I simply must give it a 10. There is nothing bad to say at all. So, I will tell you some good reasons to buy it. First off, its price is going way down because newer meaner processors are here and others yet to come. But if what you want is a stable powerhouse, buy this and still make yourself a good respectable gaming and performance computer. Ours is nearly 3 years old and is going strong, and gets 16 hours a day of steady use. It went through a rough time by being mishandled and still kept going. It was 2 years old when its owner had to pack up and move cross country to come live here with me. Its motherboard had never been housed in a proper case to protect it from the elements, and it was roughly transported from Florida to here in Arizona. The motherboard failed to turn back on, so the computer was given to me as a lost cause. I saved the RAM and this processor and got a new motherboard, and the rig came back to life, and it was returned to its happy owner to serve him 16 hours a day once more. Yes, it now has a case with heavy duty fans to keep it cool. The CPU itself is stable and reliable, and it represented the best bang for the buck when new and even more so now that its price has dropped more, and yet its performance is still respectable. A faster machine is not needed because it handles every task given to it and multitasks without getting hot even when videos and work are done at the same time on 2 monitors. He can have 12 tabs active on his browser too without a hesitation in maximizing them. The page refresh rate is snappy and apps launch right away. We could not ask for much better.

MoiraWhitlock

USA

The Intel i7-2600 is one of Intel's new quad-core SandyBridge processors.  It has a clock speed of 3.4 GHz, but reaches a turbo speed of 3.8 GHz.  However, the i7-2600 has an locked multiplier, limiting its overclockability significantly, making it a poor choice for most computer enthusiasts. Unless you are certain that you will not be overclocking, you should pass on this chip and get one of the unlocked versions, either the i7-2600K or the i5-2500K.  The only scenario where this chip would make sense is if you will not be using a discrete graphics card, and will be using the integrated graphics on this chip.  In that case, you'll need a H67 motherboard, which limits the ability to overclock anyway.  If you are using a separate discrete graphics card, you'll want to get a P67 motherboard, and then you should get one of the unlocked variants.  With either the 2600K or the 2500K, it only requires a few changes in the BIOS to unlock speeds in the 4.4+ GHz range!

dennishu

Montclair, NJ