i5 4690k vs i7 4790k

NamelessAndrew

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May 13, 2015
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I'm making a new gaming rig and I've narrowed it down to these two options. I would instantly buy the i7 but I'm well over my budget so I'm looking for a bit cheaper option. I currently have an i7 on my laptop, but that's not even close to the power of the desktop i5. What I'd like to know is:

-I have dual GTX 970's in SLI overclocked to match the power of two 980's in SLI. Would the i5 be a bottleneck?

-Would it make more than a 5 FPS difference?

-Would I be able to easily run this with at least 30 FPS https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R5QV_Bag3is on the i5 or was that processed on an extremely expensive Xeon?
 
Solution
The i5 shouldn't bottleneck the SLI setup but if for some reason there is, that cpu can easily achieve a >4.3ghz overclock which will fix the issue. Also if you wanted i7 power for roughly the same price as a K i5 you could always buy the Xeon 1231 which is locked but does utilize hyper-threading. As far as the video I would just post a comment and ask what they have for a cpu/gpu(s).
The i5 shouldn't bottleneck the SLI setup but if for some reason there is, that cpu can easily achieve a >4.3ghz overclock which will fix the issue. Also if you wanted i7 power for roughly the same price as a K i5 you could always buy the Xeon 1231 which is locked but does utilize hyper-threading. As far as the video I would just post a comment and ask what they have for a cpu/gpu(s).
 
Solution

I'm playing at 1080p with 8x msaa with mfaa. I might also use 1440p dsr depending on the game.
 


You should be fine, the 1440p dsr might cause a vram issues in vram heavy games due to the 3.5gb vram limit of the 970
 
Clock for Clock , core for core they're identical, excluding HTT.( Intel Hyper-threading technology) . Out of all the titles out now only a handful use more than 2 cores , even less make use of Hyper-threading. This is subject to change with newer APIs(DX12,Vulkan) Hyper-threading will be much more useful in the near future (Gaming). There are applications that benefit from the 8 threads opposed to 4 . Cinebench is designed that way, Many media editing tools such as the ones found in Adobe Creative Suites is also going to get some performance gain with an i7 4770k over an i5 4690k.
Note: Theoretical performance of HTT is approximately 30%. ..since the Pentium 4.

the i7 is a higher binned CPU , i think. Intel does not disclose such methods. The i5 4690k is probably as close to the i7 4790k as the i7 4790 or 4790S , (quality wise' )

The i7 4790K is Clocked at 4.4GHz (Turbo Boost 2.0) while the i5 devil's canyon (refresh) is clocked only 100MHz higher than the i5 4670k(3.4-3.8GHz) . Personally i think the i7 4790K is a bit more stacked . The Aggressive clocks out of box led to think that their Yields were much higher than when Haswell first launched. Basically all i am trying to say is It has been said , from reputable sources, that your more likely to get a better overclock on the i7 4790k then the rest of the Haswell SKUs. Take all this with a grain of salt. If you are not going to overclock then don't even worry about any of that.
 

Are you sure the Xeon is as good as the i7? According to CPUBoss the i7 beats it by a fair margin... But still, the xeon is so cheap, supports hyperthreading, is much better than the i5 and has the best performance per dollar. Xeon 1231 it is!
 


The only real difference between Xeon and i7 is that there is no IGPU which wont matter since you have a dedicated GPU.
 

Actually, the game that has been reported to stutter the most is Shadow of Mordor, and only when ran at ultra settings, 4k. If you lower the graphics or run it at 1440p, the stuttering is gone. When you get to the point where you manage to hit the ram gate your fps is not very good anyway. Also i decided I was going to run 8x msaa because it looks very similar to 4k dsr but costs much less fps and there's no chance I'm ever going to hit the ram gate. Linus even made a video on it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jPlCIUh_Tp0
 


But what about the lower clock speed and inability to overclock? Can I overclock the Xeon 1231 using a 3rd party program or is it completely locked? Also if I won't overclock it do I really need to buy a special cpu cooler?
 
Its a 3.4 (TB 3.8) 4C 8T cpu, it should last quite awhile for gaming. If you feel you need to get a unlocked cpu then go for the I5 4690K since thats all you'll need. As far as cooling the Xeon the stock cooler should be fine but even a cooler like the CM Evo 212 would be fine for it and keep the temps down, it would also work great on the I5 4690K. The I7 is just overkill and you would be lucky to see over 50% cpu usage during gaming. Only apps for video editing/rendering and different engineering programs would push the cpu enough to utilize all cores. I have the I7 4770K and I only game and trust me its not worth the extra $100+, I dont want to see someone make the same mistake. Heck I probably would of just gone with a i5 4590/H97 MB/SLI and run games in ultra for the next 4-5 years. Another thing is that I never overclock unless its causing a bottleneck on the GPU, I haven't seen large enough increases in performance to overclock but then agian I've only usually overclocked like 400-500mhz over stock. If only gaming just go with the I5 4690K and a CM EVO 212 (if it fits in your case) or something better.
 

Well if you say that it doesn't make a difference in gaming, then I probably won't overclock the CPU. I just want it to be there for it's original life span. But if I won't overclock it will i really need the "K" version?
 

I don't get it, why do those CPUs need extra GPUs? I mean, anyone who's willing to spend that much money on a CPU will probably get a decent dedicated graphics card. So then I'm paying for hardware I'm never going to use. Maybe the Xeon 1231 is always a better option, since every dollar you spend actually goes to the CPU.
 


Exactly, theres no point to have a IGPU that you wont use, thats why I usually recommend the Xeon for ppl that want I7 power for much a much cheaper cost, runs cooler, and less energy consumption. Like I said before I've only overclocked to fix bottlenecks in performance and thats usually if I make a system, then 5-6 years down the road I put in a newer GPU, if the CPU bottlenecks the GPU then I will overclock it to increase performance/FPS but then again I usually make a new system every 5-6 years so buying any K or unlocked version (at least for me) is pointless. My next build which will be either this fall or next summer and will be a i5 4590 (or something similair) with a GTX 980ti, neither will bottleneck and performance will be amazing @4K res.
 


Thanks, you saved me a lot of time and money. Sorry for the late response.