[SOLVED] Upgrading my 4790k

[deanleathard92]

Is the i7 4790k still a good cpu? I've been debating whether to spend the money and get maybe the 8700k but to do that I think I have to also upgrade my motherboard which is a Sabertooth z97 mark 1 and also upgrade to DDR4 ram which is looking quite expensive for the package. GPU is fine because I've got a 1080ti I want to keep. Any help with my current cpu or what to upgrade to is really appreciated.

 

[cpmackenzi]

I have a 4690, no K. It does what I need for now. You can ALWAYS upgrade to something newer and better, but if you aren't noticing any problems, may as well stick it out for now. As you say, it's a whole-package upgrade of CPU/mobo/RAM.

I don't have a gaming monitor for 144Hz, but I run a GTX 1080 with my 4690, at 1440p, and get 60 fps in the newest Tomb Raider. So the monitor you have or want to upgrade to is a consideration too. At 60Hz, I'm sure your rig can handle most everything. If you want 120+ fps, you may need an upgrade sooner than I would.

 

[Phazoner]

As cpmackenzi said, it depends on the FPS you want to get, but this also depends on the resolution you use. If your target is 4K or the higher your card can provide without going under 60FPS, the 4790k is still more than enough. If your target is 1440p/144FPS (for a 144Hz monitor), then it depends on the games you are playing and probably you would have to try to know if there's a bottleneck and in that case how bad it is. For example, I have a 6700k at stock speeds (which has practically the same performance than your 4790k) and when playing at 1080p both CPU and GPU (a 1070) in stressful situations (Battlefield 1, which is CPU intensive) stabilize at 100% usage, around 100FPS. If I get a better graphics card, I know that this 100FPS are the maximum my CPU will be able to handle, but I can improve noticeably my image quality by increasing the resolution and this way bringing both CPU and GPU usage to 100%.

If you don't play CPU intensive games or aren't aiming high FPS on CPU intensive games the 4790k is still fine.

 

[tiaan_strauss]

Yes the 4790k is still a good CPU 😉

It might be starting to show its age a bit but its still got plenty of life in it.

It all depends what your needs & expectations are, if you only want to game then the 4790k is still great, if you want to achieve the highest possible framerates & do intensive productivity, workloads, content creation, streaming etc then upgrading will of course help.

If youve got spare money laying around do it, but if I were you id wait a bit longer before upgrading.

 

[deanleathard92]

Thanks for the replies. I guess I should have been more specific but I do indeed use a 144Hz monitor but only on 1080p. I will probably upgrade later on this year, maybe next. I play mostly FPS/Adventure games like Rainbow Six Siege, BF5 and Assassin's creed (which I know is massively cpu dependent). My plan I guess is going to be to run my 4790 for the rest of this year while I save up for the required parts going into next year. Thank you for the responses.

 

[Phazoner]

Then use resolution scale for BF and AC. R6S can get good FPS even with low spec processors, but at 1080p the GPU will be very quiet in BFV and AC. I don't know about AC, but Battlefield's better antialiasing (IMO) is TAA which nevertheless blurs a lot the image so you can see the branches of the trees melt with the sky in medium and long distances, particles and grenades disappearing at short distances, etc when playing at 1080p. With my 1070 setting resolution scale to 150% (which is a bit over 1440p) all these problems were mostly solved, trees detail was much better, etc, but my performance went from 100FPS to 70FPS.

Your 4790k will handle similar FPS in Battlefield V, around 100FPS, so you should really try and look how much the image quality improves and the bottleneck is being dramatically reduced. If you are comfortable with the framerate around 100FPS you can be pleased with the image quality and not feel the need to upgrade the CPU.

 

[numach]

I know this is a slightly older thread, but I just now came upon it and figured I'd throw my two cents in.

I got the 4790k "Devil's Canyon" CPU not too long after it came out (upgrading from a 4770k which I got right after launch) and I am still using it with an Asus Z87-Pro board. There's been a few different video cards paired to it over the years but at present I have a very fast OC'd 1080ti with it along with running the CPU a bit faster at 4.6GHz and the memory boosted a bit to 1866 with low latency timings.

I'm using an ultrawide curved monitor at 1440p... so I'm actually pushing quite a bit more pixels than standard 1440p and I have ZERO problem playing games like Destiny 2 with everything maxed out. With G-Sync enabled I'm buttery smooth and staying at the 100fps cap (the monitor can OC to 120 but I don't use that) in just about all situations and the lowest I've dipped is to about 60fps in REALLY intensive areas and that was literally only for a second or two at those times. If I don't use G-Sync I will typically max out the monitor's 144Hz refresh rate and spike to as much as 200-400fps for small periods in different areas as far as what my video card is putting out. That's insane!

Ideally I like a consistent picture so I keep G-Sync on and limit to the G-Sync cap. I like it. It looks and plays great.

All this said, I don't see a problem. I suppose I'd never dip below 90-100fps with a newer CPU, etc... but I seriously doubt I'd see a difference. I just can't justify the expense of a new m'board, memory, ram and possible cooling solution when I am not compromising a thing right now. This CPU is still great for gaming IMO.

I too keep being haunted by the fact that I've had this thing for over 4.5 years... but damn, it just keeps on ticking! I do wish it were a bit better of an overclocker. With the memory controller and voltage regulator being on-chip it's pretty touchy beyond a modest OC. I've had decent stability at 4.8GHz but that was literally pushing it (still had an occasional crash after a few hours... maybe could've tweaked it some more, who knows ?). Overclocking memory is difficult with this CPU too as a result of everything I just mentioned. To that end I will not be trying to stretch more life out of this system once I do start seeing a performance hit with new games, etc.

I'll upgrade... but not until I need to. I just wish they made RGB DDR3 like they do the DDR4 lol. But oh well.

One last thing regarding memory... I know there is more theoretical bandwidth with DDR4 but (until recently with better clocks overall I believe) I haven't seen any real world big advantage of DDR4 over DDR3 systems given that DDR4 requires sooo many more timing cycles to reliably write and read data - increase the bus speed but hit it up more for the same operations... almost balances out in many cases. As a tech for a living I've had the opportunity to test at least a few scenarios and the real world difference seemed marginal at the time, at least for average use and the gaming I like to do.

So... all in all if you have no need to upgrade because of something very apparently affecting you then I would stay with what you have and get a cool case and some lighting, etc. 🙂

 

[littleleo]

It is showing its age like my CPU but if it still does everything you want I'd wait a while before updating. In July AMD is launching the Ryzen 2 3000 series, and whether you like AMD or Intel, Intel will respond with new models and/or lower prices to keep AMD from taking more market share. Then would be a good time for the platform change (Motherboard + CPU + RAM).