Core i7-4790K Review: Devil's Canyon Tantalizes Enthusiasts

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That's why I like good X79 boards: 64GB @ 2133 and yet a 3930K will still run just fine at 4.7+.

Ian.



 


That does change the equations of course, but then we didn't know that from your first post. 😉
Note that I investigate both gaming and pro tasks, so I appreciate your viewpoint.

Btw, how much does the 212 EVO cost you? I had great success bagging used TRUEs, often
only 10 or 15 UKP each.

Ian.

 


It has nothing to do with Moore's Law. It's much more about competition,
or rather the lack of it. Intel could easily have released much faster
CPUs several years ago, but they didn't because they don't have to. From
Intel's point of view, they made SB too good, and that presumably hurt
them, but once AMD screwed up, Intel saw no need to release anything
better post-SB. Now it's biting them because people still see no need to
upgrade in many cases. Thing is, we're starting to see CPU bottlenecks in
top-end gaming (notice how GPU reviews keep using oc'd CPUs to test new
cards, etc.), those with money to spend are bored, solo professionals see
nothing worth buying they can afford, so the only market that's really
benefited in the last few years is the main pro market that uses MP XEONs,
where Intel has continued useful improvements. Intel could have refreshed
X79 properly; they didn't. They could have added more PCIe lanes to the
mainstream desktop line, but didn't (5 generations and still only 16
lanes?!). The list goes on and on.

There's a whole bunch of users out there who I'm sure would spend serious
money on new PC builds, if only there was something worth buying over what
they already have. It's a bit like the hifi market - those who really care
about quality tend to be the same people who splash the cash on costly
separates.

IB was a joke. Delidding in many cases gave temp drops of more than 30C.
Meanwhile, one chipset after another, then a socket change. But what has
really moved on from P67/Z68? If anything it's been a step backwards from
X58. To me, it feels like X79 has been positioned as a 'top-end' segment,
whereas X58 seemed to have a wider audience. For gamers, X58's plentiful
PCIe lanes were a huge selling point, but this angle has vanished from
site review discussions of new mainstream mbds/chipsets. Intel has shoved
the performance levels outwards - X79 is above where I felt X58 was in the
grand scheme of things, while all the newer mainstream chipsets feel below
X58 (ie. limited PCIe lanes, no 6-core option, etc.)

It's hard to know to what extent the comments on a site like this are
representative, but to those who sound more +ve about this new CPU, just
look at the number of people posting here who say they still don't see a
need to upgrade from a CPU that's now 3 generations old, on a chipset
that's 4 or 5 generations old. Not without good reason did tom's HW
review include, "Enthusiasts yawn" in its title.

Intel, build it and they will come... :)

Ian.

 
Still rocking an X58 system here. About as good as the day I bought it, save for the fact that either the motherboard or the IMC no longer plays nice with the third memory channel. I'm down to 4GB of RAM and it's not pretty!
 
Friend of mine told me he found quite a few people on forums way back saying that oc'ing
some X58 boards could cause issues with one of the memory channels. Bummer about the
RAM drop. Must confess I skipped a step when I built my X58 setup, just bought a 12GB
kit - at the time the pricing was rather good. RAM has become comparatively expensive
since then; an 8GB 1600 kit today costs more than aan 8GB 2133 kit was a year+ ago.

Ian.

 
I've never overclocked it. I actually run it undervolted. I never had much need for the extra speed except when doing video encoding or the occasional bit of ray tracing. The stock cooler is barely sufficient even for the stock clocks and voltages unless you have A/C. I can easily push 90C+ in summer at full load. I'm usually in the low-mid 80s when undervolted. The fact that the heatsink has more dust than metal isn't helping right now either 😗
 


have you tried switching to 2 and 4? one of my dimms died while trying to get my god forsaken heatsink on (a hurculian task) so i switched to 2 and 4, works like a charm.

edit: oh wait, i forgot, x58 is triple channel
 


The DIMMs are fine. I can run any combination of them in any 2 of slots 2, 4 and 6 (assuming left to right is 1 through 6), but not all 3 together. I also can't use slots 1, 3 and 5 unless I have at least 4 DIMMs as the system won't even POST.

With 3 DIMMs the system will usually POST, and will hang or reboot when idling at the desktop or surfing the net after an unpredictable amount of time (could be seconds, could be so long that I shut down before it happens). It never died while doing anything intensive oddly enough. Once it fails it normally requires a few reboots to get it going again. I also noticed that only 4 out of the 6GB installed actually runs through the memory test during POST and only 4GB is usable by the OS. All 6GB can be seen using something like CPU-Z though. At one point it even failed to register 4GB and I had to go through a process of booting with 1 DIMM and then 2 in order to get it to detect 4GB again. I succeeded in getting all 6GB to pass the POST test with the same process but it failed shortly afterwards.

Ramble, ramble, ramble...
 
Am I the only one who noticed that the i7 4790k that was reviewed was an ES sample, and that it was compared to a Non-ES sample? ES samples tend to outperform regular bin CPUs in both compute and thermal performance.
 
... It has nothing to do with Moore's Law. It's much more about competition, or rather the lack of it. Intel could easily have released much faster CPUs several years ago, but they didn't because they don't have to...
Click to expand...

I guess there is one in every crowd ... :sarcastic:

Intel made incremental improvements on the node, released a new chipset with likely forward compatibility to Broadwell, brought a new unlocked bargain enthusiast chip to their product mix .... yet people whine, complain and blame AMD.

For those who have been asleep over the last 5 years, desktop PC market share is flat or even declining, being replaced by AIOs, tablets, laptops and even phones.

For those with even deeper denial, over the last few years Intel has taken the unprecedented step of idling 22nm capacity (below 50% for some quarters) in order to prevent chip inventory from piling up.

And, in case some of you missed it, the 2-year precept of Moore's Law has been s-t-r-e-t-c-h-e-d over the last 3 nodes from 24 months to 27 months to likely near 30 months for Broadwell.

So. Please. Stop whining about Intel (and AMD) and celebrate their efforts to refine and market ever-more powerful and efficient computing solutions.

(Rant over.)



 


has it occured to you that desktop market share is so down because there havent been any real improvements in 4 years?

id buy a new system... but why would i?
 


It's vice-versa. There haven't been any real improvements because the market is not demanding it. Damric is right. The market is mature now, which means small, incremental improvements. Think Automobiles and kitchen appliances... That's where the PC market is right now.

That could change, with innovation in displacement technologies. 4k is likely to shake up the GPU market, driving innovation there. Other display and user experience innovations could also drive up demand for more compute power in the PC market. But right now, the technology is largely meeting the demand from a performance standpoint.

What the market is really demanding is more efficient power utilization for longer battery life in mobile applications, which was the primary focus of Haswell.
 


Sorry, no. I'm satisifed there is clear evidence Intel has been deliberately dragging its heals now for
lack of competition. Bad temps with IB, no X79 refresh, continued limited PCIe lanes in mainstream
chipsets, lacklustre performance increases, etc. Sounds to me like you want to believe they're
being wonderful because the idea they're not is unpleasant. These aren't merely my opinions,
numerous site reviewers, including toms, say the same things.

Ian.



 
Way to completely ignore reality ...
Intel made incremental improvements on the node, released a new chipset with likely forward compatibility to Broadwell, brought a new unlocked bargain enthusiast chip to their product mix .... yet people whine, complain and blame AMD.

For those who have been asleep over the last 5 years, desktop PC market share is flat or even declining, being replaced by AIOs, tablets, laptops and even phones.

For those with even deeper denial, over the last few years Intel has taken the unprecedented step of idling 22nm capacity (below 50% for some quarters) in order to prevent chip inventory from piling up.

And, in case some of you missed it, the 2-year precept of Moore's Law has been s-t-r-e-t-c-h-e-d over the last 3 nodes from 24 months to 27 months to likely near 30 months for Broadwell.
Click to expand...

 


FYI the x79 replacement is coming this year, to include DDR4.
 


On the contrary, I observe what's going on (part of my job) and draw conclusions - same
conclusions given in summaries by site reviews btw, including toms. You're the one who's
deluding yourself.

Ian.



 
Valid points are being made from both sides of this debate. Neither view point is without substance. With that said, I'd like to reiterate a point stated above; the desktop PC market is steadily and undeniably in decline - the enthusiast desktop PC market was never really that large to begin with. Revolutions in technology don't just happen because a company has the resources at its disposal. It happens out of necessity to satisfy a void in a market. Right now there is no void. No thirst to quench except for the insatiable one possessed by PC Enthusiasts - which can only be satisfied for a few quarters a year to be honest. And sorry, that market segment is not large enough or profitable enough to justify a revolution in processing capabilities.

So until a platform so complex that only the highest level i7's can manage it is invented, there will only be modest increases of performance and features in the desktop PC market - especially so for the Enthusiast sector of said market.
 

What makes you say that the desktop pc market is in decline?

Whether or not desktops are falling out of popularity with the masses, they will always be favored by anyone with serious needs regarding compute power or reliability. Especially since we are reaching the point where it is atomically impossible to fit any more transistors into a tighter space... The market for desktop computers isn't going anywhere.
 


Actually Intel is working on 10nm now. They will get there. But after that? It just may not be worth going smaller.
 
What i expected and not get from this review is the Power consumption of:

4790k @ 4.4 ghz
vs
4770k @ 4.4 ghz.

That power comsunption page was awkward at best...
 
What makes you say that the desktop pc market is in decline?
Click to expand...

Facts mostly.

http://globalnews.ca/news/1072693/pc-sales-saw-worst-ever-decline-in-2013/
http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424127887324695104578414973888155516
http://www.gartner.com/newsroom/id/2604616

Whether or not desktops are falling out of popularity with the masses, they will always be favored by anyone with serious needs regarding compute power or reliability. Especially since we are reaching the point where it is atomically impossible to fit any more transistors into a tighter space... The market for desktop computers isn't going anywhere.
Click to expand...

Yeah that was part of my point. It's not going anywhere - hence the moderate increases in CPU performance from Intel.

 
The fact is, from the technical perspective, x86 is reaching its limit.
It really has little to do with competition or anything like that. The fact is, x86 instructions need a certain
amount of clock cycles to complete and it cannot be reduced much further
 
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