Is the I7-4790 going to be compatible with my Asrock h81m-dgs motherboard?

[FF_Guy]

Question says it all. I know it is the same socket , but I read somewhere that this cpu is only compatible with z87 and z97 motherboards

 

[why_wolf]

Yes. http://www.asrock.com/mb/Intel/H81M-DGS/#CPU

 

[kraelic]

Update your bios first, 4770 was the first run of haswell, the 4790 is the haswell refresh and needs the BIOS support to boot.

 

[photonboy]

Note there are different REVISIONS for that board so don't get BIOS updates mixed up.

R2.0:
https://www.asrock.com/mb/Intel/H81M-DGS%20R2.0/index.asp#CPU

That needs P1.20 or later, whereas the original AFAIK needs BIOS P1.70 or later.
https://www.asrock.com/mb/Intel/H81M-DGS/#CPU

You can click on Support->BIOS to see what the updates are if you currently don't need to update for the i7-4790 to be supported.

Such as: microcode (security fix), NVMe (M.2), Intel Smart Connect (a wakeup option for some programs)

 

[photonboy]

Other:
The "Z87" and "Z97" reference might refer to the "K" (overclock) series to allow overclocking. So the i7-4790K for example might work at up to 4.8GHz or so on a Z87 board with a good cooler etc but not on your motherboard, and of course you can't overclock the i7-4790.

You MAY (not sure) be able to adjust the BIOS settings so that all four cores hit a higher frequency under load up to the maximum Max Turbo setting (4.0GHz). Even if you could it's probably like a 5% gain.