Upgrading from 4770 to 4790 without changing mobo

[Brady Godwin]

I have a 4770k that I believe may be a bit of a bad batch - can't get it to OC past 4.3 using the ASUS OC software (4 way optimization). I even get some BSOD when running at 4.2 which is barely over the standard turbo boost. I was toying with the idea of throwing in a 4790k instead and see if I have better luck.

I have the ASUS Maximus VI Hero and am using a Corsair H100i for cooling.

My question - Can I just swap the chip and reapply thermal paste or do I need to change/update the mobo? The socket is the same but just wanted to double check.

Also would I need to re install Windows or update mobo bios? Or can I literally just swap the chips and power up?

 

[theillesthaitian]

Sorry you cant, you will have to change the motherboard, the 4770k will work on a z87 or z97 chipset mb but the 4790k will only work on a z97. Hope this helps.

 

[anbello262]

Actually, the 4790k will work on many z87 boards, with just a BIOS update.
I currently have a 4690k on a G1 Sniper Z87, and it's working (and OCing) perfectly fine.

So, you just need to look on your motherboard's site, to check CPU compatibility, and probably update the BIOS. Once you do that, you'll be ready to run the new chip, just swap them, no OS or software issues.

I've just checked the site, and the 4790k is supported since BIOS version 1504.
If your BIOS is older than that, you'll just have to update it.

 

[Joseph DeGarmo]

The 4790k should work, but you will likely need a BIOS update.

 

[theillesthaitian]

Oh wow, I didnt know that, i remember when they first came out it wasnt possible, nice to know that they changed thing up to make it possible. Sorry for the bad information

 

[Brady Godwin]

Thanks all! I had a typo in my post - I meant I was considering upgrading to the 4790k not the 4970k

4790 is the latest and greatest for z87 right?

 

[theillesthaitian]

Thanks all! I had a typo in my post - I meant I was considering upgrading to the 4790k not the 4970k

4790 is the latest and greatest for z87 right?

http://thepcenthusiast.com/list-of-8-series-motherboards-compatible-with-intel-devils-canyon/
I found a list, hopes this makes up for my misinformation

 

[Eximo]

i7-4790k is listed as support with BIOS 1504 with an ASUS Maximus VI Hero

http://www.service.asus.com/

 

[nikoli707]

you should be able to. like said above, bios 1504, if thats right, but i assume it is. and no, you dont have to reinstall windows, just drop it in and go.

but honestly i dont see much point. why do you want more speed from the overclock? what apps are you running that can benefit from an extra 0.3ghz? gaming will not see any benefit from an overclock.

you should also scrap that automatic oc thingy and overclock manually. and you also need to remember that your 4.2ghz is locking all 4 cores to 4.2, not just one core running at 4.0 and three running at 3.5. with the h100i i would guess you should be higher than 4.2, but still 4.3 or 4.4 is quite a bit of speed out of an i7.

what are your temps at 4.2? how did you apply your thermal paste? redo it. a tiny drop in the center is fine. i like to leave the case on its side so the cooler standing straight up and run prime for 8 hours at stock speeds to let the paste spread out evenly without gravity possibly pulling it down. not sure if thats necessary but it cant hurt.

also what power supply do you have?

 

[LookItsRain]

Honestly, the performance gain would not be remotely worth it, but you can change them with a bios update like others have said.

 

[Brady Godwin]

you should be able to. like said above, bios 1504, if thats right, but i assume it is. and no, you dont have to reinstall windows, just drop it in and go.

but honestly i dont see much point. why do you want more speed from the overclock? what apps are you running that can benefit from an extra 0.3ghz? gaming will not see any benefit from an overclock.

you should also scrap that automatic oc thingy and overclock manually. and you also need to remember that your 4.2ghz is locking all 4 cores to 4.2, not just one core running at 4.0 and three running at 3.5. with the h100i i would guess you should be higher than 4.2, but still 4.3 or 4.4 is quite a bit of speed out of an i7.

what are your temps at 4.2? how did you apply your thermal paste? redo it. a tiny drop in the center is fine. i like to leave the case on its side so the cooler standing straight up and run prime for 8 hours at stock speeds to let the paste spread out evenly without gravity possibly pulling it down. not sure if thats necessary but it cant hurt.

also what power supply do you have?

That's a good point. I guess I was thinking I could push the newer chip closer to 4.6 or so. My temps stay around 75ish under load. I just am not as comfortable OC'ing this board manually as my old one (for an old i7920 don't remember the model).

I'm using a 750W Thermaltake PSU.

 

[nikoli707]

well there are quite a few guides to overclocking, but it might be easier for you to just start a new thread here and have someone help you with a step by step on finding your stock cvid voltage overclock then going from there. 75c sounds rather hot for 4.2ghz. im going to guess that the asus auto oc genie is using a vcore that is too high. too high a vcore can also be rendering your 4.3ghz overclock unstable also. im more used to sandy bridge overclocking and i dont have much experience with these newer offset voltages and stuff, but it cant be that hard. i would at least give a manual oc a chance. at the very least you will get back to 4.2ghz but at a much lower vcore and temps and learn a little bit too.

 

[nikoli707]

turn off the automatic oc. go into the bios and put everything back to stock, even the ram if its 1333mhz.

turn off all the power saving features like c1e/c3/c6, i think haswell has another one... c7. you can turn them back on later when you have a stable overclock. but for now we want to the 4770k to always run at rated speeds and not drop down to a low voltage power state. this is important because when stress testing, we will use hwmonitor to see min/max/current vcore, and we dont want to see a .850v vcore as a minimum because that is a low power state. when windows is at idle, we should see something like 1.20v and under load(prime or ibt) your voltage will drop to something like 1.18 or 1.17v.... this is vdroop. we need to know this vdroop, the difference between the bios set voltage and the actual load voltage

anyways, hope that makes sense. dont touch any voltages in the bios. plug in a 40x multiplier/cpu ratio and boot into windows and use whatever program you like to monitor temps and voltages and use prime95(small fft) or intel burn test(maximum stress level) and watch your temps and note the min max vcore voltages. you should be stable here no problem, and also your temps now should be dramatically lower than 75c. when you go back into the bios you should have a bios hardware monitor that tells you all the stuff like cpu speed, temps, and cpu voltage/vcore. even though you set vcore to automatic, the motherboard cvid will automatically up the voltage for you to allow 40x/4.0ghz to work. you will want to note the automatic cvid voltage and we will use this to compare to what you saw in hwmonitor/whatever other program you used to log min/max/current vcore and other parameters.