Is it worth to reuse my old CPU??

Zomboss99

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Apr 13, 2015
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I want to build a new Gaming PC, but as you know CPU's can be quite expensive. My old PC already has a nice CPU that's around $400 (Intel Core i7 4770). I've only used the PC for around 3 years and I would save a lot of money by using this CPU. Has it lost performance and should be replaced? If I were to replace it, I would get a Intel Core i7-4790K.

My setup for my new computer would be:

CSBF000572
Bitfenix Neos Black/Red Window Mid Tower Case (BFC-NEO-100-KKWSR-RP)

DVLG000947
LG (WH16NS40) Internal 16x Blu-ray Writer, OEM| Black, SATA, M-DISC, BDXL,

CPUI003846
Intel Core i7-4790K Quad-Core Processor | Socket LGA1150, 4.0Ghz, 8MB L3 Cache, 22nm | (Retail Boxed) Gen4 (BX80646I74790K)

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GIGABYTE GA-Z97X-Gaming 5 Socket 1150 Intel Z97 Chipset | Dual Channel DDR3 3200(O.C.) MHz, 1x PCI-Express 3.0 x16 | Dual GLAN, 6x SATA 6.0Gb/s, 6x USB 3.0, 8x USB 2.0 | DVI/HDMI/D-Sub, ATX

FNDC000015
Deepcool GAMMAXX 300 CPU Cooler for Intel LGA1366/1156/1155/1150/775 and AMD FM2/FM1/AM3+/AM3/AM2+/AM2/K8
*Save additional $1.49 for online ship out orders!
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G.SKILL Ares Series 16GB (2x8GB) DDR3 2133MHz CL11 Dual Channel Kit (F3-2133C11D-16GAR) F3-2133C11D-16GAR

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EVGA GeForce GTX 980 Superclocked 4GB GDDR5 ACX 2.0 Cooler (04G-P4-2983-KR)

SMKT001720
Kingston SSDNow V300 120GB 7mm SATA 6Gb/s Solid State Drive (SSD), Read: 450MB/s Write: 450MB/s (SV300S37A/120G)
*Save additional $2.24 for online ship out orders!
HDSG002093
Seagate Desktop HDD 1TB 3.5" SATA3 64MB Cache OEM Hard Drive (ST1000DM003)

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EVGA SuperNOVA 850 B2 850W Power Supply 80 Plus Bronze Certified Semi Modular Power Supply Intel 4th Gen CPU Compatible 5 Year Warranty (110-B2-0850-V1)

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Cooler Master 120mm Red LED SickleFlow 2000 RPM Long Life Case Fan (R4-L2R-20AR-R1)

*Save additional $1.48 for online ship out orders!

 


If this is not an unlocked chip, your 4770 will still have several years in it for games. As stated before the 4790K doesn't really add much unless you really are happy with maxing synthetic benchmarks.

From what I've heard (what anybody has heard) the next Broadwell release won't provide a tremendous amount of increase, but performance/watt may me noticeably improved. (Assuming LGA Broadwell isn't vaporware)

Skylake LGA (again, assuming not Vaporware) promises more, but everything released so far has been unsubstantiated and unreliable leaks. I'm going to upgrade my Haswell CPU with Skylake, but I have a locked 4770S (65W) chip. (Even still, that isn't being pushed by my few games, so I don't really need the upgrade.

If you can re-use your CPU, do so. Use the savings for a kick ass GPU.
 
As others have said, keep the CPU for sure. The best gaming CPU is generally considered to be a 4690K, here is a comparison between your 4770 and a 4690K:

UserBenchmark: Intel Core i7-4770 vs Core i5-4690K
Effective CPU Speed: 85.4% vs 90.9%
Intel Core i7-4770 - 17th / 825
Intel Core i5-4690K - 4th / 825

There is less than 5% in it.


The other change I would make is to a better SSD, the V300 is possibly the worst possible choice, go for a samsung 850 evo which is nearly twice as fast, comparison here:

UserBenchmark: Samsung 850 Evo 120GB vs Kingston SSDNow V300 120GB
Effective SSD Speed: 94.4% vs 44.6%
Samsung 850 Evo 120GB - 34th / 655
Kingston SSDNow V300 120GB - 482nd / 655