Intel i7-4790K or i7-5820K - Music Production & Audio Recording

[KS_2016]

Hi,

First of all, I am from India. I thought it is important to mention this so that currency is taken into account when considering my budget.

My current system has an AMD 2.8GHz, quad-core CPU and is 4/5 years old. I am planning to build a new system this year and looking at Intel CPUs i7-4790K and i7-5820K. Frankly speaking, I can afford only i7-4790K. In fact, even i7-4790K will stretch my budget, but I can manage. I have looked at various benchmarks, reviews, and threads in this community and know the specifications and differences in specifications between the two.

However, since I am upgrading after 4/5 years and technology has changed much since then I want to make a well informed decision. Since CPU is the most important component around which other things revolve, I need help only in CPU selection and I can figure out the rest of the components like motherboard, RAM, etc. easily since CPU will itself limit them.

Ok, so the question now.

Which one should I select: i7-4790K OR i7-5820K?

My use: Music Production & Audio Recording, as well as day to day PC use. NO gaming at all.

The new system should work great for at least next 5 years.

Will I gain significant benefit from the two extra cores and DDR4 support up to 64GB of i7-5820K vs higher clock speed and DDR3 support up to 32GB of i7-4790K?

If i7-4790K, I am thinking of Asus Z97-A Motherboard and 16GB 1600MHz DDR3 RAM.

Thank you so much.

EDIT: I use FL Studio 12 for music production and audio recording. I use a USB 2.0 audio interface. I am from India and live in a city where the climate is mostly hot (up to 45 degrees Celsius ambient temperature during summer). I plan to buy only a single ~27" LED monitor, although I haven't concluded on it yet. I haven't finalized the overall budget, but I would like it to be less than 1 Lakh Indian Rupees. The lesser the better.

 

[DonkeyOatie]

Depends on how well threaded your software is. Are you using this system to make money?

The LGA 2011v3 socket is still current and new processors will be released for it. The i7 4790K is still very viable and will last as long as you need it too.

DDR4 vs DDR3 is a push almost, except for the lower power use of DDR4. Both motherboards will support as much memory as you need. If you give us a country and a budget in local currency, we may be able to refine the build. Are you planning to game or anything else with this system, and how many monitors will you be running?

 

[kategra84]

HI KS-2016.

i7-5820K should be a better choice for AUDIO production if you can afford it (though there isn't a big difference between price of CPUs the motherboards for 5820k are more expensive) . I

don't know exactly what DAW you use, but multiple in Propellerhead Reason have shown 5820K to be a considerable better choice. Check this benchmark thread for Reason8.1 and above versions:
http://www.reasontalk.com/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=7263897&start=100

 

[iam2thecrowe]

For music production you can do well with an i5 instead of an i7 if you want to save some money. Invest a bit of money into a decent sound card and some decent studio monitor speakers. If i was tossing up between the two though I'd always find myself going for the socket 2011, but if it's not a gaming build the 2011 features are pretty much wasted. You could also opt for a non K edition cpu, no need for your purpose. And if you already have a video card you can re-use, the Xeon is a cheaper version of the i7 with no integrated GPU.

 

[saratj1]

I'd go with the 4790, unless you were doing video producing editing ect. I don't think you'd realize much of a difference with even the highest bit rate audio files from either of those cpus, and ddr4 doesn't seem to add up to much "felt" performance either and especially for the price even 5 years down the road. Really you'd have to see if your programs really benefit from more threads/cores or High single core clock speed to know for sure how much you'd gain with the higher thread count and price premium.
I'd also look into like the guy mentioned xenon / entry gpu/ workstation mother board as you may longer usefulness and more upgrade options as the machine ages.

 

[KS_2016]

Depends on how well threaded your software is. Are you using this system to make money?

The LGA 2011v3 socket is still current and new processors will be released for it. The i7 4790K is still very viable and will last as long as you need it too.

DDR4 vs DDR3 is a push almost, except for the lower power use of DDR4. Both motherboards will support as much memory as you need. If you give us a country and a budget in local currency, we may be able to refine the build. Are you planning to game or anything else with this system, and how many monitors will you be running?

Thank you for the suggestions. I have added the requested information at the end of my original thread (under EDIT).

No, I don't play games, at all.

FL Studio does make use of multi-core multi-threaded CPUs.

As of now I am not making money with music, but I may (wish to) make money with the new system, so I want it to be powerful and sustainable enough.

The problem is i7-4790K does not support DDR4, and as you mentioned, DDR4 currently does not have much advantage over DDR3. If I go with i7-5820K the overall budget will increase, as not only CPU but cost of motherboard and DDR4 will also add up. Additionally, a graphics card would be needed for i7-5820K. Also, i7-5820K probably runs hotter than i7-4790K due to higher TDP if I am not wrong.

I don't want to sacrifice too much on performance, but cost is also important. I am mainly thinking if the core difference between the two processor will be significant on performance or not.

 

[DonkeyOatie]

Anything will be a huge improvement. Given your circumstances then, perhaps the 4790K would be the better choice for your budget.

I asked about making money because it changes the budget calculation. Even 5% faster will increase the amount of billable hours and repay the extra cost quite quickly.

 

[KS_2016]

HI KS-2016.

i7-5820K should be a better choice for AUDIO production if you can afford it (though there isn't a big difference between price of CPUs the motherboards for 5820k are more expensive) . I

don't know exactly what DAW you use, but multiple in Propellerhead Reason have shown 5820K to be a considerable better choice. Check this benchmark thread for Reason8.1 and above versions:
http://www.reasontalk.com/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=7263897&start=100

Thanks for the suggestion. Yeah, the motherboard is indeed expensive for i7-5820K. It is a difficult situation for me right now.

I use FL Studio, and Image-Line does have both of these CPUs in their recommended CPUs guide.

 

[KS_2016]

HI KS-2016.

i7-5820K should be a better choice for AUDIO production if you can afford it (though there isn't a big difference between price of CPUs the motherboards for 5820k are more expensive) . I

don't know exactly what DAW you use, but multiple in Propellerhead Reason have shown 5820K to be a considerable better choice. Check this benchmark thread for Reason8.1 and above versions:
http://www.reasontalk.com/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=7263897&start=100

For music production you can do well with an i5 instead of an i7 if you want to save some money. Invest a bit of money into a decent sound card and some decent studio monitor speakers. If i was tossing up between the two though I'd always find myself going for the socket 2011, but if it's not a gaming build the 2011 features are pretty much wasted. You could also opt for a non K edition cpu, no need for your purpose. And if you already have a video card you can re-use, the Xeon is a cheaper version of the i7 with no integrated GPU.

Thanks for the suggestion. I will give a look at i5 CPUs, but I will put still consider i7 more so that I have significant performance boost in comparison to existing system.

I do have a good audio interface, studio monitors as well as headphones.

Yeah, iI won't being gaming at well. I will consider the non K edition CPUs if that saves me significantly. I don't have a video card, so I will have to sort between iGPU or eGPU later.

 

[KS_2016]

I'd go with the 4790, unless you were doing video producing editing ect. I don't think you'd realize much of a difference with even the highest bit rate audio files from either of those cpus, and ddr4 doesn't seem to add up to much "felt" performance either and especially for the price even 5 years down the road. Really you'd have to see if your programs really benefit from more threads/cores or High single core clock speed to know for sure how much you'd gain with the higher thread count and price premium.
I'd also look into like the guy mentioned xenon / entry gpu/ workstation mother board as you may longer usefulness and more upgrade options as the machine ages.

Thanks for the suggestion. I am trying to find out the price advantages of the two systems with these CPUs. I also think that i7-5820K might be a bit overkill for me with reference to price.

 

[KS_2016]

Anything will be a huge improvement. Given your circumstances then, perhaps the 4790K would be the better choice for your budget.

I asked about making money because it changes the budget calculation. Even 5% faster will increase the amount of billable hours and repay the extra cost quite quickly.

Thanks again for the suggestion.

Oh yes. Now I got your point about money making. That's a good point, but unfortunately it won't be applicable to me then.

 

[KS_2016]

Here's the approximate price comparison of the 3 builds with CPU, Motherboard and RAM components taken from Amazon India:

i7-4790K CPU 27000
Asus Z97-A Motherboard 15000
DDR3 1600MHz 16GB RAM 10000
Total 52000

i7-4790 CPU 25000
Asus H97 Pro Motherboard 11000
DDR3 1600MHz 16GB RAM 10000
Total 46000

i7-5820K CPU 31000
Asus X99-A Motherboard 25000
DDR4 2133MHz 16GB RAM 11000
Total 67000

The i7-4790K will save 15000 Rs. compared to i7-5820K, which is a significant amount.

Any further suggestions considering performance advantage of i7-5820K over i7-4790K?

 

[KS_2016]

Anyone, please?

 

[kategra84]

GO with the

i7-4790K CPU 27000
Asus Z97-A Motherboard 15000
DDR3 1600MHz 16GB RAM 10000
Total 52000

Make music, if you make considerable money out of it then it shouldn't be a problem to upgrade later. It's better to invest the extra money in education - like tutorial video packs for mixing and productions, have a treated room to tame the acoustics if your mix songs, studio monitors..

You can have all the gear in the world, but knowledge and experience still win

 

[KS_2016]

GO with the

i7-4790K CPU 27000
Asus Z97-A Motherboard 15000
DDR3 1600MHz 16GB RAM 10000
Total 52000

Make music, if you make considerable money out of it then it shouldn't be a problem to upgrade later. It's better to invest the extra money in education - like tutorial video packs for mixing and productions, have a treated room to tame the acoustics if your mix songs, studio monitors..

You can have all the gear in the world, but knowledge and experience still win

Thanks so much. Yes, I agree. The most important thing is to focus on actual creating music and keep getting better at it. I am not sure I will be making considerable amount, or even any amount, with my music in near future, so I will not shell out on an expensive machine. Instead, I will pick a system (the i7-4790K build) that gives a solid performance and is just better in many ways than my existing system.

And for 52,000 Rs. I haven't even completed my build. So I believe it will easily stretch to 80,000 Rs, which itself is a pretty big amount for me.

Choosing the best solution is always tough, but for me every solution here was helpful to me in deciding the CPU. So thank you everyone for your time and help.