Overclock 2600K or Upgrade?

[PCGUY2015]

Hello! I have an i7-2600K Sandy Bridge Build with everything at stock speeds.. my friend just upgraded to i7-6700K Skylake.. was wondering if I overclock my system will It match or at least have an significant boost or should I upgrade to Skylake.. Also I know a little about overclocking.. What I know is that multiplier is the cpu speed.. and that power should be set according to cpu speed..Can anybody please explain to be the main concept of overclocking.. for example what are the following?

CPU PLL overvoltage
enhanced halt c1e
c6/c6 statesupport
cpu eist function
bi-directional prochot

Here is the list of my PC components
CPU = Intel Core i7-2600K
MOBO = Gigabyte Z68AP-D3 Rev 2.0
RAM = Corsair Vengeance 16GB(4X4GB) DDR3 (CMZ8GX3M2A1600C9B)
PSU = Rosewill ARC 750
SSD = Kington HyperX FURY SSD (SH103S3240G)
CPU Cooler = Corsair H60
GPU = EVGA GTX 960 2GB 02G-P4-2962-KR

I know it may be a long explanation to all of this, but if anybody isn't busy or has the time to explain to me this things I'll appreciate it greatly.. I've searched about how to do this but to be honest I don't understand what they mean they use the words from above or others that I have no idea what they mean.. thank a lot

 

[geofelt]

Your 2500K cpu is a bit old, but is still good.
How good do you need to be?
If your games are sims, strategy or mmo types, then your performance will be gated largely by the performance of the single master thread.
A i7-6700 is about as good as it gets in that department.
Yes, you can overclock to good effect.
I would do that first and see if the results are satisfactory.
Overclocking is somewhat of a misnomer. The "K" suffix processors are designed to have their performance boosted.
Intel can not say by how much because that will depend on the quality of your particular chip and your cooling.

As to the particular settings, do a google search.
Here is the first hit:
http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/cpus/2011/01/07/how-to-overclock-the-intel-core-i5-2500k/1

Your motherboard may possibly have a automatic oc option.
You could try that, but I found that they were perhaps a bit aggressive and that simple bios overclocking was better.

 

[dark_lord69]

I would overclock...
Your CPU is still decent and the speed increase you would see from an upgrade might be minimal (STILL) at this point.

 

[PCGUY2015]

Your 2500K cpu is a bit old, but is still good.
How good do you need to be?
If your games are sims, strategy or mmo types, then your performance will be gated largely by the performance of the single master thread.
A i7-6700 is about as good as it gets in that department.
Yes, you can overclock to good effect.
I would do that first and see if the results are satisfactory.
Overclocking is somewhat of a misnomer. The "K" suffix processors are designed to have their performance boosted.
Intel can not say by how much because that will depend on the quality of your particular chip and your cooling.

As to the particular settings, do a google search.
Here is the first hit:
http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/cpus/2011/01/07/how-to-overclock-the-intel-core-i5-2500k/1

Your motherboard may possibly have a automatic oc option.
You could try that, but I found that they were perhaps a bit aggressive and that simple bios overclocking was better.

Thank you so much for your reply.. I use this PC for gaming and editing.. yeah I'll give it a try on overclocking and see if the results are enough for what I need.. So do you think my motherboard can overclock my cpu?

 

[huvik]

do not upgrade your cpu, use that money to upgrade you gpu. you will notice ALOT more performance improvement, for less money.

 

[PCGUY2015]

I would overclock...
Your CPU is still decent and the speed increase you would see from an upgrade might be minimal (STILL) at this point.

Thanks! Do you know what is a good speed to overclock this cpu to?

 

[huvik]

My brother inlaw has the i7-2600k and he runs at 4.3 while gaming. he is using the nepton 240m for cooling.

 

[PCGUY2015]

do not upgrade your cpu, use that money to upgrade you gpu. you will notice ALOT more performance improvement, for less money.

Thanks! Yeah I upgraded from a GTX 550ti to an GTX 960.. maybe should have upgraded to something better?

 

[huvik]

Yes, you should of invested as much money as possible into your gpu

 

[PCGUY2015]

My brother inlaw has the i7-2600k and he runs at 4.3 while gaming. he is using the nepton 240m for cooling.

Yeah I think aound that speed will be ok.. I don't think my cpu cooler will keep up at higher speeds

 

[geofelt]

I would overclock...
Your CPU is still decent and the speed increase you would see from an upgrade might be minimal (STILL) at this point.

Thanks! Do you know what is a good speed to overclock this cpu to?

No, and neither does anybody else.
How high you can safely go is primarily determined by the quality of your chip.
Stress test with occt which will shut down the test at 85c.
When you reach the max, back off a notch.

 

[PCGUY2015]

I would overclock...
Your CPU is still decent and the speed increase you would see from an upgrade might be minimal (STILL) at this point.

Thanks! Do you know what is a good speed to overclock this cpu to?

No, and neither does anybody else.
How high you can safely go is primarily determined by the quality of your chip.
Stress test with occt which will shut down the test at 85c.
When you reach the max, back off a notch.

Got it! I'll give it a try

 

[why_wolf]

Not really. Depending on how much money you have it might be wiser to just overclock for now and just spend the next year or two saving up money so you can buy top end parts when you do upgrade.

 

[PCGUY2015]

I noticed my MOBO BIOS version is FB.. I will still be able to overclock right?

 

[geofelt]

A motherboard bios update always has some risk.
A failed bios update can permanently brick your motherboard.
If the update fixes a problem that is impacting you, then ok, but otherwise do not update a bios on speculation.

A conservative overclock should not be a problem with any initial bios on a Z68 motherboard.

If you are using the stock intel cooler, you will not be able to do as well as the chip is capable of.
Under load, the cooler fan will spin up and get noisy.
Still, you can get a good oc out of it.

If you want to invest in a better cooler, $30 or so buys you a cryorig H7 with a quieter 120mm fan.

Overclocking will help with your editing and batch apps and with games such as sims, mmo and strategy types.

If you play multiplayer, that too.

For fast action games, a graphics upgrade may be more effective.
But, I would wait on that until the next round of graphics cards come out in June.

 

[Gurg]

Hello! I have an i7-2600K Sandy Bridge Build with everything at stock speeds.. my friend just upgraded to i7-6700K Skylake.. was wondering if I overclock my system will It match or at least have an significant boost or should I upgrade to Skylake.. Also I know a little about overclocking.. What I know is that multiplier is the cpu speed.. and that power should be set according to cpu speed..Can anybody please explain to be the main concept of overclocking.. for example what are the following?

CPU PLL overvoltage
enhanced halt c1e
c6/c6 statesupport
cpu eist function
bi-directional prochot

Here is the list of my PC components
CPU = Intel Core i7-2600K
MOBO = Gigabyte Z68AP-D3 Rev 2.0
RAM = Corsair Vengeance 16GB(4X4GB) DDR3 (CMZ8GX3M2A1600C9B)
PSU = Rosewill ARC 750
SSD = Kington HyperX FURY SSD (SH103S3240G)
CPU Cooler = Corsair H60
GPU = EVGA GTX 960 2GB 02G-P4-2962-KR

I know it may be a long explanation to all of this, but if anybody isn't busy or has the time to explain to me this things I'll appreciate it greatly.. I've searched about how to do this but to be honest I don't understand what they mean they use the words from above or others that I have no idea what they mean.. thank a lot

Since you already use a closed loop cooler you are giving up performance by not overclocking. You should be able to push the 2600k closer to 4.8 mhz. Your Gigabyte motherboard offers the following " Easytune6 utility for safe overclocking:

http://www.gigabyte.com/products/product-page.aspx?pid=4015#utility
http://www.gigabyte.com/microsite/98/html/technology-guide-ultra-performance-7.htm?n=p7

Further what is your downside? Your 2600k and motherboard are old and essentially worthless. Pump them up with an overclock and see what you can accomplish. If something should go terribly wrong, well you were considering replacing them with new anyway. For comparison run a free Firestrike or Passmark performance utility before overclocking just to see how your system performs now and for comparison to after overclocking.

 

[Valantar]

Upgrading your mobo, CPU and RAM unless you really, really need to makes very little sense. Unless you mainly play RTSs, MOBA and simulators, CPU speed is not the main contributor to game performance.

I still use an (overclocked) Core 2 Quad Q9450 (2,66GHz, @3,52GHz with a Hyper 212 Evo). It's paired with an R9 Fury X. Sure, the card could benefit from a faster CPU. But not that much - my measurements (comparing to various reviews) show less than 10% performance loss). I'm waiting for Zen, to see wether my next platform will be that or Kaby Lake.

You already have a closed loop cooler. If necessary, get some better fans - with a pair of Noctua NF-P12s, that cooler should perform admirably (and silently!). Even without that, you should easily be able to OC that chip quite a bit. Sandy Bridge chips were good overclockers.

 

[clonazepam]

In gaming, overclocking the 2600K to the 4.5Ghz range will bring you about on par with the stock I5-6500 or I7-6700K. I'd most like to see you sell the GTX 960 and pick up at least the GTX 970 or equivalent AMD product.

Keep in mind, while overclocking the 2600K, make sure its rock solid stable. There's stable enough for games, and then there's stable enough for lengthy video editing projects. Make sure that overclock can handle either. There's nothing worse than a project failing or having errors a long time after its started.

I'm still happy with the 2600K. I've kept it at 4.6Ghz pretty much 24/7 since 2011 and still going strong. I've had it at higher clocks, mostly to see what was possible, but in my case, 4.6Ghz is the limit for 24/7 operation under any load / task.

Have fun with it.

 

[asgallant]

The i7-2600k still offers compelling performance to this day. If you were chasing the last few FPS in games, sure, upgrading could make sense, but you're looking at 30% boost in IPC in the best case; average case is likely to be around 10%. The i-2600k and an i7-6700k will overclock to generally similar clockspeeds (given the same cooling), though the chip lottery will play a big part in that. I would see what you can get out of your existing CPU now first, since it costs you basically nothing to try it. If you have a good overclocker, it might be worth it to invest in a good CPU cooler and wait another generation or two before upgrading the CPU.

 

[JamesSneed]

Tomshardware doesn't really have something like Anandtechs bench to I would look there to see what to expect if you upgraded to a 6700K.

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/product/287?vs=1543

What you will notice is for games the CPU's are not very far apart so a nice OC to say 4Ghz would make up most of the difference vs a stock 6700K.

I would suggest an overclock then picking up a new Nvidia Pascal card or AMD Polaris card once they come out this year. The new graphics cards are on a new smaller process node so there should be a fairly large jump in performance for both camps. Its been a long while since we had a jump like this so this will be a good time to get a GPU as it should last a long time performance wise. I don't normally suggest waiting however this is one of those times where the performance jump is going to be large enough it justifies waiting.

Next year I would think about CPU upgrades. You will have AMD Zen out then which hopefully is competitive with Intel. More cores with Directx12 is going to favorable. If Zen is competitive you should have some Intel higher than 4 core chips in the same pricing as say a 6700K to choose from as well. The reason I'm saying wait on the CPU is really you are not going to be CPU bound for gaming or basic editing.

The GTX 960 is a bit of a low end card for gaming and if you are really thinking about spending the money to do a new 6700K + motherboard + DDR4 I would recommend you consider Nvidia GTX 1070 once it releases. This should make the largest jump in performance for games for the same or less $$$.

 

[nikoli707]

you should get a cheap cooler like the cryorig h7 and overclock that 2600k to 4.4-4.6ghz. sandy bridge is more tolerant to temps and voltages than the newer generations and overclocking is painless.

that said, with both processors operating at 4.5ghz, a 2600k+980ti will game much better than a 6700k+980. pairing a 980ti with both the 6700k will obviously hold a lead but its not as simple as more fps. taking the top 5 popular intense graphical games, most of the time performance would be virtually identical. in some parts of those games though you may see some peak fps gains from the 6700k in the 15% range. that really doesn't mean much if you already above 90fps or especially on a 60hz panel. but the minimum fps gain could be as high as 10% in some parts and this can be noticeable.

if i were you i would overclock and hold out until you have enough budget to fully load out a newer chipset. what makes a 6700k attractive is the other features like nvme and 2500mb speed ssd support. skylake has alpine ridge 4k compatibility, though kaby lake will add full hdmi 2.0 hdcp 2.2 and native hardware h265 support for fully future proof 4k compatibility.

 

[uglyduckling81]

I've been running my 2500k between 4 - 4.8ghz for over 5 years now.
It's definitely not a problem. I upgraded my old GTX570's to a single GTX 970 and have been really happy.
Maybe there will be a reason to upgrade to what ever comes after Kaby Lake but who knows. Until that happens I won't be considering a CPU upgrade unless this PC dies.

 

[babakamboora]

Nope, you do not need to buy a skylake based cpu to play modern games, even most intensive graphic games such as Witcher 3.

To get to 4.5 GHZ by simply setting vcore at 1.284V or 1.3V and cpu multiplyer at x45, there is no need to disable c1e and other settings unless you are going for a very high oc.

All you need is a decent graphic card with your skylake, Nvidia pascal is around the corner



- Do not exceed 1.4v core voltage, doing so could limit lifespan of the CPU
- Aim to keep temperatures below 80c if at all possible
- Do not overclock with BCLK, again doing so could limit lifespan of the CPU

 

[popatim]

With a GTX960, you definitely do not need to upgrade your system for another 3 yrs probably. While its pretty easy to get 4.0-4.2 without a voltage increase on the 2600k if you watch/log your cpu usage while you game you may find that you aren't even hitting 90+% usage to warrant an overclock; but they sure are fun to do anyways.
Good luck!

 

[djkoble]

Hi,
I'm on a Intel Core i5 2500K that I'm overclocking to 4.8 Ghz which has worked flawlessly for 5 years plus now.
I did upgrade to a ASUS GTX 970 when they came out which was a noticeable increase for the games I play including
Everquest 2, Diablo 3 and Rift. I also use a terabyte Samsung Pro 840 and use a Focusrite Scarlett 2i2 for sound. The motherboard
is a ASUS P8P67 with 8 Gb RAM. This rig has worked incredibly well for a long time now. I replaced the original case and power supply for
aesthetic reasons a couple of years ago. I think I got lucky on the binning of the 2500K to be able to maintain 4.8 Ghz but I have also been
wondering if upgrading to a Skylake 6700K would make any speed difference and it seems most here don't think so. I would dearly love
a 980 Ti but other than that I don't have any reasons to upgrade. I was tempted by Win 10 for awhile and put it on my gaming laptop and have been disappointed by it every since. I'll stick with the Win 7 I have on the desktop. Newer is not always better imo.