2600K v's 990X

Excalabur50

Excalabur50

Well-known member
Ok all money cosiderations aside which of these chips is better the 2600K or the 990X for gaming with video rendering and movie watching and why? A mate of mine recons I'm mad to buy the 2600K as its not as powerfull or as good at gaming as the 990X.
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TBH I'm getting confused.
 
I think the hex core would be better suited for what your stating make sure you get a decent amount of ram Prolly along lines of 12GB 3x4GB would rock it.
 
most games the 2600k is going to win as it is faster per cycle but this will change over time as more and more games get multithreaded engines.

rendering the 990 will kill with 12 threads.

movie watching lol, not really going to make any difference as its not that hard to fill your screen with 25 fps regardless of 1080 or not.

if you was just a gamer i would say 2600k with the rest of the cash towards a better gpu but if you render a lot the 990 gives you 50% more grunt so it's the option i think is best of those.

there is, as always, another option. get a cheapish 2500k build now to play with and save the cash for later in the year when the new intel socket comes out. it should have the faster core (per cycle/clock for clock) than anything out today and more cores with the quad chan mem bandwidth which will make it a multi tasking multi threaded monster that will eat anything for breakfast and sit up and ask you for more
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amd are just around the corner with bulldozer too so its a hard one to call as its a whole new design and last time they did that it took intel a few years to get the lead back with the conroes.

so, lol as said the 990 if your buying today, i would give a cheaper option some thought as a short term pc and then do a big upgrade later in the year once we know how the new chips have fell.
 
Depends on the level of rendering you are going to be doing. If its not much compared to the amount you game, then the i7-2600K or even the i5-2500K is a no-brainer, you save yourself so much money and with the saved amount you get one of the best GPUs around.

e.g. £650 for the 990X as opposed to £220 for the i7-2600K or £150 for the i5-2500K

Going for the i7 gives you a saving of £430, or going for the i5 gives you a saving of £500.

With that sort of money you can get the fastest variants of the GTX 580 lineup. (i.e. Lightning).

Doing that would give you an optimal gaming setup, and you also have the option of saving yourself up to half a k.

EDIT-LOL I just saw you said money considerations aside.

Well in terms of pure performance, the 990X is that much better in rendering and only a little lower than the 2600K in terms of gaming, that the 990X is probably a better option.

However most people do have a budget with these things, and that's ultimately a major factor.
 
TBH dude Id just get the 2600k as it will rock it and is 1/4 of the price of the 990x.

1366 is very much for people that know how to tweak them to get the best from them.
 
I would go halfway and get a 970 hex-core better suited for what you need, out of the two I would say the 2600K because as TTL said it will rock it 1/4 of the price of the 990x.
 
Excalabur50 said:
Ok all money cosiderations aside which of these chips is better the 2600K or the 990X for gaming with video rendering and movie watching and why? A mate of mine recons I'm mad to buy the 2600K as its not as powerfull or as good at gaming as the 990X.
blink.gif
TBH I'm getting confused.
Click to expand...

Why spend like £700+ on a CPU.....
 
Thanks a heap for all the replies, and for you tinytomlogan to say 2600k when i know how much you love your x58 chip sets says alot!! Most of the reviews i've seen say for gaming the 2600k is the way to go but in the short time i've been here already I really trust and appreciate the opinions from this site. So once again thanks to everyone for all your help. P.S I will try and get a link to this site on my clans forums!!!
biggrin.gif
Also I wouldn't know the first thing about tweeking anything LOL.
 
Excalabur50 said:
Thanks a heap for all the replies, and for you tinytomlogan to say 2600k when i know how much you love your x58 chip sets says alot!! Most of the reviews i've seen say for gaming the 2600k is the way to go but in the short time i've been here already I really trust and appreciate the opinions from this site. So once again thanks to everyone for all your help. P.S I will try and get a link to this site on my clans forums!!!
biggrin.gif
Also I wouldn't know the first thing about tweeking anything LOL.
Click to expand...

What game do you play?
 
Excalabur50 said:
Ok all money cosiderations aside which of these chips is better the 2600K or the 990X for gaming with video rendering and movie watching and why? A mate of mine recons I'm mad to buy the 2600K as its not as powerfull or as good at gaming as the 990X.
blink.gif
TBH I'm getting confused.
Click to expand...

^^^ There's your problem there. Extreme Edition chips are for benching/Intel enthusiast, the 'regular' Core i7 range is where you can get most of the practical performance without the price that makes you pee a little when you see it.
 
Also as stated I have now posted a link to this website on our clans forums so hopefully OC3D might get some more members.
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i have a 2600k @ 4.5GHz with 8GB of RAM and do some video editing, everything runs smooth
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and its better for gaming, higher clocks
 
When it comes to Money/Performance the 2600k wins hands down, not only on top of many benchmarks and such the 2600k is leagues ahead for the 980x and the 970 but it also uses less power as well as being somewhat "Future Proof" in it having threading as well as the 990x does. At the moment the 990x is retailing for $1400 here were as the 2600k is only $300 and even the 2500k which when looking at benchmarks and particular games does just as good is even lower in price.

I'd say your "Mate" really doesn't understand what the 2600k can do and is only going on by the Stock standard of each chip which if you did you would get to the same conclusion that the 990x is faster, but when you can Overclock the 2600k with relative ease hitting 4.3mhz or like Tom 5mhz and only getting 60-65c using the Noctua Heat sink, you'd just be wasting your money on the 990x.
 
Madbaron said:
When it comes to Money/Performance the 2600k wins hands down, not only on top of many benchmarks and such the 2600k is leagues ahead for the 980x and the 970 but it also uses less power as well as being somewhat "Future Proof" in it having threading as well as the 990x does. At the moment the 990x is retailing for $1400 here were as the 2600k is only $300 and even the 2500k which when looking at benchmarks and particular games does just as good is even lower in price.

I'd say your "Mate" really doesn't understand what the 2600k can do and is only going on by the Stock standard of each chip which if you did you would get to the same conclusion that the 990x is faster, but when you can Overclock the 2600k with relative ease hitting 4.3mhz or like Tom 5mhz and only getting 60-65c using the Noctua Heat sink, you'd just be wasting your money on the 990x.
Click to expand...

Nice I was originaly going the 2600k and by what you and others have said seems like it was the way to go. And $1299 for the 990x as apposed to $369 for the 2600k sure makes it easy to go Sandy Bridge. But you just dont know if you dont ask!
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Thats it, I was originally going to go for the I7 970 but after coming here and seeing Tom put them through there paces, its easy to see how much Bang for buck you get when going with the 2600k.
 
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