Core i5 2400k upgrade

[eyedeeuh]

Hello all, been a reader here for a while, you all seem quite good with these things and I was hoping to speak with someone who might tell me if upgrading from my i5 2400k sandybridge to say an i5-6600 would be a massive increase or if I should just continue waiting for something else to come along.

[Sorshen]

There's little to no gain in switching your 2500k(?) to 6600, you'd incur some massive $$ losses for the motherboard and memory - your cpu can be overclocked to outperform 6600. Maybe post your whole system specs so we can take a look, upgrades might be warranted in other areas.

[eyedeeuh]

Intel core i5-2400k @3.1 (stock?) standard retail cooling
MS PH61A-P35 (B3)
8GB Ripjaws DDR3 1600 (pc12800)
EVGA Gefore GTX 960
Samsung 850 Evo 250gb SSD for main drive
WD Elements 1tb external backup
crappy 60hz 5ms 23" monitor
kb/mouse blahblah rest isn't really that important I believe

[chazus]

There is no such thing as a "i5-2400K". At 3.1ghz, I imagine you have a "i5-2400" (as opposed to the mentioned 2500k). It turbos from 3.1 to ~3.3 when playing games.

That said, getting a 4690K or 6600K and OC'ing will be a pretty significant boost in raid FPS. But you're also looking at buying a new CPU, board, and possibly ram.

[Blackmist]

I think you can go i5-3570K or even i7-3770K without needing to change the motherboard. MSI's page for that board is now incomplete.

You can't support 4690K or anything else from that generation without getting a new board and if you're doing that you might as well get a socket that isn't dead yet.

You can probably find one second hand from all the people needlessly upgrading to Skylake CPUs.

[Sorshen]

In that case, there's no overclocking for you. What's your budget?

[chazus]

You won't be able to overclock a 3570K in that board so upgrading would be largely useless. Again, budget is the key here.

For $150 you could pick up an i3-4170 (3.7ghz) and an H81 board and that alone will be a good 30% faster on things like raids and whatnot. It also depends on what you're trying to do. The i5-2400 is not a BAD cpu. Your other hardware is pretty good. Is an upgrade even needed?

[eyedeeuh]

I just find myself with tax money and would like to take this opportunity to upgrade and ensure a future proof rig.

[Deleted]

Well, if you have $500 laying around, then I see little harm in getting a 6600k and going to town.

This is what you can get for that money, which is a semi-futureproof build for the next 3 years or so:

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i5-6600K 3.5GHz Quad-Core Processor ($249.95 @ SuperBiiz)
CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO 82.9 CFM Sleeve Bearing CPU Cooler ($24.75 @ OutletPC)
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-Z170XP-SLI ATX LGA1151 Motherboard ($118.98 @ Newegg)
Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws V Series 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4-2400 Memory ($69.99 @ Newegg)
Total: $463.67
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2016-02-19 03:40 EST-0500

Yes, DDR4 really is that cheap.

[Vash The Stampede]

I just find myself with tax money and would like to take this opportunity to upgrade and ensure a future proof rig.

Can't go wrong with a 6600K. Though personally nothing here says future proof. Keep in mind that i5 2400 you have can Turbo to 3.4Ghz, which by today's standards is pretty good. Sandy Bridge isn't all that slower compared to Skylake. The 6600K is 3.5 GHz, but Turbo's 3.90GHz. Which means little since you can overclock it to much higher speeds.

A 6600K is an upgrade you'll notice only if you overclock it. You could go for the i7-5960X, Core i7-5930K, Core i7-5820K. They're more powerful in my opinion but not cheap. Also not exactly future proof. Late this year when Zen is release it'll certainly be a game changer for everyone, but technically nobody is going to be able to buy a Zen until 2017.

Ask yourself if you're noticing performance issues with the i5-2400? If not, then why upgrade? Technically Intel hasn't done any major strides with their CPUs for a while, so a 2500k, 3570K, 4970k, and the 6600k are equally as fast and future proof. My opinion is that if you're not having issues, just keep using that system for another year and then upgrade. It's not like that system is a power house with a GTX 960. A CPU upgrade only helps in a game like WoW.

Judge for yourself but in my opinion you won't notice a difference upgrading to a 6600K without overclocking it. Most of the performance upgrades you'll notice isn't going to come from the 6600K but with the motherboard itself. Sadly, the motherboards have advanced more than the CPUs.