Reviews - Intel Sandy Bridge Core i5 2500K and Core i7 2600K review

[Tunnah]

still gonna stick with a core i5 760 for my build, as a gamer i just want a strong CPU that will last a few years and no point in going for later tech to future proof it as intel are constantly changing the pin count anyway so no chance of just a CPU upgrade if it ever came to that...then again i reckon we're a veeeeeery long way off until current CPUs lose their gaming value

[Acute]

So basically getting a Sandybridge cpu is just as a cpu as its graphics capabilities are completely worthless for anything but flash games?

The 2 games that I actually want to play are Starcraft 2 and CoD so how would I try to figure out how well it would work with a Nvidia 8800GTX for example?

[atmadden]

Gonna skip this generation of cpu's £400 for 2600k and mobo just isn't worth it for performance gained and the constant changing of sockets has sealed it for me.

[spoon_]

No 6/8 core chips? Boooo

[tieran1]

Dont like the way you can only overclock via multiplier,fsb is always better for end results.Shame really,they should have left the IGP off the K series,correct me if i'm wrong but dont most overclockers use external GPU's.And this range of CPU's has DRM built in so you wont be able to watch or use any unathorised content eg,films etc.I refuse to spend money on whole upgrade to be limited by Intel.

Hope AMD dont do anything stupid with Bulldozer.

[dangel]

Dont like the way you can only overclock via multiplier,fsb is always better for end results.Shame really,they should have left the IGP off the K series,correct me if i'm wrong but dont most overclockers use external GPU's.And this range of CPU's has DRM built in so you wont be able to watch or use any unathorised content eg,films etc.I refuse to spend money on whole upgrade to be limited by Intel.

Hope AMD dont do anything stupid with Bulldozer.

Read around - it's not Intel's doing - the industry is being strong armed by the content industry (again) into doing it. There's no value to Intel or it's consumers in the 'feature'. On the up side it's utterly redundant because so long as one device exists that doesn't use it then a pirated copy of media will exist. I don't expect this DRM to get any traction (just like any other).

Funny really that such a huge company is at the mercy of a much smaller industry but there it is - and with the current rise of ARM devices this has only worsened.

[tieran1]

Read around - it's not Intel's doing - the industry is being strong armed by the content industry (again) into doing it. There's no value to Intel or it's consumers in the 'feature'. On the up side it's utterly redundant because so long as one device exists that doesn't use it then a pirated copy of media will exist. I don't expect this DRM to get any traction (just like any other).

Funny really that such a huge company is at the mercy of a much smaller industry but there it is - and with the current rise of ARM devices this has only worsened.

I can see where your coming from.The whole overclocking via multiplier only is there own doing though,by adding the IGP.While i fully understand for low end users this is fine,for the enthusiast segment they could have got rid to allow FSB overclocking or add extra performance.Imagine what this could have been capable of then.

Also just the one clock generater seems to be a odd choice.

Yes it is a pretty impressive chip but it seems that in some ways its restricted,yeah your get 5GHZ overclock(nearly),but do you get 5GHZ performance?Lol,maybe AMD and Intel are gonna swop places.

[dangel]

I can see where your coming from.The whole overclocking via multiplier only is there own doing though,by adding the IGP.While i fully understand for low end users this is fine,for the enthusiast segment they could have got rid to allow FSB overclocking or add extra performance.Imagine what this could have been capable of then.

Also just the one clock generater seems to be a odd choice.

Yes it is a pretty impressive chip but it seems that in some ways its restricted,yeah your get 5GHZ overclock(nearly),but do you get 5GHZ performance?Lol,maybe AMD and Intel are gonna swop places.

Oh I agree on that point - I'm about to upgrade and paying 'extra' for an unlocked chip is annoying. As you say, the overclocks are easier though and I expect to get around 4.7ghz without any real effort. Going from gen 1 core2quad I think it's worth it but essentially i'm doing it because the opportunity is there (someone wants to buy my old gear). I'm undecided whether to go for i7 or i5 though, there's not a great deal of difference in price so.. hmm.

[Terbinator]

Personally, i would say go i5 as the O/C is going to reduce HTT's bonus by quite a margin.

[j.o.s.h.1408]

Read around - it's not Intel's doing - the industry is being strong armed by the content industry (again) into doing it. There's no value to Intel or it's consumers in the 'feature'. On the up side it's utterly redundant because so long as one device exists that doesn't use it then a pirated copy of media will exist. I don't expect this DRM to get any traction (just like any other).

Funny really that such a huge company is at the mercy of a much smaller industry but there it is - and with the current rise of ARM devices this has only worsened.

what? so these cpu's doesnt let you play pirated movies? pretty cool . could dent the pirates

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

what? so these cpu's doesnt let you play pirated movies? pretty cool . could dent the pirates

Not really! Irrespective of whether you play such stuff or not it is none of a ****ing hardware company's right to spy on me using hardware I paid for!

These are private companies and are not even the government FFS and are not accountable to anyone.

[duc]

what? so these cpu's doesnt let you play pirated movies? pretty cool . could dent the pirates

The Intel Insider is a hardware rights management feature built into 2nd gen Core i-series CPUs which will, in future, allow you to purchase or rent movies directly from participating film studios in complete safety - stopping you from becoming a potential pirate and getting sued. These CPU's do allow you to play pirated movies; just not those obtained legitimately from the Intel/film studios pact, in a word DRM.

see more on Intel's blog

[Blackmage]

The Intel Insider is a hardware rights management feature built into 2nd gen Core i-series CPUs which will, in future, allow you to purchase or rent movies directly from participating film studios in complete safety - stopping you from becoming a potential pirate and getting sued. These CPU's do allow you to play pirated movies; just not those obtained legitimately from the Intel/film studios pact, in a word DRM.

see more on Intel's blog

Correct, would be crazy if one couldn't play video files without DRM?

[miXer]

Sorry to cut the story short but is it worth buying the new sandy bridge?

[razer121]

Sorry to cut the story short but is it worth buying the new sandy bridge?

I personally dont think so, go with the old i5's but then that is my view on it...if you think it is worth it then go for broke, just consider how much "better" that the new sandy bridge tech really is not compared to the old i3/i5/i7s

From what i can see it's the chipset that is slowing the old cpu's down.

[GuinnesCYMRU]

I personally dont think so, go with the old i5's but then that is my view on it...if you think it is worth it then go for broke, just consider how much "better" that the new sandy bridge tech really is not compared to the old i3/i5/i7s

From what i can see it's the chipset that is slowing the old cpu's down.

So dispite the 2500k costing little more than a 760 but decimating EVERYTHING bar its bigger brother and the stupidly expensive hexa-core, your advice is to buy the older i5's?!

For a new build, you'd be a fool to choose anything other than Sandybridge.