Question i7 4790 vs i5 9400F?

gwynnblade

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Oct 28, 2019
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Is it worth upgrading a i7 4790 to a i5 9400F?
Im aiming to do this in order to achieve higher fps in gaming, also reducing frame drops that im getting playing new games of higher settings.
Thanks!
 
Is it worth upgrading a i7 4790 to a i5 9400F?
Im aiming to do this in order to achieve higher fps in gaming, also reducing frame drops that im getting playing new games of higher settings.
Thanks!

Going from a 4790 to a 9400- you are actually loosing 2 threads. That is possibly going to make frame drops worse (especially if you run anything in the background). I would say that is a bad upgrade choice.

Personally I'd buy Ryzen, the R5 2600 can be had for similar money to the 9400 and is a 12 thread processor, can be overclocked and the AM4 platform has loads of upgrade options (you can go all the way up to a 16 core, 32 thread part if you want to in the future). The 2600 is similar performance to 9400 in current games (they trade blows basically). If you could stretch your budget a little further the newer R5 3600 is faster than the 9400 across the board thanks to updated architecture.

If you really want to go Intel, you would be better waiting until next gen desktop parts come out- Intel are apparently going to be changing the i5's from 6 core / 6 threads to 6 core / 12 threads to compete with Ryzen 3000 (currently there is basically 0 reasons to buy an i5).
 

gwynnblade

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Going from a 4790 to a 9400- you are actually loosing 2 threads. That is possibly going to make frame drops worse (especially if you run anything in the background). I would say that is a bad upgrade choice.

Personally I'd buy Ryzen, the R5 2600 can be had for similar money to the 9400 and is a 12 thread processor, can be overclocked and the AM4 platform has loads of upgrade options (you can go all the way up to a 16 core, 32 thread part if you want to in the future). The 2600 is similar performance to 9400 in current games (they trade blows basically). If you could stretch your budget a little further the newer R5 3600 is faster than the 9400 across the board thanks to updated architecture.

If you really want to go Intel, you would be better waiting until next gen desktop parts come out- Intel are apparently going to be changing the i5's from 6 core / 6 threads to 6 core / 12 threads to compete with Ryzen 3000 (currently there is basically 0 reasons to buy an i5).

Thanks for the elaborate response!
Im kind of a noob so would I have to upgrade my motherboard in order to fit a AMD CPU?
 
I like the website :) makes all things easy viewable for everyone:
https://cpu.userbenchmark.com/Compare/Intel-Core-i7-4790-vs-Intel-Core-i5-9400F/2293vs4051
you gain ~20% in Benchmarks, and lowering overall TDP, so drops should go away.
But for such upgrade where you change ram, mobo & cpu, this is not a lot of gain.
so you will pay a lot of $ and see moderate gains.
for best bang/buck ratio
https://cpu.userbenchmark.com/Compare/Intel-Core-i7-4790-vs-Intel-Core-i7-9700F/2293vsm816132 (+170$)
OR
team red option
https://cpu.userbenchmark.com/Compare/Intel-Core-i7-4790-vs-AMD-Ryzen-7-3700X/2293vs4043
if you would like to see overall red vs blue.


both will end up around same price and
https://cpu.userbenchmark.com/Compare/Intel-Core-i7-9700F-vs-AMD-Ryzen-7-3700X/m816132vs4043
same value (unless you run something like video render)
then AMD leave INTEL in the dust.

1108 Pts1512 PtsMuch faster OC 64-core speed.
+36%
 
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You would need a new motherboard and ram to support any new CPU.
9th or 8th gen intel or any ryzen CPU need ddr4 and new motherboard as the sockets are different from your current mobo.

No reason to upgrade to a 9400f from your current cpu. Not enough improvement to justify cost.
 
To keep your current motherboard, the strongest upgrade would be a i7-4790K and overclock it a bit.
On ebay, they cost perhaps $200. You would gain perhaps 10% better performance, more if you happened on a good overclocking chip.

To go to a modern processor, you will not only need a new processor, but also a new motherboard and new DDR44 ram.

What games do you play?

Some games are graphics limited like fast action shooters.
Others are cpu core speed limited like strategy, sims, and mmo.
Multiplayer tends to like many threads.

You have a strong graphics card, so I would not think that would be a limitation.
But, since higher resolution gaming is the issue, run this test:
Run YOUR games, but lower your resolution and eye candy.
If your FPS increases, it indicates that your cpu is strong enough to drive a better graphics configuration.
If your FPS stays the same, you are likely more cpu limited.

On the assumption that you decide that you need a new processor, you should first assess just how many threads are useful to you.
Experiment with removing one or more cores/threads. You can do this in the windows msconfig boot advanced options option.
You will need to reboot for the change to take effect. Set the number of threads to less than you have.
This will tell you how sensitive your games are to the benefits of many threads.
If you see little difference, your game does not need all the threads you have.
It turns out that few games can actually make effective use of more than 4-6 threads.
Here is an older study:


This forum seems to favor ryzen and it's many cheap threads.
That is good for batch multithreaded apps, but to my mind the faster single thread performance of the intel 9th gen K suffix processors is better for gaming when using a strong graphics card.
Look for a i5-9600K or i7-9700K and a z390 based motherboard.
 
intel 9th gen K suffix processors is better for gaming when using a strong graphics card.
A little to general of a statement.

Something like an i3 9350k would be a downgrade from any 3rd gen Ryzen and his current CPU.

Then the 9400f will have a lower and less stable framerate compared to the 3600 and up.

Stepping up to a 9600k, you will have a stronger fps, however many users have reported stutter not present with the 3600 and up.

Then with the 9700k and 9900k, you will have a higher framerate and stability to ryzen 3rd gen.
 
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A little general, I agree.
I was not thinking about the i3-9350KF.
The passmark rating of the current 8 thread 4790 is 9490 and the single thread rating is 2282.
The rating of the 4 thread i3-9350K is 10,512 with a much stronger single thread rating of 2629.
Interesting...
If the current games can not take advantage of many threads, the 9350K could actually be a bargain upgrade.
Not that I would recommend that.
The 9600K has similar single thread performance but more threads.
If budget permits, the 9700K is as good as it gets for gaming.
 

Notorious^

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If you're staying intel, the 9700K or 9900K is the only way to go. Especially if you live by a micro center, they have the 9700K for $299. As much of a intel fan boy as i am, i can't deny the price to performance for the Ryzen. The Ryzen 7 2700x is still a great CPU for price to performance. At about $192 (on amazon) for 8 cores and 12 threads it is a good choice for people on a budget looking for the biggest bang for the buck.

If you don't have a budget, obviously the 9900K is where it is at unless you want to drop $530 on a Ryzen 9 3900x for 12 cores & 24 threads which i can't say anything because i dropped $530 on my i9-9900K when it came out.
 
I can expand my budget but i'd really like to expend the lowest possible amount. What are the benefits of investing in a more expensive motherboard?

The new X570 chipset supports PCIe 4 as others have mentioned (all other motherboards, AMD or Intel are limited to PCIe 3, which is half the bandwidth). That said PCIe 4 isn't really used by anything currently. It would be good from a future proofing standpoint but real world performance currently makes no difference, and honestly I don't think its likely to make a big enough difference to care about within the lifetime of the motherboard (just like when they went from PCIe 2 to PCIe 3- new graphics boards worked fine on the older PCIe 2 boards).

A decent B450 board will handle the 3600 no issue- the main thing is to get one of the latest B450 boards as some came out before the 3600 was released and will need a bios update to support (which can be difficult if you don't have an older cpu to put in first- although most sellers should be able to update for you if you ask with the order). There is an updated range of B450 boards with guaranteed support for Ryzen 3000- these are branded 'MAX' at the end (a few companies offer them). They cost slightly more but probably worth the extra for no hassle setup.
 

rodrigoxm49

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Oct 13, 2019
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Is it worth upgrading a i7 4790 to a i5 9400F?
Im aiming to do this in order to achieve higher fps in gaming, also reducing frame drops that im getting playing new games of higher settings.
Thanks!
4790 still is a very good CPU for gaming (really good to keep solid 60FPS), but 9400F will give more frames and better minimum frames, but I really think you should try 9700 or even 8700.

Why 8700 over 9400? Because they have very similar performance and i7 have 12 logical cores, while 9400 have only 6 logical cores. As everyones knows already, 6 cores still is good enough for gaming, but just like what happened with i5 4/4 from 2017 to here, its starting to happens with 6/6 CPUs. Games like BF shows incredible high CPU usage (90~100% all the time) and people are already having spikes time from time.

Anyway, I think this video will help you a lot.

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0JrGgUpRFu8&t=334s
 
Why 8700 over 9400? Because they have very similar performance and i7 have 12 logical cores, while 9400 have only 6 logical cores.
My main problem with the i7-8700 at this point is that the Ryzen 3600 is $100+ less, while offering very similar gaming performance with the same number of cores and threads. Performance between those two processors should be nearly identical, generally within a few percent of one another even when paired with the highest-end graphics cards running at 1080p, so there's no point in paying so much more for the i7. When the 8700 came out, it was arguably a decent option, as the similar core-count Ryzens were still a little behind in gaming performance in CPU-limited scenarios, making the added cost of the i7 worth considering, but the IPC improvements that came with the 3000-series caused those performance differences to evaporate, at least for the locked parts. As far as the unlocked i7s go, their minimal performance gains seem questionable for all but the highest-end systems. Otherwise, putting that money toward other parts of the system tends to make far more sense.
 

rodrigoxm49

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Oct 13, 2019
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My main problem with the i7-8700 at this point is that the Ryzen 3600 is $100+ less, while offering very similar gaming performance with the same number of cores and threads. Performance between those two processors should be nearly identical, generally within a few percent of one another even when paired with the highest-end graphics cards running at 1080p, so there's no point in paying so much more for the i7. When the 8700 came out, it was arguably a decent option, as the similar core-count Ryzens were still a little behind in gaming performance in CPU-limited scenarios, making the added cost of the i7 worth considering, but the IPC improvements that came with the 3000-series caused those performance differences to evaporate, at least for the locked parts. As far as the unlocked i7s go, their minimal performance gains seem questionable for all but the highest-end systems. Otherwise, putting that money toward other parts of the system tends to make far more sense.
Yes, Ryzen 3600 would be a much smarter choice than 8700. But it's a smarter choice than 9400F too. I don't know about the prices, but here in my country, 9400F is 30% more cheaper. So it's not a fair comparison.