Turkey,
The E3-1231V3 gets recommended as an alternative to >$200 i5's for gaming rigs all the time. The reason you see so many i5s in gaming builds is the same reason folks like myself advise the E3-1231V3 when the budget allows: price/performance.
In the <$200 price point, the i5-4460 and i5-4590 are the best value for gaming workloads, and since gamers tend to be on a budget, this price point is a common restriction in gaming builds. With the ~$50-60 price gap between the 4460 and the E3-1231V3, they are effectively competing in different price class's so comparing the number of i5 haswells used overall in gaming builds vs E3-1231V3's certainly can not be used as a yardstick to evaluate their performance.
In the $200-250 price bracket, if given the option to pick an i5-4690, i5-4690K, or E3-1231V3, the 4690K is only advantageous over the E3 if it is overclocked, otherwise, the E3 offers more performance than either of the i5's. Standard practice here is to advise the i5 for builders who intend to overclock and advise the E3 for those who have no interest in overclocking.
The E3-1231V3 provides the exact same compute performance as an i7-4770, but does not have an active iGPU, thus, is priced lower.
The E3's have locked multipliers, just like MOST Intel CPU's. The ability to overclock is only a value-add if exploited.
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LuckyDog,
an i5-4690K + Extreme4 for $290 is a steal. Nothing wrong with that at all. An E3-1231V3 on a decent H97 gaming board would have run you ~$350 from normal sources anyway, so I'd say you made out very well.