Worth the upgrade from I5 4670k to an I7 4790k for gaming?

[ahedgpe]

I'm considering this upgrade for gaming. I'm running an evga GTX 970 FTW and 16gb ram. At this point, normally I'd upgrade the graphics card to something like a1070 or 1080, but considering the crazy prices on cards right now, I'm not touching that.

Is the processor price difference worth the upgrade for gaming, for the next couple years?

 

[ragnar-gd]

The question is, what resolution do you drive?
If it is FullHD, i think your GPU is in fact the bottleneck, and the CPU won't have any noticable effect (i have the same GPU, and recently updated from a 3GHz i5-3550S to a i7-3770 - makes no difference at all).
I just saw an article pointing to the 980ti - buying that one in used condition would provide okayish results on 1440 (which the 970 would not be able to handle), and very good results on HullHD (still definitely better than the 970).
Go to ebay, and check prizes by checking "sold articles" (or the like) to see what people really pay. I see an average of €350, which is about €100 better than a 1070, and still better than the 1060, which is slower than the 980ti. Don't check for "new", though...
If €350 is a good investion into a used card is an entirely separate question, though...
These are difficult times for gamers....

 

[ahedgpe]

Honestly, I'm just running one 1080p screen. Nothing major.

 

[ragnar-gd]

An AMD 580 8GB or a GTX 1060 6GB is enough for maxed out details at FullHD, as the benchmarks/buying guide on Toms Hardware show as well:

http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/best-gpus,review-33382.html

You will notice the difference to the 970, even though it is not that high - just that the 970 (or MY 970) shows its limitation at high details, because of the lack of RAM. I'm pretty sure if the 970 had 6 or 8 GB of RAM, it would still suffice for Full HD these days...

A GTX 1070/AMD 56 is good for 1440p, and a GTX 1080/AMD Vega 64 for 4K (and 1080 Ti being like a warm knive in butter).

This does not affect your CPU. Read this article about bottlenecking, you'll see what i mean... Check your old/supposed new CPU for bottlenecking with the 1070 or 1080, just in case...

 

[t99]

It all depends on the price, but I doubt it's worth it. That cpu goes for 300+ used and even so the better option here is to upgrade to a 1070, but the gpu prices are completely ridiculous. 480/580 is anywhere from -5% to +10% better than the 970, the 1060 is up to 20% better, but typically around 10%. The 1070 is where that big jump is at. Anything else is probably just going to be a waste of your money and not an efficient purchase unless you get a really good deal.

is cpu even bottlenecking? I doubt that it would. I use a i5 4460 / rx 480 and sometimes it seems like my cpu is a bottleneck, but it's fairly light and only in the most extreme games. for the most part I am hitting the same or very close fps as in the benchmark test that use the most expensive i7 available. I haven't had any games yet that I can't play @ 1080p, 60+fps smooth. Are you having any issues?

If you shop around you might be able to find a good deal on a premade gaming system. I've seen some at best buy recently that looked like they were not accounting for insanely high gpu prices. It was some ryzen build with a rx 580 on sale for like 600$.. You could then sell the 580 for at least 350$, probably around 400$.. Something like that could work out well because you still have your old motherboard, ram, gpu, etc.. Put your ssd in and sell the old system. You would actually make a profit, once GPU prices drop down spend the $$ you made on a new gpu. The only downside would be if the demand suddenly dropped. I'm very tempted to do this same thing. I will probably post the sale for the gpu first once I see a decent deal and once I get a buyer then go buy the premade system. Run the add only for the time the system is on sale so you don't end up in a funky situation.

 

[ahedgpe]

Yeah, Ive decided to hold off on the upgrade until I start to see a bottleneck. Thanks for the info all!

 

[ragnar-gd]

Seems like a wise decision at the moment.

 

[fr0sty98]

To be honest depends on what kind of games you play if you are like me and play cpu intensive games like Escape from Tarkov, CS GO, Dota 2, Arma 3 i think upgrade might be worth it.