

More unfortunate news, you will likely have to get a new OS license. Your old license is an OEM Dell license, keyed to your old motherboard and according to the EULA, non-transterable.

Just how much do you want to spend. You can get a decent, mostlyt new computer for $500 to $600, salvaging the parts you have.

 

[JellyfishRave]

For the B150, that's indeed what I meant, I bought the MSI B150M Night Elf, for under a €100, and it's even got fancy red lighting xD. It's a great board if you're not planning to OC, I highly suggest it.

Oh wow, that looks super cool! Was the Night Elf version a sort of limited promotion thing though? Because I can't seem to find any major sites selling it. It sounds fantastic, because overclocking isn't typically my goal!