i7 4790k worth while upgrade?

[cherryrowl]

I've been thinking about picking up the i7 4790k recently and was wondering if it would be a worth while upgrade, I'm currently using a i5 4690. The Computer uses two 1080p Monitors usually one for gaming the other for youtube/reddit/twitch etc..

Specs:
i5 4690
Geforce GTX 980
MSI B85-G41
16 GB of Vengeance Ram
1 TB HDD
2x 120GB SSD's

 

[rcxtra]

Not really.
For one, you can't overclock a 'K' CPU on a B85 motherboard (you'd need a Z97 board). And secondly, I doubt you're taxing your current CPU. Download MSI Afterburner and monitor your CPU usage while gaming, if it's not maxing out then a new CPU won't give you any better gaming performance.

 

[cherryrowl]

Not really.
For one, you can't overclock a 'K' CPU on a B85 motherboard (you'd need a Z97 board). And secondly, I doubt you're taxing your current CPU. Download MSI Afterburner and monitor your CPU usage while gaming, if it's not maxing out then a new CPU won't give you any better gaming performance.

So after downloading Afterburner I tested what my CPU load was during the Witcher 3(most graphic intensive game I currently have installed) and noticed it wasn't quite reaching 100% but was getting close I'd say 93% on average. So if I ultimately decided to upgrade I should just go with the non 'K' version?

 

[rcxtra]

So after downloading Afterburner I tested what my CPU load was during the Witcher 3(most graphic intensive game I currently have installed) and noticed it wasn't quite reaching 100% but was getting close I'd say 93% on average. So if I ultimately decided to upgrade I should just go with the non 'K' version?

Buying a 'K' version would be a waste of money because Intel charges a premium for 'K' CPU's for the privilege of overclocking -- something your B85 MB can't do. Also, upgrading from an i5 to an i7 won't really give you better game performance because current game titles don't use more than 4 physical cores, though Win10 with DX12 might see a very slight bump.

You mentioned you're seeing high CPU usage with Afterburner (90%+). Look at the GPU usage when the CPU usage is high, as long as the GPU usage is still 98-100% you don't have any bottleneck with your current CPU. In other words, if your GPU is always humming along at 100% usage then you won't see any improvement in gaming by upgrading the CPU.