Core i5 2500K or Sandy Bridge Xeon?

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njsullyalex

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Hey, I have my heart set mostly on a Core i5 2500K as an upgrade from my Core 2 Quad Q9400, but when I was looking on eBay, I found some Sandy Bridge 1155 Xeons for around the same price (if not a little more), namely, the Xeon E3-1240. This CPU does not have the overclocking potential of the 2500K, but where it makes up in is that it has hyperthreading, so it has better overall multi-core performance than even an overclocked 2500K. I will mainly use this build for gaming. Should I go for a Xeon CPU for gaming, or should I stick with my original plan to get a Core i5 2500K?
 
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EpIckFa1LJoN
I highly recommend you reconsider that.

a 7600k or 6600k and a z170/z270 MB would be roughly the same price and would be significantly better.

A 3rd or 4th gen chip even would be better than the 2nd Gen and also allow you to keep your RAM.

When you're talking upgrades like this, you shouldn't allow something like RAM to keep you from getting something at least relatively recent.
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EpIckFa1LJoN

EpIckFa1LJoN

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If its mainly for gaming get the 2500k.

Per-core speed beats out multi-core performance for the vast majority of games. That's why for gaming even the 8700k is better than the Ryzen 1800x even though the core count on the 1800x is better, and even for productivity the 1800x is better.
 
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EpIckFa1LJoN

EpIckFa1LJoN

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But aside from that what is your budget?

If you're trying to upgrade to one of those chips I'm fairly certain you'll need a new MB.

Looks like your current CPU is LGA 775 and 2500k is LGA 1155.

And if you need a new Motherboard it is quite possible it would be better to upgrade to a new Gen.
 
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InvalidError

InvalidError

Titan
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One of my friends fried the BIOS of a z68 motherboard by trying to upgrade it and he couldn't find a decent replacement z68/z77 motherboard so he ended up going with a Ryzen 1700 instead.

I wouldn't recommend "investing" in an obsolete processor for which the motherboard supply is drying up.
 
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njsullyalex

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I fully intend to buy a new motherboard for my CPU, and I am aware that my 775 motherboard will not support an 1155 CPU. This is on a budget, and I want a motherboard that supports DDR3 instead of DDR4, as DDR4 is expensive and I already have DDR3 on hand. That is why I am not going for Coffee Lake or Ryzen. Plus, I'm going to College in a couple years, I want this PC to last me at least 1 GPU upgrade but once I'm in College I'll probably do a new build anyways.

Good to know though, I'll probably still go with the 2500K then, seems like a solid choice even today, and even better when overclocked.

BTW, would the ASUS P8P67-M be a good motherboard for overclocking then?
 
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InvalidError

InvalidError

Titan
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DDR3 would also work with Ivy Bridge and Haswell CPUs. Since you are shopping used, you may want to look into those and z77/87/97 motherboards too. With Coffee Lake finally giving enthusiasts something worth upgrading to (once Intel gets yield and volume under control), I'd expect the used supply to get quite decent and decently priced.
 
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EpIckFa1LJoN

EpIckFa1LJoN

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I highly recommend you reconsider that.

a 7600k or 6600k and a z170/z270 MB would be roughly the same price and would be significantly better.

A 3rd or 4th gen chip even would be better than the 2nd Gen and also allow you to keep your RAM.

When you're talking upgrades like this, you shouldn't allow something like RAM to keep you from getting something at least relatively recent.
 
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