Are you running an old Sandy Bridge system?

[DASamuels]

I'm curious...how many users on the forum are still running on Sandy Bridge? I built my Hack in March 2012, and it has been running strong every since. I have a Gigabyte Z68 series board, quad core i7, 16 GB RAM, Radeon 6870 graphics card, and some other odds and ends. Except for switching to SSD's, installing a native Apple bluetooth module, and adding in a wireless card, the core hardware is the same.

My issues have been minor...no USB 3 support, sleep/wake, etc. But generally, this rig is a workhorse and I'm surprised that it is reliably running the latest Yosemite release after 4 years of daily use.

So, what's your experience with the old Sandy Bridge systems?

 

[HappyJack247]

I have the identical system to you. Built in Dec 2011. I think the 2600k is one of the best chips Intel ever made. They must regret releasing it, as it is still used as a benchmark that stops people upgrading. Mine has been running clocked at 4.5 for 5 years and can pull Geekbench 15500.

I recently upgraded to a Z97 with a 4790k. The main reason was that messing with the DDST and trying to keep it running sweet was getting a bit time consuming with the updates and the USB 3 issue. The 4790 is at 4.77 and Geekbench 20500. Not a massive increase for 5 years in computers, but the setup is simple with Multibeast and everything works well.

I couldn't allow myself to part with my Sandy Bridge 2600k, we have done so much together. Now it is a server and TV player under the TV in a cabinet. I will not update it anymore, so I think it will just go on and on ...

The 2600k doubled the speed of my i7 Q9550 it replaced and is still a chip to have after 5 years. Mindboggling ...

 

[DASamuels]

Thanks for your post! It's good to hear that you have had a good run with your 2600k. I am going to get ambitious soon and upgrade from bios to EFI, but otherwise I can't find a lot wrong with it. I have an old Mac mini core 2 duo that I use for my home server, and I have a MacAir for my day to day, so the Hack will keep on trucking as a desktop I use for work and a bunch of other stuff.

 

[HappyJack247]

Thanks for your post! It's good to hear that you have had a good run with your 2600k. I am going to get ambitious soon and upgrade from bios to EFI, but otherwise I can't find a lot wrong with it. I have an old Mac mini core 2 duo that I use for my home server, and I have a MacAir for my day to day, so the Hack will keep on trucking as a desktop I use for work and a bunch of other stuff.

Hi, I really don't recommend the EFI upgrade. I tried it and it was REALLY glitchy. So much so that I had to go back, and that was really difficult and time consuming ....

 

[DASamuels]

Thanks for the heads up!!

 

[bkendig]

I'm running a Sandy Bridge hackintosh, much the same build as yours (see my sig). It works great for me - not a lick of trouble. Several months ago I decided to take the plunge and move from BIOS to UEFI, so that I could install Clover, so that I could install El Capitan. It was a scary move but it all went smoothly and I've had no problems since, other than the same problems as you've got: no USB3, no sleep/wake. I haven't put the effort into figuring out how to fix those, and it's really not worth me building a new computer. This one's plenty powerful for anything I throw at it. (Gets about 11000 Geekbench 32-bit score.)

I do have a dilemma, though, and that's why I came to this site today; I'll post it in a new thread. In brief: I'm tired of constantly having to be careful that upgrades don't leave me unable to boot, and I'm tired of being too afraid of compatibility issues if I upgrade my Radeon HD 6850 to a GeForce 970. So I'm considering weaning myself off the Heckintosh side, and making this a plain jane Windows 10 PC, and using my MacBook Pro for all my Mac needs.

(Edit: Where'd my sig go, with my specs? Darn. I'll have to look for a copy to put it back in my profile here.)

 

[DASamuels]

My updates have always been smooth, even though I use the old school Award BIOS. I have all clover boot loader stuff on a small SSD, and my OS's on separate SSD's. A few months ago I bought a low cost USB audio dongle so that I would no longer need to worry about audio driver updates. When I updated to 10.11.2, I simply made sure I had a good TM backup, then ran the update from the app store, and it was fine. I have a Radeon 6870 and that always seems to work fine with each new OS X update.

I've been considering changing my MoBo to a Z77 series board and reusing the rest of my equipment, thus upgrading to an EFI system that has a great track record of working. But really, the system works great and it is easy enough to work with.

 

[Abe Frohman]

My Sandy Bridge rig has been rocking since early 2012. Never had any major issues. Specs in my sig.

 

[pcw3d]

Hello I'm a "new" proud owner of a hackintosh, and yes its a sandy bridge i7 2006K running at 3.4 gHz.

specs

motherboard: gigabyte b75m-d3h
ram: 32gb
ssd: 2X240gb for dual boot osX and windows 10
hd: 2x3tb wd blue ( i wanted to go with black but blues were on sale and could not pass on $ per gb)
graphics: evga super clock nvidea 960 4gb
case: coolermaster 5

I am missing the wireless card its on order but its the pci-e adapter and wireless/bluetooth card 4.0 to enable handoff.

this is my work station for not just video editing but for 3D apps like Maya, CAD, 3DS Max and zbrush along with heavy visual effects creation for games and film.

why a sandy bridge?
I wanted to recycle at least 50% of the hardware from my old system to build the "new" system. all about saving money and runs like a champ.

 

[dreamalittle]

yep sandy bridge 2500k on an asus p8p67pro OC'd to 4.0Ghz (achieved 4.5 stable but fan noise was too loud for my liking ). gtx 760, 8gb ddr3 1600mhz. haven't had a single stability issue, currently running yosemite like it seems a lot of people are.

funny someone here mentioned intel regretting building such a good processor, digital foundry (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=frNjT5R5XI4)recently put an OC'd 2500k with a titan x and highest clock ddr3 and it performed very similarly to the best current chips. amazing for such an old chip, or the other way you could look at it is that intel really haven't improved all that much in raw power in the past 5 years. power efficiency/temperatures on the other hand seemed to have improved nicely which would be the main incentive to upgrade (or to get newer mobo features like usbc).