Advice on i7 4700k and i7 4790k processors for high end gaming systems

[Guest]

Hi there, could I get some advice as to if these are still fairly good future proof processors for high end gaming and what sort of life cycle would you expect them to have left?

Can I ask the same question about the GTX 980 Ti and GTX 980?

Many Thanks

 

[Ecky]

Do you already own these parts, or are you thinking about buying them?

 

[Guest]

Hi Ecky yes I already own these and am making a couple of gaming machines out of the two processors, I've got nice cases and matching other suitable components to go with them and I hope to sell them just to realise the value of the parts to put towards a newer build and was just trying to get a feel for what type of longevity a machine based around these components could realistically be expected to have, thanks

 

[Ecky]

Compared with Intel's latest and greatest (7700K) the difference in performance is hardly noticeable. The biggest drawback of these older Haswell CPUs is that they're on an older platform, which is getting hard to find decent motherboards for. The boards that do exist won't have things like USB-C/3.1 or Optane support, and use the older DDR3 instead of 4.

The 980 and 980 Ti perform in the realm of a modern GTX 1060, which tends to run $190-250 and is solidly mid-range, and appropriate for 60fps high settings at 1080P in today's games.

 

[Guest]

Thanks for your response Ecky, in terms of DDR 4 instead of DDR 3 am I correct in my assumption that the difference in terms of real world high end game play completely negligible to 99.9% of gamers? In terms of motherboards am I correct in assuming that they are still readily available for sale or at least they were six months ago? The important take away that I take from your reply is that there is negligible difference between the i7 4790k and Intels latest high end offering the 7700k, which would mean that for all intense purposes the i7 4790k is probably quite future proof as long as you can upgrade the graphics card which is always the most important component in terms of future proof-ability and of course the subject to the proviso that you can combine that with a suitable matching mobo in good overall condition with the assumption it can last at least two/three years, so with that in mind would anybody else agree that a good i7 4770k or i7 4790k with a good quality mobo in good condition be futureproof for at least 2 to 3 years for high end games with again the caveat that you can update the graphics card as and when necessary?

Are the GTX 980TI really only equivalent to the GTX 1060? I'm surprised because here in the UK the used average price on ebay for the GTX 980 is still £250 UK pounds and for a GTX 980 TI it is above £300

 

[Guest]

One thing I would add, is that I'm a "tinkerer" and I'm a gamer so I had all these components accumulated about a year ago but due to other work/time commitments just left this stack of good quality stuff and a year or so later have been amazed at how fast every things seemingly moved on so amazingly quickly, it just goes to show how quick the tech moves in computing

 

[Ecky]

Seems like you have a good grasp of it.

Here's a recent review of a 1060, which includes both 980 and 980 Ti:

https://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/MSI/GTX_1060_Armor/

The 980 Ti is faster, but not hugely so and at the cost of noise and power:

 

[Guest]

Nice graphics, thanks for going to all that trouble So the quick stand out is that there's a big difference between the GTX 980 and the GTX 980TI, but yes I see what you mean the GTX 1060 is indeed out performing the GTX 980, although I'm totally behind in terms of not having done any research for the last few months I was aware of the the "predicted" performance of the next gen Nvidia, it seems that all the publicity and performance predictions were in fact accurate, especially the power consumption differences which are quite stunning

It seems if your buying new you should perhaps go for the new nvidia but with cpu's perhaps not so important except for the point you made about mobo's which seem to be more of the limiting factor

Thanks again for the update, really interesting, I'm quite interested in legacy performance of hardware and the limitations of that and how "necessary" it really is to have the latest and greatest in terms of being able to enjoy good quality game play especially when factoring in the cost of new hardware, it's particularly interesting because this subject can translate into saving quite a few bucks/pounds for the typical user