KitGuru KitGuru.net – Tech News | Hardware News | Hardware Reviews | IOS | Mobile | Gaming | Graphics Cards
Intel have had a hell of a year, with little competition offered in the enthusiast sector. AMD's Bulldozer chip looked promising, but sadly fell short of the mark, even with double the physical cores. The Core i7 2500k and 2600k have remained the enthusiast number 1 choice, and today we are looking at the 2600k update, the aptly named 2700k.
We have to admit, it is hard to get excited about the 2700k, because it only offers a modest clock bump, to 3.5ghz. In Turbo mode, the 2700k will hit 3.9ghz. It is still the same four physical and four logical design (Hyper Threading), with 8MB of cache.
The ‘K' series has been a popular choice for the enthusiast user, as these processors are unlocked and extremely easy to overclock. I have three or four of each, and they all hit 4.6ghz-4.8ghz without much of a problem. As with all processors, the overclocking capabilities will vary between steppings.
Intel have kept this launch rather low key, perhaps conserving all their energy for the upcoming X79 launch. We were shipped an engineering sample for review and have spent several days putting it through its paces with a variety of applications.
When it was launched, the price was said to be around £290 inc vat, which was a £40 premium over the 2600k. In the last couple of days however it has dropped to £258 inc vat which certainly sweetens the deal. It seems like a no brainer for only £10 more, right?
Oh dear. AMD have lost this round again 🙁 nice review thanks.
It just keeps getting better.
I saw the price on scan last week and thought it was a bit much. For £10 it is a solid choice, especially as the architecture and engineering has improved over time. I would say these will overclock better, especially on phase and with high end water.
AMD havent answered this yet. what a disappointing year for them. just as well they bought out ATI.
Kick ass. I love my 2500k. running at 4.6ghz and more than fast enough for anything I need.
Its a great chip, but not worth moving from a 2600k to this. good for a new system build
Not very exciting but miles ahead of anything else out there. Intel own the market
I’m not sure that I know the difference between the 2700k and the 2600k? ANY 2600k will easily oc to the stock of the 2700k so unless they are binning the higher clocking chips and guaranteeing the 2700k will oc higher than the 2600k does then its a strange distinction between the two?
Personally, I’d stick with 2600K right now if you already have it, but if you’re building a new system, why not make the move to 2700K.
This CPU does not excite me in any ways when it comes to results, i mean come one 100 Mhz boost can be had with a 2600k without a sweat. What this CPU actually brings is the price drop.
Hi . i’m just waiting for my build with 2700k to be finished but review has me worried as you failed to get a good OC on the same mobo as my build is using, weve got the corsair hydo 80 as cooler but as we were wanting 5ghz the reviews worried us
BTW (no HT) comp is for computer chess so no HT is needed for it
Anyone know why OC failed with that mobo(Gigabyte Z68AP-D3 ) ?
Hi Venus,
Not sure what happened, but I couldnt get good stable overclocks above a certain speed. You might do better with slightly different components in the system build.
the only differences might be hydo80, as we need a reasonably priced mobo with on board graphcs and the one that failed in review has been exellent with 2600k stable at 4.8 on air so we were expecting 5ghz on liquid not falure at 4.6
any advice appreciated
we wont be using HT as its for computer chess but wanted the extra speed the 3.5 ghz should offer
i7 2600k @ 5.2ghz! on Asus P8Z68-V PRO Z68 Gskill 8gb 2100mhz , only limited by reaching 81degrees , with better cooling could go higher!!!
Normally I do not read article on blogs, but I would like to say that this write-up very forced me to try and do it! Your writing style has been amazed me. Thanks, quite great post.