[SOLVED] Should I buy a used i7 4790K?

HeartOfAdel

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Hi to everyone!
I decided to upgrade to i7 4790K, better late than never, right?
The CPU had been used since the end of 2014 till the end of 2020 (6 years) and had been cooled by a 300W air cooler. The temperatures almost never exceeded 60 degrees in games. During the last year the i7 4790K was overclocked to 4.7 GHz at 1.3V and ran around 65 degrees in games.
The main question is would this CPU, in your opinion, last till 2025 if I ran it at stock turbo speeds (H97 motherboard, can't overclock anyway) and cooled it with Deepcool Gammaxx L120 V2? Is this AIO good enough for i7 4790K?
 
Solution
The 4790k is still a relevant gaming chip, especially if you're at 1440p, I think that's the ideal resolution for one of those chips.

As for the chip itself, as others have said, CPUs rarely break under normal use. You'll be fine, enjoy the upgrade.
would this CPU, in your opinion, last till 2025
there is absolutely no way to tell. every chip is different.
some may have a brand new one that dies in 2 years or less under minimal use, some for 10 years or more with heavy overclocks.
you can look up an average lifespan of the 4790K, but it still won't guarantee anything.

how do you know for sure what the exact usage and statistics are? were you there watching them use it for years?
 
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What is the make/model of your current parts?
What is your budget?
At some price point, an upgrade to a i7-4790K can make some sense.
Such a processor can last indefinitely so long as it is not severely over volted.
Not possible without overclocking.
If you have the Gammax aio cooler, then ok, go ahead and use it.
But, I would not buy such a cooler if a simple tower type cooler with a 120/140mm fan will fit your case.
 
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HeartOfAdel

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there is absolutely no way to tell. every chip is different.
some may have a brand new one that dies in 2 years or less under minimal use, some for 10 years or more with heavy overclocks.
you can look up an average lifespan of the 4790K, but it still won't guarantee anything.

how do you know for sure what the exact usage and statistics are? were you there watching them use it for years?
Statistics were given by the seller. I've also seen the 300W air cooler which is huge.
Yes, every chip is different but it's said that a faulty one usually shows its problems pretty quickly.
 
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HeartOfAdel

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What is the make/model of your current parts?
What is your budget?
At some price point, an upgrade to a i7-4790K can make some sense.
Such a processor can last indefinitely so long as it is not severely over volted.
Not possible without overclocking.
If you have the Gammax aio cooler, then ok, go ahead and use it.
But, I would not buy such a cooler if a simple tower type cooler with a 120/140mm fan will fit your case.
MSI H97 Gaming 3, i5 4570 and 4 sticks of 4gb DDR3 1600 MHz
I can't directly compare prices but it's 1/3 of the CPU's normal price in 2014, which seems fine to me.
What do you mean by "Not possible without overclocking"?
 

DSzymborski

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Statistics were given by a seller. I've also seen the 300W air cooler which is huge.
Yes, every chip is different but it's said that a faulty one usually shows its problems pretty quickly.

While this is true, there's no reason to take the specific representations of a seller seriously unless you have some basis on which to judge their personal character. It's very easy to promise something which can never actually be demonstrated false.
 
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HeartOfAdel

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While this is true, there's no reason to take the specific representations of a seller seriously unless you have some basis on which to judge their personal character. It's very easy to promise something which can never actually be demonstrated false.
Yep, I agree. But my view comes from reading positive reviews from other buyers.
 

DSzymborski

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It's not a big company or anything. The seller's sold out about 10 things that were in his older build and + offering me to come to me himself and see how the CPU works.

Is he offering you a time machine to watch how he's used the CPU for years? Or, at least, complete sensor logs?

You can, of course, choose to trust the person, but what I'm saying is you can't trust them based on specific CPU use information that is completely unverifiable.

It's like buying a car from someone because they swore they never farted in the car. There may be good reasons to buy the car; a good price, no evidence of damaged parts, a clean car history, documented repairs, a verifiable inspection. But the status of the car of never-being-farted-in ought not to be used as part of the decision.
 

HeartOfAdel

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Is he offering you a time machine to watch how he's used the CPU for years? Or, at least, complete sensor logs?

You can, of course, choose to trust the person, but what I'm saying is you can't trust them based on specific CPU use information that is completely unverifiable.

It's like buying a car from someone because they swore they never farted in the car. There may be good reasons to buy the car; a good price, no evidence of damaged parts, a clean car history, documented repairs, a verifiable inspection. But the status of the car of never-being-farted-in ought not to be used as part of the decision.
Hahaha don't ever ask the seller if he's farted in the car because you might be disappointed!
After all you are right, there are no sensors either. Everything is based on an intuitive impression. But that's what you always go for when buying a used thing. You never know anything at 100%.
Apart from the seller's trust worthiness, provided that you know the approx. state of the CPU which is based on the truth, what can you tell me about its approx. physical capabilities? At the end of the day that's what I came here to hear about.
 

DSzymborski

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Hahaha don't ever ask the seller if he's farted in the car because you might be disappointed!
After all you are right, there are no sensors either. Everything is based on an intuitive impression. But that's what you always go for when buying a used thing. You never know anything at 100%.
Apart from the seller's trust worthiness, provided that you know the approx. state of the CPU which is based on the truth, what can you tell me about its approx. physical capabilities? At the end of the day that's what I came here to hear about.

Despite my adding a disclaimer, the basic concept, that CPUs rarely actually fail, is quite right. I just didn't want you to rely on something unverifiable. It's far more likely your motherboard dies and makes your CPU an orphan. Somewhere in a box, I have an old 8088-1 CPU at a blazing 9.54 MHz and I'd wager money that it still works (I just have nothing to test it with should I come across it). I still have a Pentium 4 handling the light task of managing my sound system.

I expect that if you come back and test this 4790K 40 years from now, it'll still work. It'll certainly be functionally obsolete, but I bet it works.
 

HeartOfAdel

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Despite my adding a disclaimer, the basic concept, that CPUs rarely actually fail, is quite right. I just didn't want you to rely on something unverifiable. It's far more likely your motherboard dies and makes your CPU an orphan. Somewhere in a box, I have an old 8088-1 CPU at a blazing 9.54 MHz and I'd wager money that it still works (I just have nothing to test it with should I come across it). I still have a Pentium 4 handling the light task of managing my sound system.

I expect that if you come back and test this 4790K 40 years from now, it'll still work. It'll certainly be functionally obsolete, but I bet it works.
Thank you for the disclaimer. You're right about which things to rely on. And thank you for the opinion on CPUs.
But what about motherboards? How long do you think they approx. last?
 

boju

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Still hanging on to my main daily drive with 2600k and p8p67 mobo, overclocked to 4.5 since the day i got it in 2013. Many many hrs put into this thing over the years and still going. Question about longevity is random and anything can happen. For me it has lasted being put through the ringer so i count my blessings.

Upgrading from a quad to hyperthreaded quad will show improvement with recent games benefiting the extra threads. 10th or 11th gen would be ideal imo for recent and up coming games such as FC6, Dying Light 2 and GTA6 but 4790k might still do alright.

I'm waiting for ddr5 platforms to arrive before my next big jump. Alder Lake isn't too far away, end of this yr, so be interesting seeing how things go with it and if my wallet will open up or shy away lol. 2025? Lot's should happen and id probably reckon 4790k wont be in your main rig by then.
 
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TommyTwoTone66

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Go for it, the 4790K is still very quick even by today's standards.

Intel CPUs are like cockroaches, it is near enough impossible to kill them. I have an old Core2 Q6600 from 2008 still going strong, and I ran that overclocked from 2.6Ghz up to 3.5Ghz for about 8 years of its life, bordering on 80 degrees under load.

My oldest intel CPU still in use is a Pentium D 820 from 2005 which lives in an old server tucked away, and my oldest working Intel CPU is a 386 SX 16Mhz from 1990, that I keep purely for nostalgia purposes. None of these chips will probably fail in my lifetime. I expect to be able to give the 386 to my grandchildren and they will still be able to play Commander Keen on it.
 
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TommyTwoTone66

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Not sure why anyone would run a CPU at 99C for 5 years but even that doesn't kill Intel CPUs, just gives them character.

Bent and damaged, sure, but again that would be an extremely strange case. I've bought hundreds maybe even thousands of used CPUs and never had a bent one or physically damaged one. You have to be deliberately trying to damage them to manage it I think.
 
i've seen probably 30 threads on Tom's alone of people buying them used and then coming here crying that they can't get their system to run only to find out that someone was selling a dead CPU.

and still many more with members complaining about not being able to reach stock frequencies for long because it would just crash & die due to their CPUs being overly abused.
 
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TommyTwoTone66

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i've seen probably 30 threads on Tom's alone of people buying them used and then coming here crying that they can't get their system to run only to find out that someone was selling a dead CPU.

This I can believe. There's a lot of idiots out there and some of them do sell on eBay without testing, or worse yet, knowingly sell broken parts as working.
However this is very rare, and the eBay refund policy is amazing. They just straight up refund you no questions asked. Obviously check the feedback profile of anyone you're buying from and don't buy anything that looks suspiciously cheap.

and still many more with members complaining about not being able to reach stock frequencies for long because it would just crash & die due to their CPUs being overly abused.

No. This just isn't a thing. You can't "overly abuse" a CPU and make it not work at stock frequency. It either works or it doesn't. There's no "in between" where the CPU only works at 80% clock speed because it's been abused and now needs crutches to walk. CPUs don't have legs. They have transistors, and you can't melt or deform a transistor in an Intel CPU by using it, it shuts itself down long before that becomes a possibility. You'd have to use a blowtorch.
 
No. This just isn't a thing. You can't "overly abuse" a CPU and make it not work at stock frequency. It either works or it doesn't.
it appears you don't have much experience dealing with used hardware or dealing with processing units, restrictions, voltage, temperature, and degradation.

so all of these hundreds or maybe it was thousands(those are similar numbers easily confused, right?) of used processors that you've bought were all thoroughly tested by you and confirmed to have no defective attributes?