The Iconic i5-2500K

[@IcebergTech]

Eagle eyed viewers: Yes, I forgot to change the MSI Afterburner overlay to read i5-2500k. Yes, that *is* a spoiler for next week’s video. No, I’m not fabricating results. Unless you manually rename them, Afterburner defaults to say “CPU” and “GPU” instead of model numbers. I’m just lazy/forgetful/both sometimes!

[@_lun4r_]

Yes, that is a pinned comment you shouldn't post.

[@jamiem6810]

Please do an i5 4th gen thanks Great video

[@gdx128]

Oh, i thought it was an Easter egg

[@DanielCardei]

I3 2100? £0.1 at CEX 😁 What a plonker CPU 🤣🤣

[@IcebergTech]

@@DanielCardei wait 'til you see the thumbnail...

[@NomadJRG]

Just upgraded to a 13600k two weeks ago, and finally retired my 2500k @4.5ghz after more than 10 years of service. The change in performance is insane though, that's part of the reason I waited so long I only like to upgrade for a very significant jump in performance.

[@cyjanek7818]

My sists at 4,6 for 8 years now, interestingly I have no performance improvements in 4 core test at 4,8Ghz, I bet my motherboard just cannot supply enough power

[@NikoleiBellic]

This is exactly what I'm about to do. My 2500k has been incredible though. What GPU did you pair with the 13600k and ddr4 or 5?

[@NomadJRG]

@@NikoleiBellicI went for ddr5 as there wasn't much in it pricewise. I kept my gpu, I have a GTX Titan Xp 12gb.

[@intelligentdesignmorty8112]

im going to do the same thing mine run also for 8 years or so on air 4.5 and gonna get myself also a 13600k

[@madhavsatheesh2665]

I did overclocked it to 6ghz and it ran pretty fine in a gigabyte mb ig gigabyte only allowed it to push to that extent , but eventually the board couldn't handle it and fried its circuit itself. The processor is working fine infact i'm using the same processor rn . I dont have money to upgrade it , it cant handle some of the apps due to intel hd 3000 outdated graphics (the final update was on 2015& it discontinued) It's been 12 years now running at 3.7 no problem at all , changed to intel motherboard after frying the old one . I cant even play any games which i like.

[@MatejKebe]

I had a i7 2700k till 2020 and it was still very capable in most games.

[@AhmadWahelsa]

Currently still using i5-3470 here, 2-4 gens intel CPUs holds up so well

[@markthompson4567]

@@AhmadWahelsa agree still using 4770k and its rock solid

[@joemarais7683]

Intel needing almost a decade to have a i3 (the 10100) as good as the 2700k/3770k/4790k in games says a lot to how ahead of the curve these CPUs were (or how stagnant Intel became, but that’s a tired statement)

[@takehirolol5962]

@@AhmadWahelsa What games? Esports?

[@AhmadWahelsa]

@@takehirolol5962 Mostly heavily modded Skyrim, Cyberpunk, RDR2, and recently Spider-Man They can go at 40-50 fps-ish on 100% load but coming from an ancient single core sempron, this is just night and day difference lmao, i capped it at 35fps to make it consistent and never went above 90%

[@NightSilencer]

Great video! I'm still using an overclocked 2600k @ 4.8ghz for games. Of course it's not the fastest thing out there, but there's still a bit of life in chip. I'm running it to the ground at this point. It's been with me since launch, back in 2011. It's been an incredible investment. I haven't built a new PC since 2011, just really been upgrading GPUs. Just imagine gaming with a 11 year old CPU back in 2011. It wasn't going to happen. Sandy bridge is legendary, and it's still serving me well. It definitely feels like it's time is coming to an end as games are expected to require AVX2 in the future, but while that doesn't happen, I'm not getting rid of it. I was torn between the 2500k and the 2600k when I bought it, and while both CPUs are absolutely iconic, I'm glad I went with the 2600k.

[@djukic921]

What is your voltage setting ? What motherboard are you using ?

[@dylanbailey4791]

Yeah, I moved mine to my secondary gaming/ home server PC. what did you use to overclock it?

[@theboogerbomb]

I feel like sandy bridge is less legendary than it just happened to come out right when Intel decided to not improve anymore

[@NightSilencer]

@@djukic921 ASRock z77 extreme6. Vcore is fixed at 1.4v with load line calibration at level 3.

[@NightSilencer]

@@dylanbailey4791 Using an ASRock z77 motherboard and a Cooler Master Seidon 240mm AIO.

[@Obie327]

IceBerg the Sandy Architecture was Amazing back in 2011. Built a 2600k (New) and later upgraded lan with IVY Bridge 3570k/Z77/16 gigs 1866/2133 ram. My elderly Sandy Bridge 2600k is still kicking and feels snappy 11+ years later. Maybe a 2600K/3770K with high speed ram for a test review? Amazing performance and value back then. Thanks for the retro dive review Iceberg!

[@josephdias5859]

you can add resizable bar to the bios with ivy bridge and get another 12 percent performance boost across the board on new titles

[@goldensamurai2841]

@@josephdias5859 bit late, but would doing this require a modded motherboard bios? i have a ga-p67a-ud7-b3 and play mostly cpu bound games

[@comrademonolith5421]

Yo, thank you for these videos. I never thought I'd find myself intrigued by age old hardware, yet here I am. Outstanding content, dude!

[@Turbobuttes]

Little did I know in mid 2011 buying the 2500K that I would not replace it on my up to that point usual four years cycle, but only in September of THIS YEAR, and more out of sheer boredom and wanderlust than for any other reason. And coincidentally I replaced it with the E5 1650v2, the Xeon equivalent of the previous CPU you've tested!

[@Adama.1]

You really want to live a decade ago once more?

[@josephdias5859]

thats newer than a 2500k its ivy bridge but heres something you can add resizable bar on 1650v2

[@Turbobuttes]

@@Adama.1 Yeah but only for a year or two, only built the new system out of curiosity over a few things and to check a few things off my computer bucket list, it was just a bad time for completely new hardware until very recently.

[@Emeric62]

I feel the same with my ram, bought 32gb of ddr4 3200 in 2015 and i didn't know it would be still effective in 2023

[@Savirezz]

With this quality, I can feel your channel gonna be very big mate. Keep up the good work!

[@Dave5281968]

I had a computer with the i5-2500K, EVGA micro-ATX motherboard, a cheap AIO 120mm water cooler, 8GB DDR3-1333 DRAM, and (a year or so later) an AMD Radeon HD 6970. That CPU was great. I had it overclocked to 5.2GHz and 100% stable for the entire 3 years that I used it. I believe it was, at the time, referred to as the most overclockable CPU that had ever been made.

[@samuelhumphreys7712]

To be honest, I do not usually leave comments on videos at all these days. However, I have made an exception here to commend you on the audio quality of these videos. I discovered this channel recently, and I have felt recently that a number of larger channels are leaving their audio design really in the dirt, but to me (an electrical engineer who specialises in coms) I am really rather impressed by these videos. May be a strange compliment, but keep it up, and do not think it goes unnoticed 👍

[@worldtownfc]

What a banger, the i5-2500k still got some life left for some games. Awesome historical CPU video.

[@DragonOfTheMortalKombat]

Imagine buying a CPU with 3.3GHz advertised and running it 5GHz. Damn! that's some serious overclocking potential.

[@Odinsday]

I really wish I got into PC gaming back in 2011 just so I could look back on times like this with an even greater sense of nostalgia.

[@Dr1ftop1a]

I started around 2012-ish. Man, it feels real nostalgic :D

[@danimayb]

@@Dr1ftop1a Same! Around 2012. I was a complete novice when I bought my first gaming PC, A pre-built where I got fed a load of crap by a store salesman and ended up with a system packing a GT710 and mid range AMD CPU (of the time), But paying a hefty price and being told it will play everything I wanted with ease at 1080p 🙄 I look back on those days and laugh rather than hold a grudge 😂.

[@flipdry]

Back then in 2012 you could build a PC with an i5 8gb ram and HD 7870 and get the same performance as $1200 PC a year earlier for $600-$800. Now a mid range GPU costs the same as my entire first gaming PC.

[@Dr1ftop1a]

@@flipdry My current GPU cost DOUBLE the amount of my first serious gaming PC! :,D And that thing run Battlefield 3 like there's no tomorrow...

[@Orcawhale1]

Wasn't that great, tbh Driver issue's were way to common back then, and SSD's were tiny.

[@ajg71sg81]

My 2500k lives on as an Unraid Nas with its main task now backing up another server plus PC's and storing data in my homelab. It was made when computer cases also had lots of drive bays so the Corsair 500R it was built in suits the new life it has nicely.

[@joekoch8485]

Always on point with these buddy!

[@Dr1ftop1a]

I am not a big commenter, so i will type this: Thank you for the quality videos! It does bring a smile to my face seeing these older hardwere's put to the test. Nostalgic? Sure. But i feel a strong deja vu looking at them. Like i am still just a kid that got into tech and trying to learn all about these small thing's, powering our world... :,)

[@bluecollarbuddha948]

I had a 2500 (non-K) for years and never understood what a workhorse it was until I did some video rendering tests and it actually beat my dual-cpu server. It was snapped up quick when I put it up for sale. PS: This channel is so well-produced. I'm always awed and jealous!

[@theburger_king]

Congrats on 10k bro it seems your growing really fast right now! It won’t be long before 100k

[@kparserpcs6699]

I love building pc's with 2nd and 3rd gen cpu's. it allows me to keep prices low on pc's

[@weizhenghuang6452]

I just built a NAS with an old i5-3570, really good and fast.

[@rafradeki]

Did you disable the spectre/meltdown fix? For even better performance

[@strangermaniacos686]

How do you do that ?

[@eimya]

Hey. I just found your channel thru a series of videos recommended to me. It's all awesome and I love it! Thanks for your videos Iceberg Tech

[@josquin2000]

Damn after all the years.. still fightin' in 2022

[@SonarWavePulse]

Still rocking my 2500k here.

[@snakrite]

Was running this bad boy till 2020 with an Rx 580

[@tenand11]

How was it?

[@Fernando-Rodriguez]

If it wasn't because of lack of certain instructions such as AVX 2 and PCI 2.0 I'd recommend this CPU to anyone but it's not enough for modern gaming, for retro gaming and a home PC this CPU is still awesome. by the way I think the craze for more cores and more threads will soon subside as more and more developers will develop or optimize their games for 4c/4t CPUs a great example is Warzone 2 which runs well on the dual core athlon 3000G.

[@elu9780]

The "craze" will not subside. More cores and more threads allow a lot more opportunities. Though I do think games should be optimized better and not rely upon the sheer performance of modern parts. PlayStation 4 could run some gorgeous-looking games throughout its lifespan, which was pretty long. We can definitely have games perform well on a variety of hardware, including things that are pretty old, if games are properly optimized to squeeze every last bit of performance out of what they're given to work with. Obviously, I wouldn't expect modern games to run at Ultra 1440p or even High 1080p on a Core 2 Quad and GTX 570, but still.

[@redstonerti9918]

It's not a craze. More cores and more threads is the future. Cpus can't only increase single thread performance anymore. There are physical limits in the silicon that make it really difficult.

[@aboveaveragebayleaf9216]

Honestly for many this cpu is plenty. It just depends on what games you play. A lot of people don't play AAA games, but they think they need the highest end stuff.

[@kyles8524]

this cpu supports pci-e 2.0

[@wawaweewa9159]

Isn't x16 pcie2 like x8 pcie3, which is same as x4 pcie4, that's plenty for 1080p if you got a gpu that is x16 pcie3 or x8 pcie4

[@sendashano]

What i love from this channel, the way he review, it's like documentary a case of legendary serial killers, or something big happened in history..

[@madhavsatheesh2665]

I still have it , in fact I'm watching your video on the same processor . Don't have an external gpu tho, have 12gigs of ram mostly plays ets 2 (fps is non existent)its capable of playing mincraft, dirt 2, car mechanic sim 2014 with its dedicated hd3000 graphics. I don't think no one would believe that I overclocked it to 6.0ghz and it ran smoothly but couldn't play games other than that it was stable and was working fine .The motherboard was from gigabyte. This processor is crazy sometimes it overheated 2-3 times and fried 2 motherboards completely that was 2 years ago but now its working fine and the overheating hasn't occurred again.I'm still astonished how this thing is still living ,I've ordered a gt740 too hopefully I can play many more games.

[@valentinardemon]

I remember 2011, I bought my firt PC, switching from an xbox 360. At the time for 800€ i've got an I5 2500k, gtx560, 8Go ddr3, 1tb hdd, and a dvd drive. At the end of is life it run at 5.0ghz with 16Go of ram, a gtx770, a small 128Go ssd. Next I put a I7 3770k and a gtx980 in SLI, 32Go of ram, one raid0 of 256Go ssd and a raid0 of 2To HDD. I changed my platform in 2019 so 8 years after I bought it. The pc still run game and it's a good pc when friend come play some game at the house.

[@Naxima18]

Was running my 2600 until last may, it's still going strong as a game server. Feels like it'll never die.

[@thecchrist777cc6]

Great video man!!! Just like so many others I’ve been binge watching all your videos! I think I might build a little “blast from the past” pc using the 2500k(and 2700k) and pair it up with a gtx 580 or 680(heck maybe even a functional 690) in sli and pretend i’m living in 2011/2012 😂😂😂

[@rayh91]

I had a 2500k for several years up until the 5600x came out, I have a 7800x3d now but the 2500k is still my favorite CPU of all time. It was rock solid @ 4.5ghz.

[@MusicHavenSG]

Kinda made me wish that I shouldn't have sold off my i7 2600K. Both the 2500K and the 2600K still somehow aged well for use in 2022. I was running first an 2500K at 4.5 Ghz before I swapped to the 2600K which then ran nearly full stable at 4.8 GHz which stability wise was good enough for a good 2-3 years of not so hard usage.

[@slob12]

The household still use an i7 920,i7 2600k and an i5 2500k...eveyone is a gamer and the new hardware is becoming increasingly expensive...these old cpus are great for older games and certain newer titles...cant complain...love these old things

[@xtxo]

i had a i5 2300 back in the day and it served me well for several years, the whole era of sandy bridge was iconic

[@nexo768]

I've got a i5 4590k in my system right now, and my GTX 780ti goes great with that cpu.

[@yakbutter4405]

the fact that you really have quite a bit diffrent music taste from most tech youtubers alone makes me watch your stuff xd keep it up.

[@omegaturkey9249]

2024 still rocking my 2500k and GTX 980 ti and IV been saving since then but it's not time to upgrade yet because it still plays all my games 😊

[@x0vg5hs1]

I was the same. But one day I ordered 240hz TN pannel from BenQ/Zowie. Needed more power. And ended up with 800 USD build of 12600k and Radeon 6800.

[@Darth001]

I had an i7 2600 it's worked well with a gtx 1050ti for a few years till I upgraded to Ryzen

[@aboveaveragebayleaf9216]

Put together an i5 4570 system with a 1050ti for my niece, and it's shocking how well it holds its own in modern games. Not high settings or anything, but very usable.

[@therealwillie2024]

Yes finally a video about my build lol. I have a i7-2700k and a gtx 980 kingpin classified in my build and I got the cpu in a military grade mother board with 16 gb ram for 60 bucks at a thrift store. I got the gpu on offer up for 100

[@ZetaRidge7]

In terms of best budget value in the used market, the i7 4770 and the Xeon e3-1231v3 still run games well to this day while mostly costing half if not less than the similar performing CPUs of the latest generation. I'm kinda glad to have built my gaming rigs since 2015 on the Haswell platform. :)

[@insurgentlowcash7564]

Wow almost 10K views in 10 hours! Good on you buddy. Maybe one day you can have some decent supplemental bucks. IDK if id do YT full time, seems like a pit that traps too many. Still glad to see people appreciating your vids, one of the few tech channels that doesn't feel like "content".

[@gruberjens4354]

I just build myself a retro gaming pc out of an old acer aspire. Changed the cpu from a i3 to an i7 2600k... It costs almost nothing these days, but this generation of cpus is still kicking 😎

[@iuliusnecula]

It was my first ever bought CPU & I still have it in my old PC :)

[@soniclab-cnc]

I still have three systems that use 2500k. Both my cnc computers and one more runs a wall mounted touch screen in my kitchen. I have two spare boards and CPU’s if those systems die. 2500k still more than enough to run Mach3 for cnc. They run 8 hours every day. The kitchen system is 24/7 and is still great for grabbing recipes or streaming cartoons for the kids and Spotify etc.

[@bitrage.]

Yea i ran a 2600k on a Rog Maximus IV Extreme board at 5.1ghz static for 4 years, great cpu... Sandybridge is legendary...

[@Xamiakass]

lol my gf's using my old 3570k processor for gaming.. and it still f works :D that thing was released april 2012. it's been running for about 9 years, overclocked to 4.5ghz static the whole time. and it still works for anything she games (wow and etc) without any issues or slows or nothing. lol that paired with old samsung 850evo ssd and a nvidia's 1660 super and she has no issues with any game she tries or had tried. they USED to make good stuff. now look at the last few gens. ridiculous. eats a lot more energy, heats up like crazy... ffs, it's almost as if they haven't improved anything on their cpu's, just pumped more power. @iceberg - nice vid, bud.

[@rulvra3072]

Sandy Bridge and Ivy Bridge molded some real warriors of CPUs!

[@GraveUypo]

to be entirely honest, the 5800X3D i bought recently is the first CPU i feel is in an entire other league than the good old 2500/2600k. up to the 5600x i felt everything was a minor upgrade from it.

[@saiftube5833]

i still daily drive it got it on 24 of december 2023 with gtx 1650 and 12gb ram for 140$ just non k version its a dell pre built so even if i wanted i couldn't overclock it just slapped a hdd for storing games

[@AwSomeNESSS]

Think Haswell/Devil’s Canyon should be next on your adventure. Would be interesting if that IPC/architecture change makes a difference in games like BFV. The biggest difference between 1155 and 1150 chips is the addition of AVX2, which iirc was starting to be implemented in games around the time of BFV.

[@ClayWheeler]

Quick guide to Buy any secondhand PC Make sure the CPU you're buying has AVX2 instructions set in it. That's it! Done That means any Intel Haswell CPUs Core i 4xxx or newer. Ignore everything else that doesn't have AVX2

[@ExalyThor]

My first gaming pc had an i5 2500k. I overclocked that sucker to 4.4ghz. Combined with an r9 290, I could play every game maxed out at 1680x1050. Far Cry 5, Rise of the Tomb Raider, good times.

[@driftx2]

Still using an AMD Athlon 64 3200+ and it handles all the games I play perfectly.

[@chincemagnet]

I had a 2500K, it was really good, but I was wishing I had spent the extra $100 for a 2600K pretty much the entire time

[@richardpastoor9336]

I started my pc building career with a Z77 2600k/16gb 1866, gtx 750ti/later 970,great build, great cpu. Build a Z97 ,4770k/32gb 2133, gtx 970 system after that one,which I didn't found that much more impressive. Great step up was the next system with a Z370, 8700k/32gb 3200, RTX2070. From that I went to a Z690, 12700k, 64gb DDR5 5200, RTX 3070ti. I'll skip 13th gen and the 40 series. Let's see what comes after that.😁

[@monkeyinalamborghini]

I'll always remember the 2500k as the cpu gave pcsx2 enough power to emulate everything. That and getting rid of fsb and north bridge but I guess that's not really true either. Either way after this cpu dolphin, pcsx2 and heavily modded oblivion weren't a problem anymore.

[@Accuracy158]

"Back in the day it wasn't too crazy to overclock these over 5Ghz"... People that never stress tested for 30 minutes let alone 24hrs.

[@p.w.3176]

Thanks for your videos on older CPUs! These are also really helpful to find out if it is worth it to upgrade from an i5 to the Sandy Bridge E Platform anf reuse RAM

[@Niesmiesznyy]

the fact that 10 yo old cpu RUNS new games is insane

[@bardofhighrenown]

I really like the comparative bar graphs, it makes it much easier to take in the formation rather than you just mentioning another component, if/when you go back to reviewing GPUs I think the bar graphs should carry forward. Also your sensor is dirty on your camera and it's been driving me insane lol. Thanks for the surprise Monday upload.

[@jorge69696]

I'm still using one and it's been begging for the sweet release of death for many years now. Thanks for including the 5600x in the comparison since it's a very likely upgrade.

[@chazbotic]

for those not interested in overclocking and still wanting a real 4 core bargain with DDR3 prices and access to fairly cheap recently modern hardware, the i5-4570 and even 4690 are a real bargain, often under $30 and sometimes under $25. and even the cheap stock intel cooler keeps them in line easily since they're 65W TDP parts. for the Z77 boards floating around the i7-3770K is pretty popular and still performs well in many situations. the i5-3570K being a marginal increase from the 2500K and borderline the same as a 4570. if you have a Z97, a lot of people also say the classic 4790K still has modern staying power even with modern higher-end (not highest end) GPUs, but it's probably reached the point where it's only just barely hanging on if you want to run very CPU heavy games with a happily fed 3080 or something.

[@Ph42oN]

I was running 2500k for pretty long time. First i overclocked it to 4.5ghz, later when i started to feel need for something faster i raised it to 4.8ghz. In 2017 i upgraded cooling and raised it to 5ghz, but i could not even notice any improvement in games, it was like something else than cores was bottlenecking on the cpu. Even that with ram overclocked to 2133 wasnt enough anymore and i went to am4.

[@ethangoldwyre]

I had a 2500k clocked at 4.2ghz with a 1050 ti up until 6 months ago, it did everything I asked of it pretty well. I wouldn’t buy one now but if you’re in a pinch it’ll get the job done.

[@adamcrux6829]

I have a "retro" computer that's still playing old school games and some newer games but mostly used a media server. But it's running a i5 2500k and a GTX 690 ( basically a 680 since SLI is dead) plus 24 TB of HDD storage with a 256Gb sata ssd for boot drive. I do have my modern gaming machine with a i9 11900k + RTX 3080 but for older titles that I still like playing like Dark Souls, Sky Rim, Dragons Dogma, etc etc I play them on my 65" 4k tv threw my old computer. I have more modern hardware that's just sitting on a shelf right now that I could upgrade it with and I also have a complete gaming PC from 2015 sitting in my closet with a i7 4970k + 980Ti that I could put the boot drive and all the HDD storage in but the old i5 is still running strong. It was water cooled back in the day and I ran it a 5GHz for years but now I have a Noctua NH-D15 and it clocked at 4.5GHz. Would I recommend someone using this old of a chip? Hell no the mother boards are rare and more expensive than just getting a cheap LGA 1200 MB and a i3 that will be just as good if not better than the i5. But if you have one laying around it can make an very good option for a second gaming PC or a media server or even a NAS.

[@Anatedu861]

Still happily gaming on my 2500k to this day. Have been rocking a 4.5Ghz OC (1.32V) for more than 12 years! Dunno when this dude will finally fail.

[@advanceddarkness3]

I remember rocking a i5 2550k

[@Tactical_Nuke0]

I use to have it, it was awesome at the time but compared to my new 5900x, rip.

[@KW-oe4lq]

Great video, I used a i5 3470 up until about just over a year ago, still played all the games i wanted to, was more gpu limited at the time. One thing I wouldn't mind seeing you test these processors at stock clocks as well just for a comparison point to other CPUs that can't be overclocked.

[@JamesSmith-sw3nk]

I just assembled an old IBM sff pc with parts I had on a shelf collecting dust that I will never use. I put an i5 2500S cpu, 256gb ssd and gtx 1050ti in it. I gave it to an older couple who's pc was failing, it was an OLD & SLOW low end Pentium 4. They think this 2500S pc is awesome. They surf the internet, check e-mail.social media and watch KZbin videos. Performance is relative.

[@laddtryck]

I just uppgraded to a ryzen 5600x last week. Ran the 2500k for 12 years. Always @ 5Ghz. Amazing chip that. :)

[@leerobinson8709]

It's interesting to me this as i have a HP Z620 with a pair of E5-2690 xeons in them. Same architecture as the 2500k but with many more threads and more cache. For single threaded games i would get blasted to smitherines by the 2500k, but just these past few years as games are using more threads, even with my lower clock speeds, i am gaining significantly more fps in games over even the 2600k. RDR2 for example in similar settings im getting 80-100 fps with an RTX 3060 and in BF5 in a full 64 multiplayer servers, im getting 130ish and 85-90% GPU utilisation, again with similar settings.

[@christopherfoster1531]

I bought my brother a i5 2500s for $8 usd and it was a huge upgrade from the i3 he had in the pc. He mainly uses his pc for fortnite, paladins, and the simks 4. It runs the games he wants to play fine and eventually he can upgrade to the i7.

[@scupking]

I have the i5 2500k overclocked to 4.5Ghz. Paired with 1 TB SSD, 32GB of ram and Nvidia GTX 770. I actually just ordered an AMD RX 6650XT today to replace the GTX 770!

[@sebasstein7014]

Still have a Xeon 1230v3 from 2013 and I specifically did not buy an I5 because I knew the 4 Threads would be limiting in the future and that was exactly what happend. Had I bought an I5 instead I would have had to change the cpu years ago already.

[@TH3C001]

“Just get an i5, mate” ah yes, the PC builders equivalent to the car builders phrase “LS swap it” or “put a 350 in it” before that lol. Even when I was building my first gaming focused PC in 2020 I followed that advice (more or less) and chose the Ryzen 5 3600. I actually still miss that thing even though I’ve got a Ryzen 7 5700X now after giving a friend the 3600 for their build.

[@snakeplissken1754]

The best part about sandybridge, the heat spread was soldered on... which they sadly changed with ivy bridge, cost cutting but made the heat transfer from die to cooler worse. Yet i would disagree, no 4 core (without ht/smt) is worth the purchase anymore in 2022 and beyond. For a early 2000-2018 retro pc sure but other then that just don´t waste your money. If you happen to have a board for such a cpu get the i7 variant for a couple bucks more on ebay and you are much better off (still no wonders should be expected). And yeah the ivy bridge and following generations are a bit of a dark age for gamers/hardware enthusiasts with intel doing nothing but selling out lazy/cheap annual refresh versions that for artificial reasons required you to buy a new mainboard too... (why not milk the cow twice) Reason i stayed with my ivy bridge 3570k till 2020, cause upgrading was just not worth it until amd forced intel to get of their lazy bum and stop this lazy annual refresh milking.

[@rbh2na]

Proud to still rocking one of those i5-2500k with an RX 560 for more than 6 Years...And it's still running remarkably well...

[@rogofos]

honestly it held up surprisingly well for a 4 threader if you bought it back in the day, you may still be gaming on it to this day more or less comfortably but yeah, buying it today in a world with Xeons is just madness

[@Nalianna]

I replaced my i5 2500 4 months ago. It will be used in my wife's facebook/youtube machine. AMAZING cpu. only let down by the cost of replacement motherboard/ram Might be cheaper to get an i3 12100, 1700 mobo, and ddr4 to replace those parts

[@ReaverSenpai]

We out here gaming on it in 2024 😤

[@bslay4r]

2500K@4.4 GHz (undervolted) + RX 470 runs here. :D For everyday tasks it's perfectly fine and it's OK for 1080p gaming I just need to adjust the settings in games. CPU-Z benchmark is 440 on my system so your 365 points seems low. I only know this because I promised myself I'm not gonna upgrade until a budget/midrange CPU doubles that score. :D I don't care about zillions of cores but I care about single thread performance.

[@Syssn3ck]

I had mine for ~8 years. What a champ of a CPU.

[@plietschen5279]

Got a i7-2700k @ 4,4Ghz on a Asus ROG Maximus IV Extreme-Z with 16Gb 2133Mhz RAM, SSD & GTX1070 in my second gaming rig. Its super Capable for 1080P Gaming @ 75Hz.

[@Aaronsitooo]

For me is more iconic the i7 2600k. Back in the day i had this processor to 5.1Ghz with 1.4V disiped on Noctua NH-D15 paired with GTX 1070. As overclocked as it was, the jump to a 5600x with RTX 3080 was huge hahahah.

[@PaulieVideos]

I ran the i7-2600K with two R9 290Xs in CFX, later switched to single GTX 1070 due to multiple cards not being supported in newer games. Had it overclocked to 5 GHz, funny enough the performance in cinebench R15 was almost the same as i7-7700K. (Showing how much intel was stagnating until ryzen showed up).

[@Anthonymvpr]

You mean CrossfireX, not SLI.

[@PaulieVideos]

@@Anthonymvpr Yes, CFX. Had my head elsewhere when I was writting that probably.

[@user-cv6lw3go2x]

Still rocking the 2500K in daily usage! At least until 2024 is when I will retire it.

[@HerrAlien]

The PCIE 2.0 is something that can hurt even video decoding. I had a GT 730 (Fermi one - basically a relabeled GT 430) do a smoother job at video playback than a GT 1030. Why? Well, the 1030 is a 4 lanes PCIE 3.0, while the 730 is a 16 lanes PCIE 2.0. Guess which one has a higher PCIE bandwidth? That's right, the 730.

[@jasunlg]

I'm still gaming on it in 2024.

[@artefakt4965]

i still use a 2500k, with a sabertoth, 16go ram and a gtx 960. i play most game without seeing majors issues, not full HD of course, but i started to make videos editing and... i found some limitations. And i wanted playing update 8 in satisfactory with the new light effect and... i m back in update 7 now. Time as come to change :s

[@chilldudie242]

I have 5900X now but I still miss my 2500k ngl

[@256sergi]

Is it possible to show wattage use at the wall? It's a very interesting parameter to compare systems. And with speaking electricity bills a useful one too. Thanks for your work. It's entertaining and useful.

[@user-wq9mw2xz3j]

I built a system with a 2500k and r9 280 2 years ago. My younger brother still playing on it, not going to suggest it is perfect for any new game at high fps, but it's still way better than people give credit for (old cpus). I have a r5 3600 myself, Ive thought about upgrading to 5600x or 5800x3d but honestly its just because Im in to tech and a bit of hype/never enough mentality we humans have, in actuality even the 3600 is overkill for every game I've played. A new fast 4c/8t (doesnt exist, lowest if 6 now) would be enough, and something like a r5 2600 is also enough for any game really. With 1 or 2 exceptions maybe life MSFS, not sure.

[@blebekblebek]

Still have computers using old i5, and 2 with i7 gen 2-3 combined with GTX 750/750Ti, as far as gaming I don't think it's necessary to upgrade the only reason why I want to upgrade is for lower power consumption, other than that... I don't need to. I'm still using 1080p 60Hz monitor, playing games that not really demanding which most running at 60fps or more.

[@ijustfelldown]

I'm not an Intel fan but I'm an i5 fanboy even though I've only used 3 CPUs in my life. Two of those were i5. Similarly I've never used an AM4 motherboard but I'm still a huge fan of the socket for its longevity.

[@Mini-z1994]

Depending on your chip & motherboard a bit but 4.5 ghz seems too be a pretty regular overclock limit without going nuts on voltages pushing like 1.48+ on vcore, which some still needed on crappy motherboards, even worse if you had a bad sample that was happy too do 4.3 ghz on whatever auto voltage the motherboard gave but 4.5 ghz+ was a hard wall even at 1.5v vcore. Still running/struggling with an I5 2500k here at 4.5 ghz with my gtx 1660 super. Was gonna keep my r9 280 for a while longer & move too AM4 about 2 years ago but it died out of nowhere around middle of July 2020 so bought the best deal i could when it came too price & performance in Sweden at the end of September 2020 saving up some more money at once, was planning too buy parts over a few months & spend a bit extra on cpu & storage later. 2335 sek for an open box returned gigabyte gtx 1660 super OC is still a fantastic deal & cheaper then any card in it's price class still over 2 years later, average cheap rx 6600 in sweden for example is 3490 sek or rtx 3050 3390 sek. It will be replaced soon though, got B450 motherboard, 16 gb 3200 mhz ram & a noctua cpu cooler adapter. Just need a ryzen 5 5500 or ryzen 5 5600 and ill be rebuilding my pc & probably install a custom windows 10 called " Atlas Os " Ever heard of that ? Feel free too install that & compare vs regular windows 10.

[@HardwareLab]

As well as with GPUs i would say AMD aged better. FX 8350 was a lot more future proof CPU. However, FX requires some complicated overclocking skills, consumes more power and was A LOT weeker back in the days, so i5 2500K was a really good option. Especially taking into account the upgrading abilities later with chips-priced used i7 2600K

[@user-td3uj8is5i]

FX 8350 still sucks

[@HardwareLab]

@@user-td3uj8is5i if you do complex overclocking - it is doing A LOT better than 2500K in terms of frame time stability in newer games like battlefield 1 and 5 or Rise of the Tomb Raider (especially in DX12)

[@EhEhEhEINSTEIN]

I miss my z77 sabertooth more than the 2550k I had in it.. Should never have sold that board

[@slipkn67]

did you really test it at stock 3300mhz instead of 4500+ mhz? Why?

[@theorphanobliterator]

man I know reading of hard but c'mon. read the OSD, it clearly says 4500mHz

[@MasterDrood]

amazingnvideo, have you considerd revieweing the i7 870, not sure if you have arlready

[@IcebergTech]

I tend to approach CPU reviews as a "buyers guide", and given the value that can be hand in 2nd and 4th gen, I don't think there's much reason to consider buying first gen any more. That being said, I do occasionally do vintage PC builds, so maybe I'll consider putting together a 2009-era gaming PC some day...

[@yeralma_soqan]

Tnx for good content you offer But I think it'll be better if you test 1080p maxed out settings, it'll make sure you always are cpu bound and it's real popular rs too For cpu comparison at least I think it might be like that