Should I get a Core i5 2500K? (Upgrade budget PC from Core 2 Quad)

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njsullyalex

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Hello! Over the summer, I built a budget gaming PC as a side project for fun. I spent around $150 on the total project. It is running an Intel Core 2 Quad Q9400 at 2.67 Ghz. on an HP Pine Row motherboard (it was cheap, but NO OVERCLOCKING!) It is paired with 8gb DDR3 and an ATi Radeon HD 5870 graphics card. I was expecting the C2Q and the Radeon to be a good pair, but to my surprise, in games such as Overwatch and War Thunder, the Radeon is bottlenecked by the Core 2 Quad! I've had Overwatch drop into the 40s, and even 30s, due to a maxing out CPU at 1080p medium-low settings.

So I got some money for my birthday, and I decided I want to upgrade this PC. This is not my primary PC, that would be my Dell Inspiron 7559 gaming laptop (Core i5 6300 HQ, GTX 960M). But I enjoy building and upgrading PCs, and I actually game on this system a lot. So, I wanted to get Ryzen 3, but it is out of my price range due to expensive DDR4 RAM. But on eBay, Intel Sandy Bridge is very cheap, and I found a Core i5 2500K with a Cooler Master cooler for $80. I want a CPU that will provide me good gaming performance for a few more years without breaking the bank, so I could upgrade my GPU in a year or two when the 8 year old Radeon HD 5870 becomes obsolete. Is it worth investing around $150 into this system? And if so, is the Core i5 2500K a good option?

For the motherboard, I would probably go with an MSI MS B75MA-P45. It seems like it would offer basic overclocking options, it is compatible with my existing RAM (the major expense with Ryzen), and also seems like it would provide an upgrade path to Ivy Bridge if the Core i5 becomes obsolete in the future.

Any response is greatly appreciated. Thanks!
 
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Hardwarecanucks on Youtube tested the 2600K against the 8700K recently, and their findings are basically that while the 8700K destroys the 2600K in productivity apps, unless you have a 1080 or better, you're not going to notice much of a difference in most games at 1080p resolutions because the GPU will be the bottleneck.

The 2500K should have similar gaming performance to the 2600K, and speaking from personal experience (I have a 2600K right now), CPU power in games is *not* an issue. At all. And unless something really ridiculous happens, it won't be for several more years.

The only reason I'm upgrading myself right now is because my mainboard is going bad (weird keyboard errors galore, on different keyboards, very much suspecting...
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njsullyalex

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The RAM I got for this IS DDR3 RAM, 8gb of 1333 MHZ DDR3. I plan on re-using this RAM if I go with Sandy Bridge. The mobo I got is from one of the last LGA 775 systems made.

 
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The Paladin

The Paladin

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@Countmike: he does mention "his is not my primary PC, that would be my Dell Inspiron 7559 gaming laptop (Core i5 6300 HQ, GTX 960M)."

since you are doing what I do, get some spare cash and try to upgrade the pc I have upwards and see what can be made out of it, I understand the question very well, is it worth upgrading, I keep wondering this question each time I tweak one or another "not my principal" system.
if your worried about "gaming for the next few years then I would suggest reinforcing your current gaming rig. ie your laptop.

if your looking to have a desktop gaming system then you would have to identify the parts that will need to be replace to upgrade your Q9400/DDr2/HD5850 system to something else. and to be honest 150$ will not bring this older system in leaping bounds to be anything of a gaming system anytime soon. lets compare apples with apples a little;

A q9400 cpu scored about 3588 on passmark scoring system that is abut the equivalent of running a G4400 CPU/DDr3/Motherboard system with the same video card you have.

what I suggest is to keep that 150$ and add a little more to it. why?> because you would be wasting it on a 2nd gen cpu that can be easily overtaken by newer cpus

I suggest the following , G4600 (PassMark score 4929), combined with a Z270 Motherboard, so you can upgrade your cpu later up to a I7-7700K if you so like, and 2x4GB so that later on you can upgrade it further due to 4 memory slots. Steps, that bring you a lot closer to "future proofing, and upgradability for the years coming., just my though...

PCPartPicker part list/Price breakdown by merchant
CPU: Intel - Pentium G4600 3.6GHz Dual-Core Processor ($86.88 @ OutletPC)
Motherboard: Gigabyte - GA-Z270P-D3 ATX LGA1151 Motherboard ($78.99 @ Amazon)
Memory: GeIL - SUPER LUCE RGB SYNC 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR4-2400 Memory ($77.99 @ Newegg)
Total: $243.86 ,Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available Generated by PCPartPicker 2017-11-20 07:38 EST-0500
 
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njsullyalex

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I appreciate the opinion. My problem lies in that if I get a new motherboard, DDR4 RAM is ridiculously expensive at the moment, upping the total price of the upgrade to around $250, which I am not willing to spend. $150 is my absolute cap. What most people may be confused by is the fact that I already have DDR3 RAM, not DDR2. So RAM would not be an additional expense if I went with Haswell or older, but if I went with Skylake, Kaby Lake, or Ryzen, I would have to spend an additional $100 for RAM. Also, looking at performance figures, the Core i5 2500K when overclocked seems to match even some of the newest Skylake Core i5s, and it blows the Ryzen 3 away, even trading blows with the Ryzen 5. This is why it seems so appealing to me, and being that it is more powerful than my Core i5 6300HQ in my laptop, it would give me a basic upgrade path in the next few years. I have read that a 2500K can even handle a GTX 1070 without major bottlenecking.

I don't know, this is my opinion, and I respect all of yours. If you have a way to get DDR4 RAM cheap, then I would gladly jump on the Ryzen bandwagon.

And if you think this is a stupid idea, that is fine too.
 
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sebastianpalm7

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Hardwarecanucks on Youtube tested the 2600K against the 8700K recently, and their findings are basically that while the 8700K destroys the 2600K in productivity apps, unless you have a 1080 or better, you're not going to notice much of a difference in most games at 1080p resolutions because the GPU will be the bottleneck.

The 2500K should have similar gaming performance to the 2600K, and speaking from personal experience (I have a 2600K right now), CPU power in games is *not* an issue. At all. And unless something really ridiculous happens, it won't be for several more years.

The only reason I'm upgrading myself right now is because my mainboard is going bad (weird keyboard errors galore, on different keyboards, very much suspecting an USB controller issue), software rot (board-specific software hasn't been updated since Windows 8), and I'm right now in a situation to afford it.

So, for 80 bucks plus what the motherboard costs? I'd go for it, if it's just for gaming you're on a tight budget. I would check the manufacturer's sites for when the mainboard software was last updated, and get the freshest possible mainboard (New Old Stock if available) to avoid issues with USB and other crap,
 
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njsullyalex

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Aug 13, 2017
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Thanks. I'm looking to spend $60 on a mainboard, and I think I found one. I will be looking for an overclocking board so I can push this CPU to the limits in the future when I upgrade my GPU. I am going to be playing at 1080p 60 FPS for now, and considering that my monitor is an Insignia 55 inch 1080p flatscreen TV (you heard me right), I won't be upgrading anytime soon. I don't need to buy anything other than the CPU and motherboard (I already have RAM), so I think this is what I will go with. Plus, if I wanted an 8600K, I would be paying more for the CPU alone than what I plan to pay for the 2500K and the Mobo, and that still does not include expensive DDR4 RAM and an expensive X370 mobo. I think Sandy Bridge is the sweet spot for budget gaming right now, I think I am going to try and find a deal on a 2500K.

 
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