I am looking to upgrade my performance on my Oculus. (For games like Asgards Wrath) I have a decent GPU (GTX 1060 6 gig), plenty of SSD storage and 8 Gigs of DDR3.
I currently have an I5-4670k 3.4 on an AS Rock Z87 Killer. I have never Overclocked a CPU (maybe get a Hyper EVO 212 CPU cooler?)
I am considering upgrading to an I7-4790K but I don't know if it would be worth the price.
So for the bang for buck budget minded-
A- Overclock the processor.
B- Get the I7
C- New Board and Processor
New board, processor and memory. Or, possibly, none of those, and a new graphics card. HOW performance is being limited should determine that.
The cost of a used 4790k, unless you find a rare deal, is a large chunk of what it would cost to upgrade to something much better than that could give you anyhow. Overclocking isn't the worst possible thing, because you can get into it for less than about 60 bucks in most cases, but honestly it's probably not, on that platform, going to give you what you are looking for and you are going to end up feeling like you wasted your investment. On the positive side, it's worth TRYING at least, because any cooler you buy can probably, almost certainly, be moved forward to a new platform if or when you...
New board, processor and memory. Or, possibly, none of those, and a new graphics card. HOW performance is being limited should determine that.
The cost of a used 4790k, unless you find a rare deal, is a large chunk of what it would cost to upgrade to something much better than that could give you anyhow. Overclocking isn't the worst possible thing, because you can get into it for less than about 60 bucks in most cases, but honestly it's probably not, on that platform, going to give you what you are looking for and you are going to end up feeling like you wasted your investment. On the positive side, it's worth TRYING at least, because any cooler you buy can probably, almost certainly, be moved forward to a new platform if or when you end up having to do that anyway. So it won't be a waste of money.
The Hyper 212 EVO would not be the cooler I'd recommend though, not even as the bottom of the barrel bargain basement option. Because in THAT case, the Deepcool Gammaxx 400 would be a better choice. It's less expensive and cools better, but honestly, you really want something more capable whether upgrading, to, say, Ryzen, because the stock coolers are not that great anyhow, or even just for overclocking because in order to achieve a worthwhile overclock on the 212 EVO or Gammaxx 400 you are still going to reach levels where the fan operation is going to be annoyingly and senselessly loud in under most load conditions.
Here are my recommended coolers.
Below is my list of preferred CPU AIR coolers, also known as Heatsink fans (HSF).
Do not look here for recommendations on water/liquid cooling solutions. There are none to be found.
They are basically listed in order of preference, from top to bottom. To some degree that preference is based on known performance on similarly overclocked configurations, but not entirely. There are likely a couple of units that are placed closer to the top not because they offer purely better performance than another cooler which is below it, but potentially due to a variety of reasons.
One model might be placed higher than another with the same or similar performance, but has quieter or higher quality fans. It may have the same performance but a better warranty. Long term quality may be higher. It may be less expensive in some cases. Maybe it performs slightly worse, but has quieter fans and a better "fan pitch". Some fans with equal decibel levels do not "sound" like they are the same as the specific pitch heard from one fan might be less annoying than another.
In any case, these are not "tiered" and are not a 100% be all, end all ranking. They are simply MY preference when looking at coolers for a build or when making recommendations. Often, which HSF gets chosen depends on what is on this list and fits the budget or is priced right at the time due to a sale or rebate. Hopefully it will help you and you can rest assured that every cooler listed here is a model that to some degree or other is generally a quality unit which is a lot more likely to be worth the money spent on it than on many other models out there that might look to be a similarly worthwhile investment.
Certainly there are a great many other very good coolers out there, but these are models which are usually available to most anybody building a system or looking for a cooler, regardless of what part of the world they might live in. As always, professional reviews are usually an absolutely essential part of the process of finding a cooler so if you are looking at a model not listed here, I would highly recommend looking at at least two or three professional reviews first.
If you cannot find two reviews of any given cooler, it is likely either too new to have been reviewed yet or it sucked, and nobody wanted to buy one in order to review it plus the manufacturer refused to send samples out to the sites that perform reviews because they knew it would likely get bad publicity.
IMO, nobody out there is making better fans, overall, than Noctua, followed pretty closely by Thermalright. So if you intend to match case fans to the same brand on your HSF, those are pretty hard to beat. Of course, Corsair has it's Maglev fans, and those are pretty damn good too, but since they don't make CPU air cooling products, only AIO water coolers, they cannot join the party.
Noctua NH-D14 (Replace stock fans with NF-A14 industrialPPC 2000rpm) Noctua NH-D15/D15 SE-AM4
Noctua NH-D14 (With original fans)
Thermalright Silver arrow IB-E Extreme
Phanteks PH-TC14PE (BK,BL, OR or RD)
Cryorig R1 Ultimate or Universal
Thermalright Legrand Macho RT
Deepcool Assassin III
Scythe Ninja 5
Thermalright Macho rev. C
Thermalright Macho rev.B
Scythe Mugen 5 rev.B
Be Quiet Dark rock Pro 4
Noctua NH-U14S
FSP Windale 6
Thermalright Macho (Direct, 120)
Scythe Mugen max
BeQuiet dark rock (3 or 4)
Deepcool Assassin II
Thermalright true spirit 140 (Direct, Power, BW)
Cryorig H5
Noctua NH-U12S
Phanteks PH-TC12DX (Any)
Phanteks PH-TC14S
Cryorig H7
Deepcool Gammaxx 400 Cooler Master Hyper 212 (EVO, X, RGB. I'd only recommend this cooler if no other good aftermarket models are available to you.)
It may not be obvious, but is probably worth mentioning, that not all cooler models will fit all CPU sockets as aftermarket coolers generally require an adapter intended for use with that socket. Some coolers that fit an AMD platform might not fit a later AMD platform, or an Intel platform. Often these coolers come with adapters for multiple types of platforms but be sure to verify that a specific cooler WILL work with your platform before purchasing one and finding out later that it will not.
And as I said, a full platform upgrade is probably your best option, but unless your problem is with maintaining high enough frame rates, and especially if those frame rates go UP when you reduce the graphical quality settings, your problem might be a lot more likely with a VR configuration to be related to lack of performance from your GTX 1060 which is getting a bit long in the tooth and was really at the bottom end of what you'd want to see for VR usage to begin with, when it was new, anyhow.
Facebook
Twitter
Instagram