Intel Core i7-2600K Benchmark, Test and specs

Last updated: 2024-04-16

The Intel Core i7-2600K has 4 cores with 8 threads and is based on the 2. gen of the Intel Core i7 series. The processor uses a mainboard with the LGA 1155 socket and was released in Q1/2011. The Intel Core i7-2600K scores 808 points in the Geekbench 5 single-core benchmark. In the Geekbench 5 multi-core benchmark, the result is 3,098 points.

CPU lineage
The segment in which we have classified the Intel Core i7-2600K. Here you can see if it is a desktop processor or a mobile processor or which processor may be the successor of the Intel Core i7-2600K.
Name:	Intel Core i7-2600K
Family:	Intel Core i7 (298)
CPU group:	Intel Core i 2000 (28)
Architecture:	Sandy Bridge S
Segment:	Desktop / Server
Generation:	2
Predecessor:	--
Successor:	--

CPU Cores and Base Frequency

The Intel Core i7-2600K has 4 CPU cores and can calculate 8 threads in parallel. The clock frequency of the Intel Core i7-2600K is 3.40 GHz (3.80 GHz). The number of CPU cores greatly affects the speed of the processor and is an important performance indicator.

CPU Cores / Threads:	4 / 8
Core architecture:	normal
Cores:	4x

Hyperthreading / SMT:	Yes
Overclocking:	Yes
Frequency:	3.40 GHz
Turbo Frequency (1 Core):	3.80 GHz
Turbo Frequency (4 Cores):	3.80 GHz

Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning

Processors with the support of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) can process many calculations, especially audio, image and video processing, much faster than classic processors. Algorithms for ML improve their performance the more data they have collected via software. ML tasks can be processed up to 10,000 times faster than with a classic processor.

AI hardware:	--
AI specifications:	--

Internal Graphics

The Intel Core i7-2600K has integrated graphics, called iGPU for short. Specifically, the Intel Core i7-2600K uses the Intel HD Graphics 3000, which has 96 texture shaders and 12 execution units. The iGPU uses the system's main memory as graphics memory and sits on the processor's die.

GPU name:	Intel HD Graphics 3000
GPU frequency:	0.85 GHz
GPU (Turbo):	1.35 GHz
Compute units:	12
Shader:	96
Hardware Raytracing:	No
Release date:	Q1/2011

Max. displays:	2
Generation:	6
Direct X:	10.1
Technology:	32 nm
Max. GPU Memory:	2 GB
Frame Generation:	No

Hardware codec support

A photo or video codec that is accelerated in hardware can greatly accelerate the working speed of a processor and extend the battery life of notebooks or smartphones when playing videos.

h265 / HEVC (8 bit):	No
h265 / HEVC (10 bit):	No
h264:	Decode / Encode
VP8:	No
VP9:	No

AV1:	No
AVC:	Decode / Encode
VC-1:	Decode
JPEG:	No

Memory type:	Memory bandwidth:
Memory & PCIe The processor can use up to 32 GB memory in 2 (Dual Channel) memory channels. The maximum memory bandwidth is 21.3 GB/s. The memory type as well as the amount of memory can greatly affect the speed of the system.

DDR3-1066 DDR3-1333	17.1 GB/s 21.3 GB/s
Max. Memory:	32 GB
Memory channels:	2 (Dual Channel)
ECC:	No
PCIe:	2.0 x 16
PCIe Bandwidth:	8.0 GB/s

Thermal Management The thermal design power (TDP for short) of the processor is 95 W. The TDP specifies the necessary cooling solution that is required to cool the processor sufficiently. The TDP usually gives a rough idea of the actual power consumption of the CPU.

TDP (PL1 / PBP):	95 W
TDP (PL2):	--
TDP up:	--
TDP down:	--
Tjunction max.:	--

Technical details

The Intel Core i7-2600K is made in 32 nm. The smaller the manufacturing process of a CPU, the more modern and energy-efficient it is. Overall, the processor has 9.00 MB cache. A large cache can greatly speed up the processor's speed in some cases such as games.

Technology:	32 nm
Chip design:	Monolithic
Socket:	LGA 1155
L2-Cache:	1.00 MB
L3-Cache:	8.00 MB
AES-NI:	Yes
Operating systems:	Windows 10, Linux

Virtualization:	VT-x, VT-x EPT
Instruction set (ISA):	x86-64 (64 bit)
ISA extensions:	SSE4.1, SSE4.2, AVX
Release date:	Q1/2011
Release price:	270 $
Part Number:	--
Documents:	Technical data sheet

Intel Core i7-2600K
4C 8T @ 3.40 GHz (3.80 GHz)

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Benchmark results

The benchmark results for the Intel Core i7-2600K have been carefully checked by us. We only publish benchmark results that have been created by us or that have been submitted by a visitor and then checked by a team member. All results are based on and fullfill our benchmark guidelines.

Geekbench 5, 64bit (Single-Core)

Geekbench 5 is a cross plattform benchmark that heavily uses the systems memory. A fast memory will push the result a lot. The single-core test only uses one CPU core, the amount of cores or hyperthreading ability doesn't count.


	Intel Xeon E5-2650 v4 12C 24T @ 2.90 GHz	811
	Intel Core i3-8121U 2C 4T @ 3.20 GHz	810
	Intel Core i5-2550k 4C 4T @ 3.80 GHz	810
	Intel Core i7-2600K 4C 8T @ 3.80 GHz	808
	Intel Core i5-4300M 2C 4T @ 3.30 GHz	808
	Intel Core i3-4160 2C 4T @ 3.60 GHz	807
	AMD EPYC 7501 32C 64T @ 3.00 GHz	806

Geekbench 5, 64bit (Multi-Core)

Geekbench 5 is a cross plattform benchmark that heavily uses the systems memory. A fast memory will push the result a lot. The multi-core test involves all CPU cores and taks a big advantage of hyperthreading.


	Intel Core i3-8300T 4C 4T @ 3.20 GHz	3139
	Intel Core i3-8100 4C 4T @ 3.60 GHz	3134
	Intel Core i5-6600T 4C 4T @ 3.10 GHz	3111
	Intel Core i7-2600K 4C 8T @ 3.80 GHz	3098
	AMD Ryzen 3 2300X 4C 4T @ 3.80 GHz	3097
	Intel Core i5-7500 4C 4T @ 3.60 GHz	3091
	Intel Core i7-3840QM 4C 8T @ 2.80 GHz	3089

Geekbench 6 (Single-Core)

Geekbench 6 is a benchmark for modern computers, notebooks and smartphones. What is new is an optimized utilization of newer CPU architectures, e.g. based on the big.LITTLE concept and combining CPU cores of different sizes. The single-core benchmark only evaluates the performance of the fastest CPU core, the number of CPU cores in a processor is irrelevant here.


	Intel Pentium G3450 2C 2T @ 3.40 GHz	710
	Qualcomm Snapdragon 675 8C 8T @ 2.00 GHz	708
	Qualcomm Snapdragon 730G 8C 8T @ 2.20 GHz	708
	Intel Core i7-2600K 4C 8T @ 3.80 GHz	707
	Qualcomm Snapdragon 730 8C 8T @ 2.20 GHz	706
	AMD A10-9700 4C 4T @ 3.80 GHz	705
	Intel Core i5-3475S 4C 4T @ 3.60 GHz	705

Geekbench 6 (Multi-Core)

Geekbench 6 is a benchmark for modern computers, notebooks and smartphones. What is new is an optimized utilization of newer CPU architectures, e.g. based on the big.LITTLE concept and combining CPU cores of different sizes. The multi-core benchmark evaluates the performance of all of the processor's CPU cores. Virtual thread improvements such as AMD SMT or Intel's Hyper-Threading have a positive impact on the benchmark result.


	Intel Core i3-7300 2C 4T @ 4.00 GHz	2493
	Intel Core i7-3720QM 4C 8T @ 2.60 GHz	2489
	Qualcomm Snapdragon 7c+ Gen 3 8C 8T @ 2.40 GHz	2476
	Intel Core i7-2600K 4C 8T @ 3.80 GHz	2457
	Intel Core i3-4370 2C 4T @ 3.80 GHz	2450
	Intel Core i5-4460T 4C 4T @ 2.30 GHz	2446
	Intel Core i3-7100 2C 4T @ 3.90 GHz	2436

Cinebench R20 (Single-Core)

Cinebench R20 is the successor of Cinebench R15 and is also based on the Cinema 4 Suite. Cinema 4 is a worldwide used software to create 3D forms. The single-core test only uses one CPU core, the amount of cores or hyperthreading ability doesn't count.


	Intel Xeon E5-2640 v3 8C 16T @ 3.40 GHz	271
	Intel Core i7-3930K 6C 12T @ 3.80 GHz	269
	Intel Xeon E5-2695 v3 14C 28T @ 3.30 GHz	264
	Intel Core i7-2600K 4C 8T @ 3.80 GHz	263
	Intel Xeon E5-2680 v3 12C 24T @ 3.30 GHz	263
	Intel Core i7-3770T 4C 8T @ 3.70 GHz	262
	Intel Core i5-2500k 4C 4T @ 3.70 GHz	262

Cinebench R20 (Multi-Core)

Cinebench R20 is the successor of Cinebench R15 and is also based on the Cinema 4 Suite. Cinema 4 is a worldwide used software to create 3D forms. The multi-core test involves all CPU cores and taks a big advantage of hyperthreading.


	AMD Ryzen 5 4500U 6C 6T @ 3.80 GHz	1921
	Intel Core i5-10310U 4C 8T @ 1.70 GHz	1872
	Intel Core i5-1135G7 4C 8T @ 3.80 GHz	1868
	Intel Core i7-2600K 4C 8T @ 3.80 GHz	1865
	Intel Core i3-9350KF 4C 4T @ 4.20 GHz	1833
	Intel Core i3-9350K 4C 4T @ 4.20 GHz	1833
	Intel Core i7-4790 4C 8T @ 3.80 GHz	1819

iGPU - FP32 Performance (Single-precision GFLOPS)

The theoretical computing performance of the internal graphics unit of the processor with simple accuracy (32 bit) in GFLOPS. GFLOPS indicates how many billion floating point operations the iGPU can perform per second.


	Samsung Exynos 880 ARM Mali-G76 MP5 @ 0.72 GHz	260
	Samsung Exynos 980 ARM Mali-G76 MP5 @ 0.72 GHz	260
	Intel Core i7-2700K Intel HD Graphics 3000 @ 1.35 GHz	259
	Intel Core i7-2600K Intel HD Graphics 3000 @ 1.35 GHz	259
	Intel Atom x7213E Intel UHD Graphics 16 EUs (Alder Lake) @ 1.00 GHz	256
	Intel Atom x7211E Intel UHD Graphics 16 EUs (Alder Lake) @ 1.00 GHz	256
	Intel Core i7-3615QE Intel HD Graphics 4000 @ 1.00 GHz	256

Estimated results for PassMark CPU Mark

Some of the CPUs listed below have been benchmarked by CPU-monkey. However the majority of CPUs have not been tested and the results have been estimated by a CPU-monkey’s secret proprietary formula. As such they do not accurately reflect the actual Passmark CPU mark values and are not endorsed by PassMark Software Pty Ltd.


	Intel Core i7-4860EQ 4C 8T @ 1.80 GHz	5500
	Intel Core i5-6685R 4C 4T @ 3.40 GHz	5497
	Intel Processor N95 4C 4T @ 3.20 GHz	5495
	Intel Core i7-2600K 4C 8T @ 3.80 GHz	5488
	Intel Core i7-4785T 4C 8T @ 2.70 GHz	5486
	Intel Xeon E5-2609 v4 8C 8T @ 1.70 GHz	5448
	Intel Core i5-5675R 4C 4T @ 3.30 GHz	5440

Blender 2.81 (bmw27)

Blender is a free 3D graphics software for rendering (creating) 3D bodies, which can also be textured and animated in the software. The Blender benchmark creates predefined scenes and measures the time (s) required for the entire scene. The shorter the time required, the better. We selected bmw27 as the benchmark scene.


	AMD Ryzen 7 3700U 4C 8T @ 3.50 GHz	723.7
	Intel Core i5-6400 4C 4T @ 3.00 GHz	730
	Intel Core i5-7300HQ 4C 4T @ 3.10 GHz	740.7
	Intel Core i7-2600K 4C 8T @ 3.80 GHz	741.6
	Intel Core i7-8565U 4C 8T @ 2.40 GHz	764.2
	Intel Core i5-2500k 4C 4T @ 3.70 GHz	778.7
	Intel Core i5-8365U 4C 8T @ 2.60 GHz	781.3

CPU-Z Benchmark 17 (Single-Core)

The CPU-Z benchmark measures a processor's performance by measuring the time it takes the system to complete all benchmark calculations. The faster the benchmark is completed, the higher the score.


	Intel Core i5-2500k 4C 4T @ 3.70 GHz	372
	AMD Ryzen 7 3750H 4C 8T @ 3.50 GHz	369
	Intel Core i7-3770 4C 8T @ 3.90 GHz	368
	Intel Core i7-2600K 4C 8T @ 3.80 GHz	365
	Intel Core i7-7700HQ 4C 8T @ 3.40 GHz	362
	Intel Core i5-8250U 4C 8T @ 2.30 GHz	361
	Intel Core i5-7300HQ 4C 4T @ 3.10 GHz	359

CPU-Z Benchmark 17 (Multi-Core)

The CPU-Z benchmark measures a processor's performance by measuring the time it takes the system to complete all benchmark calculations. The faster the benchmark is completed, the higher the score.


	Intel Core i5-1035G4 4C 8T @ 1.10 GHz	1700
	Intel Core i7-3740QM 4C 8T @ 2.70 GHz	1700
	Intel Core i7-3840QM 4C 8T @ 2.80 GHz	1699
	Intel Core i7-2600K 4C 8T @ 3.40 GHz	1690
	Intel Core i5-8250U 4C 8T @ 1.60 GHz	1680
	Intel Core i5-1035G1 4C 8T @ 1.00 GHz	1679
	AMD Ryzen 5 PRO 2500U 4C 8T @ 2.00 GHz	1675

Cinebench R15 (Single-Core)

Cinebench R15 is the successor of Cinebench 11.5 and is also based on the Cinema 4 Suite. Cinema 4 is a worldwide used software to create 3D forms. The single-core test only uses one CPU core, the amount of cores or hyperthreading ability doesn't count.


	Intel Core i7-3930K 6C 12T @ 3.80 GHz	129
	Intel Core i7-4558U 2C 4T @ 3.30 GHz	129
	Intel Pentium G3420 2C 2T @ 3.20 GHz	129
	Intel Core i7-2600K 4C 8T @ 3.80 GHz	128
	Intel Celeron G5900TE 2C 2T @ 3.00 GHz	128
	AMD EPYC 7351 16C 32T @ 2.90 GHz	128
	AMD EPYC 7351P 16C 32T @ 2.90 GHz	128

Cinebench R15 (Multi-Core)

Cinebench R15 is the successor of Cinebench 11.5 and is also based on the Cinema 4 Suite. Cinema 4 is a worldwide used software to create 3D forms. The multi-core test involves all CPU cores and taks a big advantage of hyperthreading.


	Intel Core i7-4770T 4C 8T @ 3.20 GHz	613
	Intel Core i7-4790T 4C 8T @ 3.20 GHz	613
	Intel Xeon E5-2623 v3 4C 8T @ 3.20 GHz	613
	Intel Core i7-2600K 4C 8T @ 3.80 GHz	612
	AMD FX-8320 8C 8T @ 3.75 GHz	608
	Intel Xeon E5-2609 v3 6C 6T @ 1.90 GHz	606
	AMD Ryzen 3 PRO 3200G 4C 4T @ 3.80 GHz	605

Benchmarks

Geekbench 5 (SC)
2,488 entries

Geekbench 5 (MC)
2,461 entries

Geekbench 6 (SC)
1,755 entries

Geekbench 6 (MC)
1,703 entries

Cinebench R20 (SC)
656 entries

Cinebench R20 (MC)
604 entries

FP32 SP (iGPU)
2,026 entries

PassMark CPU-Mark
2,392 entries

Blender 2.81 (bmw27)
190 entries

CPU-Z Benchmark 17 (SC)
231 entries

CPU-Z Benchmark 17 (MC)
733 entries

V-Ray CPU-Render
249 entries

Cinebench R15 (SC)
1,106 entries

Cinebench R15 (MC)
1,101 entries

Geekbench 3 (SC)
942 entries

Geekbench 3 (MC)
938 entries

Cinebench R11.5 (SC)
825 entries

Cinebench R11.5 (MC)
836 entries

Cinebench R11.5 iGPU
383 entries

Description of the processor

The Intel Core i7-2600K comes from the second generation of Intels Core i7 series and was launched in the first quarter of 2011. The processor is manufactured in a 32 nanometer process and is based on Intels architecture called Sandy Bridge.

The Intel Core i7-2600K is a processor with 4 physical cores. The base clock frequency is 3.40 gigahertz and the maximum turbo clock frequency is 3.80 gigahertz. As you can see from the "K" in the processor name, the Intel Core i7-2600K can be overclocked thanks to the free multiplier. However, this is only advisable if the processor can be cooled sufficiently, a standard boxed fan from Intel is not sufficient for this. The processor also supports Intels hyperthreading technology. Here, the 4 physical cores become 8 logical cores, so that more arithmetic operations can be carried out at once.

Although the processor is more suitable for use in high-quality computers with a dedicated graphics card, it still has an integrated graphics unit. The Intel HD Graphics 3000 comes from the sixth generation of Intels graphics units and has a base clock frequency of 850 megahertz. The maximum dynamic clock frequency, the so-called turbo clock, is 1.35 gigahertz.

The Intel Core i7-2600K has 2 memory channels with which it supports memory modules of the DDR3 type with a clock rate of up to 1333 megahertz. A maximum of 32 gigabytes of RAM can be installed together with the processor.

Furthermore, the processor has a total of 16 PCI Express lanes of version 2.0. This can be used to connect expansion cards, such as a dedicated graphics card, to the processor.

Production of the Intel Core i7-2600K was discontinued in the first quarter of 2013.

Popular comparisons


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10.		Intel Core i5-3570K vs Intel Core i7-2600K

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