7 ms·

As entirely anecdotal evidence, I upgraded from a 2500k (that I'd been running at 4.5GHz) to a 3600 and the perceived difference in speed is phenomenal. At ~€40

As entirely anecdotal evidence, I upgraded from a 2500k (that I'd been running at 4.5GHz) to a 3600 and the perceived difference in speed is phenomenal. At ~€400 for CPU+Motherboard+RAM it's also great value. Every day work just feels more snappy and compile times are down by a lot. Single thread is a lot faster and of course having 12 threads instead of 4 makes a huge difference (of course that effect might be less for you since you already have SMT). Paired with a 1060 I even notice quite a difference in gaming. Even though I didn't necessarily have 100% usage on the CPU, I was 10-20FPS below benchmarks for my GPU. This didn't really make sense to me, but after I upgraded I indeed got those extra frames. I haven't done any scientific on the performance improvement, but according to PassMark, I am getting roughly a 120% performance increase on parallelizable workloads, even when taking my OC into account.

onli 7y ago
> Even though I didn't necessarily have 100% usage on the CPU, I was 10-20FPS below benchmarks for my GPU. This didn't really make sense to me, but after I upgraded I indeed got those extra frames. That can happen when the game performance relies on the workload of one thread (or at least less then cores/thread count) that couldn't be properly offloaded to the idle cores. The 3600 has not only more but also stronger cores than the 2500K, and thus even without reaching 100% processor usage before the game can run faster now, because the critical thread runs faster.
- Cu3PO42 7y ago
  You're right, of course. What I meant to say is I was significantly below 100% (around 80) on every single core. Therefore I really thought it couldn't have been a CPU bottleneck (since one would assume it could have scaled at least another 10% on every core, but in the end it was.
Brave-Steak 7y ago
Out of curiosity, what was your last GPU?
- Cu3PO42 7y ago
  I didn't change the GPU in this upgrade. I was using a 1060 with the 2500k and am using the 1060 now. Before that I had a Radeon 6970, that I bought with the 2500k, but I upgraded that in 2016.
  - Brave-Steak 7y ago
    I know, I figured you'd upgraded it before at some point. I was just curious. 6970 to 1060 is quite the jump. That must've been great.
    - Cu3PO42 7y ago
      Yes, yes, it was! To be honest the fact that the fan turns off during normal desktop operation is almost a bigger deal to me these days, though. I recently looked at my upgrade options and nothing in a price range that I can justify is really attractive. I suppose I need to wait for more than one generation, after all my last upgrade was roughly a four generation jump. In hindsight upgrading a week or so before an exam might not have been the smartest decision, however.
swarnie_ 7y ago
Funnily enough i have a 1060 right now, this entire comment is scarily on point for my exact situation!

onli 7y ago

> Even though I didn't necessarily have 100% usage on the CPU, I was 10-20FPS below benchmarks for my GPU. This didn't really make sense to me, but after I upgraded I indeed got those extra frames. That can happen when the game performance relies on the workload of one thread (or at least less then cores/thread count) that couldn't be properly offloaded to the idle cores. The 3600 has not only more but also stronger cores than the 2500K, and thus even without reaching 100% processor usage before the game can run faster now, because the critical thread runs faster.

Cu3PO42 7y ago
You're right, of course. What I meant to say is I was significantly below 100% (around 80) on every single core. Therefore I really thought it couldn't have been a CPU bottleneck (since one would assume it could have scaled at least another 10% on every core, but in the end it was.

Brave-Steak 7y ago

Out of curiosity, what was your last GPU?

Cu3PO42 7y ago
I didn't change the GPU in this upgrade. I was using a 1060 with the 2500k and am using the 1060 now. Before that I had a Radeon 6970, that I bought with the 2500k, but I upgraded that in 2016.
- Brave-Steak 7y ago
  I know, I figured you'd upgraded it before at some point. I was just curious. 6970 to 1060 is quite the jump. That must've been great.
  - Cu3PO42 7y ago
    Yes, yes, it was! To be honest the fact that the fan turns off during normal desktop operation is almost a bigger deal to me these days, though. I recently looked at my upgrade options and nothing in a price range that I can justify is really attractive. I suppose I need to wait for more than one generation, after all my last upgrade was roughly a four generation jump. In hindsight upgrading a week or so before an exam might not have been the smartest decision, however.

swarnie_ 7y ago

Funnily enough i have a 1060 right now, this entire comment is scarily on point for my exact situation!