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Digital Foundry: Is It Time To Upgrade Your Core i5 2500K?

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It's THE classic i5 processor. Many still swear by it today. The question is, does it still hold up to this generation's most demanding titles? Rich goes in-depth and stacks up the classic i5 against the modern Skylakes in a number of theoretical and practical gaming tests.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=frNjT5R5XI4

Interesting video. As someone that's still using an overclocked i5 2550K @ 4.5 GHz, I found this video rather informative. I guess I should be looking into upgrading my RAM to get the most mileage out of my aging CPU in lieu of a full on upgrade.
 
I don't think so.
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i don't have an i5 2500k
 
Beat by an i3-6100 at stock and slightly worse than an i5-6500 when OC'd to 4.6ghz with 2133MHZ ram.

Main gains are in OC'ing and adding 2133MHZ ram (faster supported by the chipset)
 
Are there diminishing returns as you go up in ram speed? As in 3000 vs 2133? I was always told ram speed doesn't really matter, but it seems like it does in certain cases.
 
My 3570 was better than a 2500k (or at least stock for stock) and going to a 6700K was still a HUGE upgrade for me. I went from DDR3 1333MHz to DDR4 3000MHz at the same time but as far as I'm aware the CPU is still the biggest factor, isn't it?

Some games have had more of a change than others. In GTA 5 and JC3 my framerate actually doubled.


EDIT: Ah, so the RAM might've made a big difference, I was commenting before properly starting the video.
 
texore said:
Are there diminishing returns as you go up in ram speed? As in 3000 vs 2133? I was always told ram speed doesn't really matter, but it seems like it does in certain cases.
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Jumping up ram speed usually nets you a few more FPS but it's not dramatic.
 
I preordered this processor based on the hype that was generated once benchmarks started hitting before its release.


It still powers my main desktop matched with a 290x. I have the 2500k @ 4.7ghz with a Hyper 212 literally from the first week in 2011 until now.

It's been an amazing chip.

Recently I've been fighting the itch to build a 5820k machine... and I think I have finally surpassed it. I am going to wait until the Zen architecture releases later this year from AMD.
 
With an overclock I think my 2500K does a good job of keeping up with my 970 (although it turns out I can get a bit more out of it). I don't really want to upgrade my memory for that as I'd want to upgrade to DDR4 in that case.

But I was aware it was walking against its limits. For playing on 60 FPS it is fine, but if I want to upgrade to a new GPU or want a monitor for framerates above 60 it is probably a good idea to upgrade my CPU.
 
Reg said:
Wish the disparity was greater since the 2500k is 5yrs old.
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CPU requirements did not grew much since 7th gen consoles are not pushing the CPUs much.

Prophet Steve said:
With an overclock I think my 2500K does a good job of keeping up with my 970 (although it turns out I can get a bit more out of it). I don't really want to upgrade my memory for that as I'd want to upgrade to DDR4 in that case.

But I was aware it was walking against its limits. For playing on 60 FPS it is fine, but if I want to upgrade to a new GPU or want a monitor for framerates above 60 it is probably a good idea to upgrade my CPU.
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Looks like VR is going to be a big force for upgrading CPUs. Reaching 90fps [without drops!] requires serious power.
 
DieH@rd said:
CPU requirements did not grew much since 7th gen consoles are not pushing the CPUs much.



Looks like VR is going to be a big force for upgrading CPUs these days. Reaching 90fps [without drops!] requires serious power.
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That's an understatement. Even my old ass i5-750 kicks the console CPUs up and down the street when it's OC'd. Hell, even at stock.
 
My 2500K and RAM are the only things recycled from my old build. It was a pain in the ass to find a compatible mobo to move it to a mini itx build but it still runs like a champ. I've had it for over 6 years and never regretted it. It's going to take something really amazing for me to upgrade.
 
I feel like the i7 5820K is special chip as well. If I were to be moving from a i5 2500K that is the chipped I'd move to, personally. You gain the additional threads and also the additional cores. As games take more advantage of additional threads which we are seeing more and more, the chip will start to pull away from the other chips around the same price.
 
I'd say it's still fine as long as the current generation consoles are around. Hold out until Kaby Lake or Cannonlake at least. Skylake has some bugs or weird shortcomings in its design.
 
Looks like I won't be skimping on memory speed in my next build.

Out of curiosity, does the fast unified memory of a console likely go a ways in helping performance not get held back as much by the CPU?
 
Felix Lighter said:
I feel like the i7 5820K is special chip as well. If I were to be moving from a i5 2500K that is the chipped I'd move to, personally. You gain the additional threads and also the additional cores. As games take more advantage of additional threads which we are seeing more and more, the chip will start to pull away from the other chips around the same price.
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Yep, that's the one I'm getting.

belmonkey said:
Looks like I won't be skimping on memory speed in my next build.
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Same, gotta go fast.
 
Lonely1 said:
What about the 2600k?
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Should hold up a bit better for applications that properly use multithreading due to HT, though the boost isn't as great as having more actual cores of course. That's what I have and it's OC'd to 4.4 GHz currently.
 
I got my first build back in 2011 (i7 2600K, GTX 570, 8GB RAM, etc). From 2011-2016. I've only upgraded my video card as of January 2016 (GTX 970) and I have no plans on upgrading anything until DDR4 becomes more affordable and reasonable for me to upgrade.

Forgot to mention too. I have not overclocked my CPU, GPU, or RAM ever.
 
Mufausa The 3rd said:
I got my first build back in 2011 (i7 2600K, GTX 570, 8GB RAM, etc). From 2011-2016. I've only upgraded my video card as of January 2016 (GTX 970) and I have no plans on upgrading anything until DDR4 becomes more affordable and reasonable for me to upgrade.

Forgot to mention too. I have not overclocked my CPU or GPU ever.
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DDR4 is pretty cheap now tbh. But with a 2600k and 970 there's no real reason to upgrade (unless you have specific demands, e.g. 144hz, or 1440p in certain titles, etc...).
 
2500k @ 4.8 on a Hyper 212 and R9 290 here. CPU has lasted me a long while and I'm still hoping it'll last me a while longer.
 
I was actually considering to swap my 2500k this year.
Running it at 4,3 with 8 Gb 1866 Ram and with an AMD card paired to it, I feel my min fps is dropping way too hard at times.
So 6700k or the i7 5820K is the question then
 
They should use different games in this comparison.
Pretty much only Crysis 3, the sections with a lot of grass, is very multi-thread heavy in those examples.
They should include for example Overwatch or Warhammer End Tides Vermintide, those are games that my i5 2500k is getting raped in.
 
belmonkey said:
Looks like I won't be skimping on memory speed in my next build.

Out of curiosity, does the fast unified memory of a console likely go a ways in helping performance not get held back as much by the CPU?
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Sort of. They theoretically can use down GPU time to do GPGPU work on the dataset in memory. This can mean they run AI routines in GPU when the GPU units are less busy after a scenes has been pushed. The PS4 has a bit of hardware dedicated to this. The XB1 less so.
 
i think the highlight, as always is:
you have to upgrade mobo, cpu, and ram for 10-20% performance gain vs current components and that's just something most 2500k (2600, 3xxxx) owners wouldn't do

actually thinking of upgrading my 2500k mobo and ram, but it's hard finding a any sandy bridge mobo nowadays
 
DonMigs85 said:
2666MHz DDR4 is where it's at right now, since 3000 and 3200MHz have quite a premium. FOR DDR3, 2133 is the sweetspot now but it's not dramatically faster than yours.
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I disagree about there being quite a premium. You're paying like maybe $5 or so extra to go for 3000 over 2666. For instance you can get 16GB of G.skill DDR4-3000 for $85 right now: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231937&nm_mc=AFC-C8Junction&cm_mmc=AFC-C8Junction-PCPartPicker,%20LLC-_-na-_-na-_-na&cm_sp=&AID=10446076&PID=3938566&SID=
 
So ... If I understood this video correctly, Iam basically fucked with my 390 on CPU heavy scenarios with my 2500k, because AMDs drivers suck ass?
How much of a difference would a modern i7 make in that case?
 
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