Hey guys/girls,
I've built my first gaming PC a while back now after reading about the insane performance per dollar of the now famous Core i5 2500k CPU. I overclocked it to 4.5Ghz with a closed loop water cooler and coupled it with 2 x Nvidia GTX 560tis in SLI. I absolutely loved my rig. It monstered everything at 1080p at max settings for years.
Since then I have upgraded a few things: a bigger SSD, I sold my 560 tis and bought a GTX 970, but I have never really been tempted to upgrade my 2500k. Looking at the gaming benchmarks it just doesn't seem worth the cost.
I remember playing Far Cry 3 at max settings, 1080p 60fps and thinking to myself 'This feels next gen'.
And just today it hit me: The 2500k came out over 5 years ago! It released in January 2011 and it wasn't long after that I built my PC.
I have been into PC gaming since 1995 and I have never seen a CPU remain current for this long. Yes the focus has moved to more powerful GPUs, but the CPU still plays a vital role in gaming and my apart from the bigger VRAM buffer I'm really only getting around a 20% performance improvement with the GTX 970.
Overall I feel like I picked the right parts at the right point in time to build a gaming PC and think the 2500k will go down in history as one of the greatest gaming CPUs of all time. I love it and when it comes time for me to upgrade it, I think it will be genuinely hard for me to let go.
Anybody else have a Sandy Bridge CPU and feel the same way?
