Worth it to go to 4970k from 2500k?

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airhoodz

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Jun 26, 2014
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Hello!

I'm currently on a 2500k running at 4.5 and my PC occasionally fails to OC. I'm thinking about upgrading to a new z97 mobo, new 850 PSU and going up to the 4970k.

I have a 290 and I can see some bottle necking in games like WoW, and occasionally I'm getting some odd crashes watching videos on the second monitor while playing a game on the main.

Is it worth it to go to a Haswell chip this late or should I wait for Broadwell?
 
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Thanks and thanks again
the first one for those charts which confirmed my words, as you can see in most game the i5 and i7 are equal, the negligible difference 1-2 fps is due to their clock speeds
The second one is for your shedding some light on your problem, I got the whole story, you have bought an i7 and now you want to justify your purchase, well mate the i5 is more than enough for any gaming scenario, i7 is the waste of money, my i5 4670k can fully power my 2 sli gtx 780 without any bottleneck of any kind
as the conspiracy thing, well google things, I don't have to put across everything for you
 
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This is a German site, but different cpus were tested in bf4. The results are somewhat different from the above.
http://www.pcgameshardware.de/Battlefield-4-PC-238749/Tests/Battlefield-4-Beta-Test-Prozessor-Benchmarks-Cores-1091016/

On the prior benchmark, a r9 290x was used, a powerhouse gpu that more than a few gamers do not own.

My conclusion is that in bf4 and other 4 core + hyperthreading or 8 core optimized games, if the gpu is lacking, something not as powerful as the 290x, the discrepancy between i5 and i7 becomes increasingly obvious. I may be wrong with that conclusion, but I'd love it if someone with a clue would verify that or shoot it down.

Either way, basing a conclusion on a single biased benchmark is not the smartest idea.
 
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Because it is the benchmark of the beta version mate
 
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It was also run on a gtx titan, and nvidia has a deal with Microsoft and optimizes directX, which AMD has never been successful at doing, so AMD gpus are somewhat disabled in directX heavy games. It's the reason they finally copied Voodoo, and wrote their own API, Mantle, which is close to directX's strength, but still not quite there.

So what those 2 benchmarks really show is that i7+nvidia is king by a good 10 fps over i5, but i7+amd is somewhat equal to i5.

So, all things being equal, if you have an AMD gpu, i5 or i7 makes no discernable difference, but with nvidia, i7 is a clear winner. At least in BF4.
 
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well read this post twice.....

''for the latter one if you increase the resolution to 1440p then again the gap narrows down to 2-3 fps and who buys r9-295x2 for 1080p
and as our friend mentioned
It was also run on a gtx titan, and nvidia has a deal with Microsoft and optimizes directX, which AMD has never been successful at doing, so AMD gpus are somewhat disabled in directX heavy games. It's the reason they finally copied Voodoo, and wrote their own API, Mantle, which is close to directX's strength, but still not quite there.

So what those 2 benchmarks really show is that i7+nvidia is king by a good 10 fps over i5, but i7+amd is somewhat equal to i5.

So, all things being equal, if you have an AMD gpu, i5 or i7 makes no discernable difference, but with nvidia, i7 is a clear winner. At least in BF4.''
 
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So the conclusion is that for at least 99% of games out there there is no difference between i5 and i7 and for that one percent the difference is so slender that it is not even worth thinking about, there is only one or two game in which i7 rocks with Nvidia gpus where i5 gives you 109fps for your lovely 60hz ips monitor and i7 gives 125fps for your lovely 60hz ips monitor...
well in the end is it worth the price difference?
 
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In conclusion these benchmarks clearly indicate for some games benefit from the extra features and resources of the I7.
Some benchmarks also show that higher clock is also beneficial. There are many more points however I don't think it's necessary to go over them.

I can tell everybody I did testing with different hardware and my upgrade form a 3570k to a 4790k at 4.6 improve min and avg fps in a bunch of new titles...

I have 2x 1440p monitors and i've done testing in both 1080p and 1440p, 60 hz 120 hz 144 hz

If the OP wants to play the latest and greatest titles of today and future titles and does a lot of multi tasking on multiple monitors I'm sure he will be happy coming from an 2500k to a 4790k. The op will also enjoy faster system performance....
 
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lol what questions do you have?

In your initial post you mentioned that occasional your OC failed, One of the benefits of 4790k is that Intel added transistors to improve overclocking and increase stability. My guess is that Broadwell K will probably come out in the 2nd or 3rd quarter of this year and should be 14 nm chip with slightly improved IPC. The next Gen motherboards might have extra features however I think a Z97 and a 4790k is a good upgrade path because the performance increase may not be huge and their might be initial bugs that will need to be corrected by bios updates...

 
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Some games? which games? you only mentioned 2 and you were mistaken about both... Ok you replaced your 3570k with i7 4790k, well you have asked for some opinion, and now that you have made this mistake, there is no point in misleading people I think... yeah yeah you have tested that on all types of panels, all types of graphics cards from the custom- made 4k 144hz IPS panel which is non existent but the company just custom made one for you, to a 16 way gtx titanz sli, which was not plausible, but some how they custom made things for you again, so that you can test your side-grade for a gaming rig....well, this is pathetic, it is a shame but it is true, changing i5 to i7 for any gaming rig is a dumb move, like it or not...
 
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2500k is just as good as any haswell based CPU, the difference is not that big between 2500k and 4670k for example, so you don't really need the upgrade, save your money for the next gen cpus, that may mean something in the end...as far as WoW is concerned the problem is not for your CPU, it it that the game only uses two cores and not 4 cores, so that makes any negligible advantage of hyper threading (if any) meaningless in this game...I'd say WAIT, and I say that emphatically, but your call in the end
 
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You're being ridicules, I never told you I have 4k 144 hz ips... You can read my specs if you're interested...
Initially you said there will be ZERO benefit in all games for the upgrade from 2500k to a 4790k however I proved that you were wrong and you acknowledged this on more than one occasion in this thread.
The I7 also shined in COD Advanced Warfare when loading and during cut scenes.
" All threads were utilized"
My friends with I5 processors and other people on forums experienced hitching and desynchronization when it was launched. I'm Not sure if the problem still persists.
The Shadow of Mordor test results were based on the in game benchmark which isn't identical to the actual game. This game doesn't require the latest and greatest CPU, this game just uses a lots of Vram.

The anandtech article didn't specify how they did testing and they didn't test the Multiplayer mode of bf4 which is cpu intensive.
The bottom line is if you want the best possible experience when gaming and multitasking an overclocked i7 processor will give you the best experience possible however will not benefit you in all scenarios. Some enthusiast want the best possible experience and are able to afford the premium . There nothing wrong with that.

We should stay on topic and address the OP's issues rather than go off topic.

 
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If you're doing some other heavy lifting on the cpu and you config is currently giving you issues, then upgrading wont hurt you. I feel like people look at benchmarks as the be all end all when it comes to decision-making. I currently use the 4790k at stock speeds and get 70+ fps in large raids with ultra settings (using a gtx 970). My usage is similar to you, in that i'll have multple programs/applications running. I also stream from time to time and do some minor video rendering for youtube etc.

The 4790k's performance here is great. It will also be fine for years to come. As you know, it's hard to say how long technologies will stay relevant, but you'll definitely be able to milk a few years out of the 4790k easily.

Ultimately, the decision is up to you, and whatever you decide will be the best decision. If fps drops in raid are affecting your gaming experience now, and possibly your performance, then that is also something you should consider. PLaying on buttery-smooth configs definitely contributes to a more enjoyable experience for sure. That said, if it's not killing you and making you annoyed, and you feel like you can wait a bit longer, then wait. You wont be disappointed by the new stuff coming out, i'm sure.

As others mentioned, hyperthreading doesn't do much for gaming, so maybe consider the 4690k, which is also awesome and a bit cheaper than the 4790k. You did mention that your usage isn't limited to basic appications though, so it may not be for you.

I will say that if you do decide to go with the 4790k/4690k, microcenter's price beats anyone else's hands down. It was 249.00 USD a couple weeks ago but has gone back up to 279.00 USD (still significantly cheaper than basically, uh, everywhere).

Another minor suggestion would be to consider a smaller PSU, like something in the 750 watt range. I don't really think you'll need 850 watts, but im not really sure what else your config consists of. If you're running some heavy hardware, then obviously budget for a bigger PSU.

Good luck!
 
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I still say there is zero benefit when it comes to hyperthreading because, 2 fps is not a big advantage, there are also games in which i5 beats i7 by 2 fps, so this is not about being superior or inferior, I know what you mean and we have come to terms about this currently there are 1-2 games in which the i7 performs better than i5, but does it make it a legit choice for a gaming rig? well, I am not convinced, it is like saying fx 8350 is better than i5 3570k because in crysis 3 it performs better, overgeneralizing things based on a few samples is neither logical nor acceptable... you have to understand this when I say there is zero benefit, I mean it let's say in bf4 multilayer, supposing it is true, instead of 109 fps you get 120 fps if you have got r9-295x2 and for other gpus it is the same performance between i5 and i7 in this game and on the other hand in crysis 3, for which of course you shared the cpu scaling with us and not the cpu performance at 1080p, i7 is better by let's presume 10 fps and in all other games these two cpus are almost identical 2fps more or less sometimes i5 wins, and sometimes i7.... does it all make i7 a better choice for a gamer? if your answer is still yes, so congratulations on your being this witted
 
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You're entitled to your own opinion, The bottom line is the initial comparison between the 2500k build and a 4790k build.
The 4790k OC is a better choice and will enhance the gaming experience in many titles.

I don't rely on benchmarks online, I do my own testing...

Remember FPS doesn't tell the whole story.
 
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Well I guess there is no point going any further, I do my own testing as well, every day I assemble +10 rigs and I never noticed any difference between i5 and i7 in terms of gaming, albeit in software which benefit from hyper threading, i7 shines and there one can see what i7 means... if I offended you in any way, know that it was not intentional mate, and I do apologize for that, afterwards I think people have different opinions, all my efforts were to shed some light on the subject...
 
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http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-2014-core-i5-4690k-core-i7-4790k-review

Euro gamer did a good job.

below is taken from their review.

The end result is that the i7 shows a distinct advantage in several of the benches and its dominance will only increase. Unless you switch to Intel's top-end platform with its support for six-core processors, the Core i7 4790K is the most capable gaming CPU on the market. On the flipside, legacy games that don't utilise more than four threads will see like-for-like performance at identical clock speeds. That may well be the case with Tomb Raider and BioShock in our tests, which show like-for-like results. In fact, the games are running so fast there that we think we may be hitting GPU limits there - overclocks seem to have very little impact.
 
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You didn't offend me however I believe you're spreading inaccurate information.
As I said earlier you're entitled to your own opinion.
Just because you build 10 computers a day doesn't make you an expert.
 
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