My CPU upgrade path went from core 2 duo to I5 2400, to I7 2700k to i7 4770k. Literally a magical time to be in PC gaming, the upgrade from core 2 to i5 2400 was absolutely amazing

I had a 2700K @ 5Ghz years ago. Bloody legend of a CPU.

Have that CPU still OC on 4.6 with rx 5700xt and still going strong!! Love it.

Ah yes, my old CPU before i upgraded to a 13700k.

Still running in on my old PC (2011)! downstairs my wife uses for playing Sims. Only upgraded to a 12600K! last year. Could not bring my self to sell it or retire it, its still going strong! - The windows PC name is OldFriend

I still remember my i5-2500k, absolute legend.

Doesn't the 4060 only have 8 PCI-e lanes? And since the i7 2600k only has PCI-e 2.0, we are left with 8 lanes on PCI-e 2.0 which is a substantial bottleneck.

Tech YES City - Still mighty in 2024!

That motherboard is a beast! My boss gave me his old gaming rig for work a couple years ago with exactly this combo, it’s still kicking as my living room gaming PC.

I still use my i7-2600K overclocked @ 4.4Ghz with a Noctua cooler and P8P67 Asus board built in 2010. Runs fine!

My brother sold his PC because he didn't really "game"; Ryzen 1700, GTX 1650 and 16gbs of ram. 1 year later he's itching to play games, but he doesn't have a PC to game on! II always have spare parts I never want to let go of! I built him a "Spare Parts PC" and I personally liked it even more than his Previous PC build! He now has a PC with a i7 2700k (LOVED that it was just not the standard 2600k heheh) 32gb of RAM, GTX 980Ti, and a 1TB SSD! The value from older hardware is amazing, and I understand that even nowadays first gen ryzen chips are basically free from how cheap they are! BUT something about using trophy pieces of time feels so daing right! And I mean isn't it better to use these parts, over just having them in a drawer collecting dust ;) People nowadays want to upgrade PC parts or PCs as a whole , almost as often as they change phones!!! It's crazy because it's NOT needed whatsover, but the sensationalism is crazier than ever with "who will have the latest and greatest".

Really interesting video ! I had an i5 2500K back in the day, with a 4.5GHz overclock. I then switched up to Ryzen when it launched. Nice to see these old CPUs still keeping up !

I'm watching this video on a PC with an i7-2600k, it is paired with a Gtx 1650, 16 gig ram, and my daughter players Boulder Gate on it with a high setting

Very interesting. Thank you. Would be interesting to see the same test with a 4790K.

I used mine @4.5, with optimised setting in a Gigabyte board, never exceeding the 95W TDP, so a Hyper 212 was all I needed, with temps maxing out in the high 60s when encoding (and of course much less while gaming). Loved that chip to bits 🙂. Thanks Bryan for revisiting it in 2024 🙂

The old i7's were beasts. I was running a 2nd gen i7 in an Alienware laptop up until 2017 and it played everything I wanted.

Tbh I was quite surprised how well the i7-2600K w/ RTX 4060 was handling Robocop at 1080p compared to the i5-12400 😱🤯. I’d love to see this pc setup put through a variety of newer gaming titles 💪🥰👍

Thank you for this video. It lets me know my old CPU still kicks butt. I just swapped out my 3gb 1060 for a 8gb 1070. Haven't tried it out yet in games. Giving the new set up. To my nephew.

Love these videos. Keep it up tech man.

This was a fun video. Comparing an i3-12100 to the i7-2600k would be cool. I would love to see a revisit of the 8 core xeon on x79. I had that cpu and 2060s for 4 years. I had an x79 board and a quad channel ram kit, so it was a nobrainer.

Still using this cpu @4.2. Personally I wanted to see you compared it with x58 besides new gen i5 because they are basically the same architecture and price/performance beasts. Great video.

I remember my old 2600k. It was a beast for years. I didn't upgrade it until Ryzen came around. Oh yeah, the overclocking was phenomenal on those days.

Still have mine, running mineos for the kids, ran it with an 8800gts and then a 6990hd back in the day,. (before moving to 4790k)

Love this content. Best Tech Yes City stuff imo

Before I upgraded a couple years ago, my system was a 2600k paired with a sapphire rx580 8gb. love that PC so much Played so much MW 2019 on that haha

Legendary CPU still rocking after 13 years.

Wait, I just got a E5-2699 v4, now this. 😁 Great video!

I daily drive this CPU. For me it’s now a simple part of a storage server but I did use it for FlightSim 2020 partnered with an RX580. (It’s about to be retired sadly) That was in 2020 and no it wasn’t pushing high frames and settings at 1080 but wow for such an old CPU and GPU I was impressed with it at the time. Still have the RX580, currently in original retail box. This CPU was part of my first gaming PC build, my first time building a PC!! I couldn’t be happier with the CPU and it spurred me onto bigger and better builds. I have to say, it was my prime PC for around 8 years and it’s sad that I’m about to retire this CPU. Thanks for the video and the 2600k love! 😊

Funny enough, I was thinking about powering up my i7-2700k build over the weekend. It has a GTX 770 in it. It is a time capsule to me, so much gaming was done on that system.

i7 2600k + msi z77 set only cost 28$

Mine did back in the day hit 5.3Ghz with LCPC V10 case with build in phase change cooler. Could probably have gone much higher but didn't end up doing so. Had Maximus IV Extreme mainboard.

Using INSPECTRE to disable spectre and meltdown patches boosted up the FPS in CS2 quite significantly (i5 2400).

hey, it's my guy! i'm rocking it still but i'm looking to upgrade because it's actually FINALLY showing its age

Rocked one of these with 64gb and a 5700xt before moving to a 5900x and a 6700xt during that worldwide lockdown. Great CPU I managed 4.4ghz OC on air on mine back when overclocking could really make a difference. Nice to see for budget gaming it's still an option worth considering.

Uh, Sandy Bridge is a legend, true, but the video is not telling the whole picture. In 2019 I upgraded from 2600k to 9700k and in some more demanding titles like AC: Odyssey the stutter that was constant with 2600k just went away on 9700k. And it is similar for many games, while average fps was pretty strong on 2600k, it was constantly microstuttering and that what showed it's age compared to newer CPU. Still, trading blows on avg fps with 12400f is mind blowing, shows how little actual progress was made decade later.

Still using a i7 2600 in 2024, upgraded my gpu thrice currently using a GTX 1660 ti. Gonna build a new rig this summer.

There's just something fun about playing with older gear that was once high end and putting it through its paces with contemporary software. They can be "modest" vs current gear, but can still run decades of great software very nicely and can still cover "minimum requirements" for a lot of newer titles too.

Damn that is long ago I was rocking a 2600K Sandy Bridge. Still have it somewhere around in it's case it came with back than. Upgraded to a 4790K in the days. Nowadays still happy with my 10900K.

i loved my i7 2500k when i dailied 3 way gtx 480.that was a fun time to be alive. laptop cpus are my jam right now, 13900hk ES and its rolling 5.5 all core at 1.24v. thing still pulls 150w

I tend to just build these things for friends who want to jump into pc gaming but balk at the prices of decent prebuilts, maybe asking for a bit on the top of the cost of parts for my labor instead of flipping them. But still, videos like these are Lifesavers.

My favorite generation of Intel CPUs! Keep the budget build coming, thanks always

Oh man i only stopped using my non-K about a year ago, when i had an i7-4790 non-K with its Dell XPS board included fall into my lap. I was using the 2600 with an Acer board (ive got two of them, the other has an i5-2400 and is paired with a 2gb 950gtx and 14gb mix n match ram to use with my projector) and a DeepCool cooler (underrated cheapo cooler, a tenner and you're golden) and now it's going into a nice build im doing for a friend of mine (i7-2600/3gb R9 280 w/Neimez drivers/16gb DDR3) cannibalizing her old Alienware and parts i had around. This old timer is still going strong, and i use its little brother, the i7-2600s in our HTPC with 16gb DDR3, and the Polaris 21/640sp 4gb lil purple Yeston RX550 (seriously good lil card, the size of a box of smarties, great for a SFF build snagged it almost 4 years ago off of AliExpress, got it 'free' after it came super late and i got refunded then came a week later lol), and i can do things like 4k video, play games like Starfield (Steamdeck mod pack), Hogwarts, etc and the wife has no complaints she was happily playing Baldurs Gate 3 for days on it. Sandybridge is better than wine, it ages like a War Bond!!!

Great video love x58 and Sandy, still great performance, Brian can you look into the polemic generated by forza motorsport's devs leaving out tons of radeon rx 580 gamers, they droped support for that card after months of releasing!! the game was running just fine since launch and now after updates they refuse to support it, look at the steam reviews and forza forums, people are pissed after playing houndreds of hours with their rx 580 and 570 cards suddently they cant play anymore because devs silently upgraded the requirements

I used a 2600k from 2011 to 2019, now it sits in my GF wow classic rig and crushes that haha. Great value. Back in the day many people questioned why you would get a 2600k when a 2500k was so much cheaper. Well those 8 threads really provided longevity as mine is 13 years old and still used daily. I’ve got two other 2600 chips pulled from various computers. I just can’t throw them away!

I JUST picked up a tomahawk z87 motherboard with a 4790k, and sli 1080ti's for $160 It was in a MASSIVE old haf case...

I had a Sandybridge-E System for years. Absolute monster. Wasn't until I upgraded to a 2080ti that I needed to upgrade.

It's still running my 8 camera CCTV system. I still had it paired to a 970 and was playing games till a couple of years back.

My first high-end CPU was back in 2011 and gave me gaming joy until its MB died in 2016. I sold it to a tech repair guy and I think it still working. The funny thing is I replaced it with a new build with Ryzen 5 2600, which was life-changing.

Bryan, might be interesting to cover the AliExpress 2011-3 combos at the moment around $80-$90 AUD for a 2650 V4 or similar, X99-P4 and 16GB DDR4 kits. VRM temps, feature sets and performance versus more current platforms might be considerations given their perceived values seems strong, even foregoing quad channel due to a H81 chipset. Would be keen to hear your opinion in 2024.

When it's finally time to retire Sandy Bridge for modern gaming, it shouldn't be forgotten that it's a banger Windows XP retro gaming system.

Watching this video with my 2600K air-cooled since I bought it back when it was released with a GTX 1080, still working like a champ, no issues ever.

Being the owner since new of and MSI p67-gd65/i7 2600k, I can definitely say.. What an impressive platform with long legs into the future. (13 years later) I'm still rocking a GTX 680 2 gig but can install a Maxwell GTX 970 to see how it performs. I run mine also at 4.2 ghz and higher. Thanks Brian for showcasing this Legendary CPU.

My first gaming pc has this cpu with a hyper 212 evo,16gb of ram, windows 7 and a gtx 580 3gb for a while and my i7 which i still have was stable at 4.5ghz. I got a lot of milegage out of that PC and im currently rebuilding it to be a PC alongside my OP XP/Vista machine and my main windows 11 PC. These CPUs where stupid good value.

I ran an i5-2500k from launch to 2021 when I built my i5 -10600k system.

I've been keeping all my old gear. Still can't believe how good it still plays modern games.

I love older CPUs. I have an i7 4790K that overclocks to 4.8ghz on a 120mm cooler, and it does great in every game I play, BUT Escape From Tarkov.. That game you have to have extreme single thread performance, or cache. But being able to build a complete PC for less than $350 that destroys modern titles is amazing. Newegg in the U.S. sells refurbished 6650xt and 3060s for $150-$180 all day everyday which makes budget PCs a great seller over here.

The Sandy Bridge to Haswell run was a great time for everyone. It's crazy how well they've aged, especially Haswell i7s.

I had a 2500k and a 2600k both overclocked to 4.5GHz and they were so good. I upgraded to an x79 platform with a Xeon 1650v1 only for the core count and the triple channel (used bargain). I kept that until 10700k.

I just did finish a build sort of similar to yours but with an Asrock Z87 and an I7-4770K. You got a nice score getting that case for free! Your GPU rocks compared to the EVGA GTX 1060 6GB I tossed into my build. I installed all my components into a new Gamdias Talos E2 Elite that was on sale for $54.I got $333 into it. Hey can you shoot a video on a build with what looks a white Montech case? I had a used one in new condition delivered the other day and I haven't decided what I'm going to put into it. I have more 4th gen stuff or 6th gen with I7-6700K or 8th gen with a modest I5-8400. Love this channel for the ideas and different builds and the flips. I've learned so much thank you!

I just used the i7 3770 with an rx 480. It does pretty well. Helldiver's 2 at 50fps on medium and cyberpunk as well. Not bad for such old cpus!!

You're very correct about the very stable and steady clocks of the older-gen Intel chips. Even on a half-broken stock cooler, my 4670k could push good overclocks and not reach any dangerous temps.

I ve had this CPU untill a few months ago.I used it along with an Asrock P8H67 mobo , 32gb ddr3 HyperFury x ram and an Amd Rx480 Sapphire Nitro 8gb 256 bit. It did fine for me for a few years (3 or 4 years ) .The mentioned build kind of had a sentimental value to me, because it was my 1st build made from scratch, not just upgarding older parts. I ve made this setup from the ground up, on a budget, with very much patience , waitin for bargains.If you are on a very very tight budget and you want to have a taste of the newer gen games, you could still choose this CPU . The thing is, it will just make it enough to run them with no further expectations, depending on the GPU you want to pair it with. The downside in my build mentioned above, was the mobo. It did not know things as OC, no XMP , nothing, so that makes a difference, now seeing your video. Nonetheless, i ve upgraded to an Asus Maximus VIII Gene along with the "Frankenstein" i9 QQLS (i ve saw your video where you presented this crazy chip) and it was pretty much the confirmation that i needed to go along with this kind of contraption,As a side note, i remember you mentioning that it s a power hungry chip once you start pushing it ...I agree, but if you have the nerve to test it in various conditions along with XTU , you will find the sweet spot in power/temp/stability ratio (currently running 4ghz , 1.160V , 234A with a 280mm BeQuiet AIO , i get 29C idle, 75 in 100%load. In addition, i ve got 32gbb of DDR4 and the latest upgrade, a GTX 1080TI (because budget build :) ) .I can now run any game at 1080/1440 p , very high - maxxed out settings with at least 60FPS (with the respectable dips to 50, depending on the game in question) . Nonetheless, great content! TBH, i`ve been watching your content for sometime now, not obsessively, but frequently enough to have me as a subscriber :) > i really like your idea of budget builds , finding deals, bargains , stuff that is really still capable, but at a normal price , especially as i`m inclined to this way of getting hardware also. Keep up the good work man!

i got my 2600k back in 2014 Now OC'd to 4.4 ghz with a DP67BG ( bought it as a prebuilt pc with 4 Gb Ram back then) and a Monitor for only $110 US , since then got a Corsair Rm1000x used for $50 US and a 32 Gb Hyper X Fury DDR3 for $60 USD 4x8 GB Kit and recently got a RTX 3060 12GB for $230 Used. Packed it full of ssd's and Hard drives Totaling almost 20TB. Still plays everything I want to play. GTA5 , DBXV2 , Spiderman Remastered , Uncharted 4 as well as AOE4,3,2,1 ... games like The Last of US also running at around 40fps with drops into the low 30's but in my eye I'm fine with a 13 y PC getting console expierience 30fps at high settings . I also use RPCS3 and most games are playable but those first party titles are quite difficult to emulate i.e Killzone 3 ( 26+- fps) & Gran Turisimo 5 ,6 (15-20 fps)

Awesome Vid I still offer 2nd and 3rd gen CPUs with the friend and family discount where they still find enjoyment out of them. With how cheap 2500k are and how prevalent 2nd gen intel prebuilts are in my area how could I not. But if they wanted something brand new, I would go for an AM4 system with a 5-15$ R3 1200/AF/1300X, and a cheap mobo with a nothing case and 16GB of random RAM for another 5-15$

Amazon has an Asus Z68 for only $165, man what a steal. Only 10 left in stock so I better hurry. You are right about wanting to buy the 2600k and motheboard combo.

I have a I7 2600k been using it forever. I don’t game much but kits been an ok cpu as a daily driver. It does most things ok, I did finally upgrade and built a new rig. But still have the I7 2600k and se it to work as a miner

Had one of these back in 2011. Yes, it was amazing and along with an SSD it felt as if I didn't need a faster computer ever again (but of course I did!)

We must be In sync this week. I just picked up a Gigabyte GA-P75-D3 with a 2nd gen i7. Turns out the bios is locked up, and I will work through that eventually. But I tested out the CPU on another older system. I was amazed at how snappy it is for being a non K variant. Even if I can't get the board up and going. The other parts from the deal were very well worth what I paid.

I've only just upgraded from 4700K it was still fine. Boot times were a bit slow. Missing out on a few instruction sets after nearly a decade but was working well with my gtx980 which I was also sad to see go

i settled at 4.2ghz on mine and its a great balance of having performance and reliability , its been a stable system for the last 7 + years with no issues

Did you overclock the ddr3 memory as well?? That'll really help boost the numbers. Bandwidth matters!!!

The fact we are just now starting to get to the age were processors come stock 5ghz is wild, it’s also crazy that 5ghz was possible on this chip, a true legend.

God Bryan, I need that 1155 Motherboard. I am rocking a 3770k with a 2060 but ive never been able to overclock it because of a stock, intel board. I would love to see what this chip can do but used 1155 boards are either 100 bucks or need a full cap replacement.

Built my 1st PC with the i5-2500k, it was such a longstanding CPU, wonder if we will have a generation that will go on as long as this one did?, as well as those Xeon's which at the time were sold for 1000's for servers.

At this point 4th gen haswell is the lowest gen you realistically want to go. Supports all the needed api and such and is about as cheap if not cheaper because there are so many of them on the office refurb scene. An i7 k chip with a good oc can still put in work.

My 2600K was happy at 4.7 GHz all day at ~ 1.33 volts, and for benchmarking 4.9 GHz at 1.39 volts / 5.0 GHz at 1.41 volts. Happy to see this video :)

Those 2nd 3rd 4th and 6/7th gen i7s are still pretty decent for budget builds. Specially if you can find those cheap with a motherboard.

I would recommend checking out recycling centers if you ever fly out to the US. I've been getting cpu, board and ram combos with coolers for 30 - 35 bucks. I got a i7 4790k, maximus 6 hero, 16gb of ddr3 1866mhz memory for 35 bucks

I used to have one reliably overclocked at 5Ghz for many years. It was really an awesome CPU that lasted me almost a decade. The last GPU I paired it with was a 2080 Super and I was able to play Doom Eternal in 4K at consistent 60fps 😊

Surprisingly the 2600K still held up alright. I had mine overclocked to 4.6 GHz on a Corsair H70 stable. I have tried 4.8 but wasn't super solid.

I have a Haswell laptop with i7 and it performs as well as some of my newer laptops

I was using i5 2500k until four month ago (bought when cpu came out in 2011). Wasn't very fast, but CPU wasn't the problem. 8gb ram was a problem and I was not willing to spend ~50usd for ddr3. Nvme drive was a desired upgrade too. So I went with 7800x3d. I hope I will use it for next 10 years.

Id love an X58 revisit in 2024! Wonder how close a 5650 would be to a 2600k with the extra cores but lower ipc

I had a 3930k for 8 years before feeling the need to upgrade. All core 4.8ghz. Absolutely futureproofed back in 2012. Best part is I bought it 2nd hand for £380. Still have it in a back up system with a 1070.

Ha I got my old sandy bridge in 2011. It saw 4 GPUs until I replaced it with a 3900X at the tail end of 2019. It now lives in a box frame on my wall (mobo included). Truly a historic chip.

I'd love to see you do an fx series cpu from the same Era to see the performance jump

My first gaming PC was a Dell with the non K version of this CPU. I've only played games at 1080p so the incremental updates over the years feel like bad expenses.

I've built numerous 2700K systems with that very same mbd (M4E/Z), which is one of the best P67/Z68 mbds one can use for oc'ing (if not the best, the feature set is excellent). Any 2700K will do 5GHz+ no problem on an M4E/Z using just a 120mm air cooler and one fan, with good temps and noise. They can be pushed higher, but I always stopped at 5GHz. I still use two such setups for various things, though I do have another seven I need to sell off (still have all the original boxes and accessories for most of them, I don't throw away PC parts packaging). I always use GSKill TridentX or Ripjaw RAM, 16GB or 32GB, normally CL10, running at 2133 or 2400, though I found the Corsair DDR3/2400 or 2133 also worked ok. Hence, your config is definitely on the low side of what is possible, especially if using an M4E/Z. There are however two caveats with the 2600K/2700K, one of which you've already noted, ie. some games rely heavily on a single games/physics thread which means their potential depends strongly on single core/thread performance; you mentioned CSGO and similar titles, another is Subnautica, for which using a 1080 Ti I was able to double the fps by switching to a 5600X/B450. Other games though care far less about IPC, especially if one is running at higher resolutions and using more powerful GPUs, it can often push the bottleneck away from the CPU, but it depends very much on the specific game, settings, resolution, etc. A second issue is specific to the ASUS M4E/Z mbd, namely that its onboard NEC USB3 controller isn't very good, it has a firmware bug which means one can experience dropout and other issues on the related ports. The best solution is just to fit a 4-port USB3 PCIe x1 card (that's how I dealt with it, worked fine), or don't use the ports controlled by the NEC. For a time, for gaming, I switched to an Asrock Z68 Extreme7 with the same CPU/RAM and 1080 Ti, because it didn't suffer from the USB3 issue, but the mbd couldn't sustain anywhere near the same level of oc, on the Asrock I settled on 4.5, whereas like I say any 2700K will do 5+ on an M4E/Z. You're right about finding mbds, it's hard to obtain good ones like the M4E, though ironically I have half a dozen complete setups to offload. :D

I have the 2600k in my old rig, 5ghz custom loop with SLI GTX 780's 😆I thought about buying a used 1080ti with a water block as a last hurrah but I already have another rig setup.

Great video as always Bryan. Wow, these old 2nd 3rd and 4th gen Intel chips are still doing a fine job! I do a fair bit of tinkering with old systems and I have found though that it's the motherboards more than anything else that are starting to fail. I've had 2 old mobos from this era just give up the ghost lately, a 3rd gen and a 4th gen. And while the value is there for the CPUs and ddr3 ram, for me the old mobos are overpriced

Mine is the ivy bridge i7 3770 that is still running today with the mighty gigabyte motherboard.

Can you check out the i7 8700 please. I've seen quite a few cheap dell desktop PC's selling on ebay with the 8700 and it would cool to see how it goes against the latest value gaming CPU's like the R5 5600/3600 and the 12400F.

Thoughts on a 12700KF for £230 (GBP), brand new? Currently on a 9700k and it is showing signs of slowing down now in day to day use. Don't want to change to ryzen until the next gen comes and prices settle down on it, so Intel 12th gen is looking enough of a sweet spot for price to performance for the money involved atm. Also what's the verdict on ddr4 vs ddr5 with it?

Just found out that the HP Envy systems with 6th gen intel will take a standard power supply. No weird mobo/psu adapters needed. And they don't have any oddly positioned cables or brackets to prevent a dual slot GPU from fitting. Side vent will accept 120mm fans too. Given how cheap I've seen them ($50usd complete systems) it might be an option. The mobo is also regular matx and has normalish connector positions. Might need a couple pins shorted to recase but should be easy.

Interesting video! I wonder how the i7-2600k compares to the 2011 v3 cpu's like the e5 2680 v4. I don't have an apples to apples comparison but I do have a build with an rx 5700 + e5 2680 v4. In CS2 I got 105 average fps, 1% low of 57, and 0.1% low of 36. The 4060 is quite a bit more powerful than the rx5700 though so it's difficult to compare.

Still happily gaming on a X99 xeon.(The E5-2697v3 with T.U. with 12c/24t active) and thr GPU is a RTX3070 and its still being used to the max at 99% usage in the games i play. I try to overclock my 5930K but max i can get is 4.5ghz all core. But with per core oc i can get it to 4.6 or 4.7

Great video Brian, todays PC users do not understand old hardware like me, you, and any other PC Users out there if you want to game on a budget understand your hardware and how are you as a PC user is how you are using it in todays society. Because in this video Brian could have team it with the RTX 2000, 3000 and still get good performance out of the system.

I used to run my 2600K at 4.9GHz stable on air (Arctic Freezer eXtreme Rev.2), constantly for just over three years

Such a good channel

can someone tell me what motherboard was used in the video?thanks in advance....