Overclockers

Several news outlets, including Fudzilla and VR-Zone, are reporting that the upcoming Intel i7-2700k will cost more than the current top CPU, the 2600k. In the past, Intel has priced the newest processor at the same level as the previous fastest model it’s replacing. This strategy seems to have served Intel fairly well, as they still control the majority of the desktop CPU market share.

Intel's Current Top CPU: i7 2600K

Rumored to be hitting the shelves next month, the i7-2700k will be clocked at 3.5 GHz. This is a tiny bump up from the 3.4 GHz, about 3% to be exact. This will lead to barely any performance increase as the chip is essentially the exact same thing as the i7-2600k aside from the frequency increase. However, vr-zone is reporting that the i7-2700k’s will be better overclockers than their predecessors, as Intel is “cherry picking the best of the best of its Sandy Bridge cores for the 2700.” Though this would be exciting news to those of us attempting to shatter overclocking world records, it is difficult to believe.

While in the past our mantra here at Overclockers has been that later batch CPUs tend to overclock better as the processor construction processes become more refined. This is unlikely to translate to more headroom for benchers since batches and steppings seem to have no consistent correlation to overclocking capabilities with Sandy Bridge (Source: Sandy Bridge 2500K/2600K Batch and Serial Numbers).

This might be editorializing, but all these rumors swirling seem to conveniently coincide with rumblings from the AMD camp about the upcoming Bulldozer CPU. With a CPU frequency world record already under its belt, Bulldozer has been dominating the headlines in the hardware world. Intel likely did not want to be left out of the game, even though they have a pretty strong stranglehold on the desktop CPU market in my opinion. This market domination seems to be shrinking as the Bulldozer buzz grows within the extreme segment (made up of overclockers and benchers).

Fudzilla reports that the i7-2700k will cost $331, which is only $17 more than the 2600k. Other sites have previously reported anywhere between $340-$350. Many overclockers already are willing to pay a premium for cherry-picked CPUs with the ability to boot at higher multipliers. The quick-and-easy process of binning Sandy Bridge CPUs has become really popular among overclockers. Whether consciously or not, Intel is capitalizing on this practice by putting a premium price tag on premium silicon. Though I am unsure whether this is a profitable business move, it makes sense for Intel from a public relations perspective as they attempt to de-emphasize the release of Bulldozer with a new CPU of their own.

It appears that the i7-2700k will be available around Halloween, which is perfect since it’s essentially an i7-2600k in shiny new wrapper. Get your trick or treat bag ready.

Does anyone here plan on purchasing a new i7-2700k? What are your motivations for or against picking up this new chip when it becomes available?

- Matt Ring (mdcomp)

Tags: i7-2700k, intel, intel vs amd, sandy bridge

43 Comments:

bennoculus

09-22-11 09:44 PM

Awww

No price drop on 2600K's... But, maybe 2700K's will be easier to bin for us benchers?

EarthDog

09-22-11 10:50 PM

Easier to bin? Process wont change.

I dont know If its $331 and supposedly overclocks better, it probably wouldnt hurt to get one and take your chances if you have a lower multi chip.

GotNoRice

09-22-11 11:15 PM

I'm tempted to pick one up but if I couldn't get to at least the same clocks as my current i5-2500k (5Ghz) it would feel like a bust.

bennoculus

09-23-11 12:07 AM

Well, as it says in the article: "Intel is “cherry picking the best of the best of its Sandy Bridge cores for the 2700.” "

That is what I meant by "easier to bin". Easier might not have been the right word. Maybe "more successful" to bin would've been better...

EarthDog

09-23-11 12:13 AM

If that statement is correct, than your chances getting a better one will likely increase, yup.

jason4207

09-23-11 12:42 AM

Is it a new stepping?

Whatever happened to B3->G0, C0/C1->E0, C0->D0?

bmwbaxter

09-23-11 01:21 AM

not gonna be buying one unless others who do buy them get good results.

bennoculus

09-23-11 01:29 AM

+1. My thoughts exactly. If people end up getting killer chips from the i7-2700K, I'll jump on it. Otherwise, I'll stick to what I know.

Looks like HWBOT needs to add another CPU into their database...

kskwerl

09-23-11 04:57 AM

I've had a 2600k and I have sold that rig. I'm building a new rig soon and I was planning just on picking up a 2500k as I do a little gaming and not much of anything that requires hyper-threading to be honest. But hey, i'll have an upgrade path to a 2600-2700k or Ivy Bridge so I'm pretty satisfied. I would never fully use one of these CPU's to it's full potential. Although I am very interested in all this technology, I'm by no means an "enthusiast".

Another side note: Prior to the 2600k I had a Phenom II X6 and to be honest I never even think I utilized that to it's full potential.

ssjwizard

09-23-11 05:19 AM

I might be interested in such a thing next year some time, I am building a BD rig for my new primary system, but I could see myself picking one of these up as a dedicated benching chip provided the results are >= 2600k.

Romantic

09-23-11 06:06 PM

Well...considering I JUST built my i5 2500k rig, I don't see myself blowing $350 on a brand new chip for a few extra Mhz. Given yes, maybe it could get to 8Ghz better then my i5, but still. I don't utilize it, and many programs won't be able to utilize it for a while at least. And when they do, then it's off to linux with the machine. I'm going to suck every last bit of life out of that i5, and when it craps out, then there will be a whole new generation of octocores (or maybe decacores) on the market.

EarthDog

09-23-11 06:08 PM

Ehh, neither chip will get remotely close to 8Ghz. Many programs do use multicores. And last, there is more than a few extra Mhz difference (HT).

MattNo5ss

09-23-11 06:14 PM

...and more cache than the 2500K.

I wonder if Intel means they are trying to fix the low wall issue. It would be sweet if all i7 2700K's were like 55x chips or better

bmwbaxter

09-23-11 06:46 PM

Well I already have a 55x chip so I am hoping for more like 57x

EarthDog

09-23-11 07:03 PM

EXACTLY.. ^^

Im sure its still a crapshoot, but if it goes from 3% to 10%... what the hell.

manu2b

09-23-11 10:37 PM

Well my 2600K does 57X but needs one kilovolt to boot

SteveLord

09-24-11 04:22 AM

But not many programs or games show dramatic performance increases when using them. Especially 4+ cores.

EarthDog

09-24-11 02:23 PM

Not many, but as time goes on, more and more will. If you can afford it, why not? Always get the best you can/want afford is my motto

Bisquit

09-24-11 02:38 PM

This is my motto also, best advice possible.

kskwerl

09-24-11 06:48 PM

Now you got me thinking this way as well. This build I'm working on is taking forever. I buy one part per paycheck which is every 2 weeks. So far I have the case and mobo. I usually upgrade the pc every 1-2 years not even but due to financial difficulty once I get this up and running I won't be building a PC for a long long time. Mys well get the best I can for the 1155 socket.

EarthDog

09-24-11 07:16 PM

Well.. just thinking that Ivybridge is a drop in upgrade path for s1155 and z68 mobo's (most I believe). May want to save some coin now, grab a 2500k, then when ivybridge comes out, sell that 2500k and snag an IB?

Archer0915

09-24-11 07:35 PM

Well what I see here is a step up in clocks because of the BD and an increase in price because they think FlagShip BD will be on par with the current mainstream Intel Flagship (2600K) and they want to keep the lead in performance which means a higher price.

Most of us never bother with anything but air or water for our daily drivers and the fact is even if BD could do 20Ghz on LN it would not matter. What matters in the end to the general enthusiast community is highest speeds with practical cooling. We love to see the high LN clocks and give much credit to those processors that set those records but if we cant run that same CPU on air faster than the competition then we buy the competition.

Comedie

10-12-11 03:22 AM

sure, I'll take one. Was aiming to build with a 2600K. But if the story is right, that they are cherry picking to get the 2700K, then picking up a 2600K could mean that you are picking up a reject from that cherry picking exercise. So it isn't the promised little bit of extra performance that would have me pick the 2700K, but rather the extra assurance to avoid getting a 2600K that was found to not pass muster. Heck, who knows how long they might have been cherry picking to build up the inventory of 2700K's too.

kskwerl

10-13-11 03:39 AM

this scares me!

Bisquit

10-14-11 05:06 PM

Hmmm, interesting point. There were already several posts about new 2500k's that needed more voltage than before for a certain overclock. Don't know about the 2600k though.
Could be they pick before putting them on the actual chip with the cache.
Maybe the same as with 2500k and 2600k? Because those seem completely the same, and first ones clocked the same also. It's only recent there are differences in voltages and highest clocks possible.

We will know when the first max clocks of the 2700k are posted, then we can compare that with the 2600k's. Should be the same in that scenario.

EarthDog

10-14-11 05:11 PM

Cherry picking? Its one bin up. I would venture to say 95%+ of all 2600k's will run at 2700k speeds without breaking the TDP envelope they have set (meaning no voltage increase).

Ive probably ran through only 5-7 2600k's and none of them needed a voltage bump to hit 4Ghz (which is above the turbo of a 2700k).

Brolloks

10-14-11 06:35 PM

When is this bad boy hitting the stores? I'm ready for an upgrade

Hope the multi wall has been moved a few bricks as well.

Ivy

10-15-11 06:32 AM

6 core is now advisable at the current time and especially in the future. In fact more and more games do fully support 6 cores as of today, but not much more than that, so keep it at 6 cores for now, thats the probably best spot for the near and even far future. HT can safely be disabled, gamers dont need it. But i can even afford to enable it, still to much overhead power left, and some programs may run even faster having it. In fact, for anyone having SB or Gulftown, the CPU is no limitation at all, not even in 1-2 years. Thats because nowadays games mainly focus on consoles and they arnt above those CPUs in power and uses similiar engines (the devs cant afford to create new engines all the time, its very pricy). The GPU is the bigger limitation in term every setting is at the max (which is never the case on a console) and then, dependable on the setting, it can still be a good GPU leecher. That was ofc totaly different many years ago but it has changed and now the timeline between updated and outdated, for performance reason, is much larger than many years ago. In many term, even if the CPU is twice that strong, just barely any FPS increase can be noticed, thats a completly new condition, which was totaly unknown in the past... and guess why, a over-aged engine is a good guess, and aswell because the CPU does overpower it.

But again, 6 threads will be pretty much standart soon. Have to consider that the Xbox360 is aswell having 6 threads (3 cores and every core got 2 threads). And even the PS3 is massively multithreaded, however, thats some special cell CPU which is a bit a difficult design. Still, because of that fact its a clear sign that 6 cores are the future for the "all in one CPUs". I remember, 4 years ago in the year 2007, when i told others that i want to get a quad core for games.. everyone was laughing at me and told me that it is completly useless. Then i got me a C2D, and 3 year after.. i was very mad that i didnt get a quad because i would have had massive use of it, since the games started to support 4 cores initialy. Lesson learnt...

Sentential

10-15-11 12:46 PM

To be fair back in the prescott days of the 670 and 650 the bins did make an enormous difference. For me there appears to be a hard multiplier wall around 45x - 47x that others don't appear to have on my 2500k and it seem that whole "batch" of chips started just shortly after launch.

It wouldn't suprise me at all if the 2700ks do significantly better on their multiplier wall than the ones below it.

To sum it up nicely Intel just released an overclocking chip knowing full well that the majority of their sales are going to come from people pissed at bulldozer. Had I not already bought a 2500k honestly looking back I would have gone for this instead

bmwbaxter

10-16-11 05:27 PM

any update on when this is being released?

bennoculus

10-16-11 11:56 PM

Nope. I'm sure it'll be announced and you wont miss it...

wingman99

10-17-11 01:47 AM

I don't need a i7 2700k im doing fine at 5.0Ghz for $200

bennoculus

10-17-11 04:03 AM

Yeah...

I'm down for a 2700k. I want to see what they can do.

wingman99

10-17-11 04:52 AM

That cool i can't wait to see what they can do, i'm just not going to participate with the upgrade. Are they going to have the same multiplier limit?

bennoculus

10-17-11 06:45 AM

Yes...

I don't see why they'd raise it now. Makes no sense.

Brolloks

10-17-11 12:56 PM

The multi limit is moving to 63, cant remember where I read that

MattNo5ss

10-17-11 01:10 PM

That's Ivy Bridge.

Tspek

10-17-11 02:15 PM

I've been hearing this since HT first came out on the P4's

Archer0915

10-17-11 02:54 PM

Tspek and Ivy I do apologize for my error. If you did not see the post it was a question about post 29 and 39 and the apparent contradictions but I screwed up reading who posted what. Again I am sorry.

wingman99

10-17-11 06:39 PM

To bad it's not 90 so we can beat AMD's world record of 8.429GHz.

EarthDog

10-17-11 07:54 PM

Damn... would love to see that in print... maybe its that way for a reason, and not like putting a 140MPH speedometer in a minivan.

MattNo5ss

10-17-11 08:01 PM

The increase to a 63 multiplier is on Ivy Bridge, according to slides. I'm pretty sure the i7 2700K isn't an IB CPU

Chino323

10-19-11 08:27 PM

VR-Zone Intel 2700k Expected Cost and Release Date

Most of you have probably seen this all ready, but I hope the date holds true! At the bottom the price says, $331.

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