i5-6600k or older i7-4790K?

Montoya

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I getting ready to pull the trigger on an i7-4790, but then I saw this:


The new i5-6600k is cheaper and will overclock happily to give better performance.

What are your thoughts?
 

NKato

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The biggest factor in my decisions are:

1. Is it future-proofed for a minimum of five years?

2. Is the cost difference acceptable?

Hope this helps. :p
 

DragonHeart

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Such awesome games, and I've played almost all of them lol.
Its personal preference really, its what you want.
 

Space Monkey

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When I was building my PC a few months ago, I went with the cheaper i5 4690K rather than the i7 4790K. The i5 was powerful enough for what I wanted to do ATM yet didn't break the bank. At the time, I wasn't particularly looking for longevity because in a couple of year, I will most likely be updating the CPU and GPU in my PC for Star Citizen.
 

chrizz

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i5 to 4ghz when needed (mainboard setting)

Hyperthreading is a 10 year old intel joke that lets them charge 100 €/$ more for the cpu. Unless you have special programs that fully take advantage of hyperthreading, video editing for example. But there are almost no games out that take advantage of more than 4 cores. And i wouldn't be so sure that SC will in a few years even if they said so.
 

Nightrider

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Intel Core i5-6600K advantages
  • The CPU has more memory bandwidth, owing to faster supported DDR4-2133 memory. Higher memory bandwidth ups performance in programs, that work with large data sets. Performance gains in non-memory bound tasks will be lower.
Intel Core i7-4790K advantages
  • One of the distinctive features of the processor is Hyper-Threading technology, which allows each CPU core to execute two threads at once.
  • The microprocessor offers higher operating frequency than the Core i5-6600K CPU.
  • The i7-4790K microprocessor is not "locked". Hence, the processor can be effortlessly overclocked on most motherboards when greater performance is needed. Be warned that overclocking can void microprocessor warranty.
  • Power consumption of this processor is better.
i5-6600K vs i7-4790K specifications comparison
The graphs below compare the most important characteristics of the i7-4790K and Intel Core i5-6600K CPUs. These features, together with an IPC (instructions per cycle) number, determine how well a microprocessor performs. The "Number of cores / threads" graph shows the number of cores (darker area). Lighter area on the graph represents the number of additional threads, offered by Hyper-Threading technology. The "Operating frequency" chart uses dark color for base frequency, while lighter area is for extra frequency, provided by Turbo feature. Darker area on the "On-chip cache" graph is for the On-chip L2 cache. Lighter area is for the L3 cache cache. Although the L3 cache cache is usually larger than the On-chip L2 cache, it is always slower.



Pros and Cons summary

Core i5-6600K

General recommendations:
Extra memory bandwidth

Drawbacks:
Executes fewer threads,
Has lower operating frequency,
Requires slightly more power

-----------------------------

Core i7-4790K

General recommendations:
Supports more simultaneous threads,
Clocked higher,
Allows simple overclocking,
Needs less power

Drawbacks:
Reduced memory bandwidth



--------------------------------

Source http://www.cpu-world.com/Compare/583/Intel_Core_i5_i5-6600K_vs_Intel_Core_i7_i7-4790K.html
 
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Nightrider

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Do plan on overclocking if not the i7 is better. It is a higher freq than the i5 andhas hyperthreadin, which SC will utilize.
 

Nightrider

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I have a 4770k and it's only slightly slower than the 4790k
I'm very happy with my CPU so you should also be happy with the 4790k
 

aftershock2100

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I build systems regularly for people (Personally and for work) and recently picked up a 4790k for myself. As someone said earlier, if you have a microcenter anywhere near you, pick it up there, they sell CPUs at a good discount. That being said, the 4790k I have runs the game pretty damn smooth without overclocking. My bottleneck is currently the geforce 760 I'm running, but my complaints are minimal right now as that will be upgraded when the game comes out. There was a critical thing in regards to star citizen that was mentioned in the video, that crisis 3 stuttered less on the i7 compared to the other, and star citizen runs the same engine. Food for thought there.

If you get the i7 4790k, i highly recommend the ASUS hero 7 for a mobo. Ive built 4 systems with this combo so far and they work wonderfully. There is one thing you must be aware of with the devil's canyon line though, they run fairly hot. The chip can take it just fine, so no worries there, just make sure you have good cooling. I'm using a "NIC C4" cooler for it which is fairly big but works wonders if you dont want to go liquid. For the love of god dont use the stock cooler that comes with it. You would be better off just pissing onto the thing to cool it down.

While im on the subject, I do recommend a dedicated SSD for star citizen if you dont already have one. Its an upgrade that I, my gf, and my sister are all going to get once we can for the game. (need to get them into test soon too XD)

Extra for anyone else: This has been coming up alot recently so ill just mention it here. If you have a PSU with monitoring software, do not run the monitoring software in games. you will suffer a 20+ FPS loss. Results may vary with brand.

I'm at work so I can go into more detail if you would like later on.
 
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Yex

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I just think the 4790k is the same as a good 4770k
I personally want the I7 5960X but that's just because fuck Xeons

Own a 4770k and very happy, however I will upgrade once new PCIE and some other fancy new motherboard tech that's a game changer becomes available in 2018. I am vague because I forgot.
 

chrizz

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quote from PCMR subreddit:

Q: Why no i7?

A: Gaming doesn't benefit from i7s. The very reason you asked that question is the reason so many "gaming" PC manufacturers use the i7 in the first place. They use up all their budget on the i7 and then proceed to skimp on the graphics card and add a GeForce 220, resulting in an absolutely terribly-performing, plastic, and LED-encrusted machine. They know the first thing you'll be looking for is an i7 because that's what's advertised the most (and the rest of the machine suffers as a result). Don't fall for popular media, use an i5, it's one of the most solid, stable, and long-lasting chips money can buy.
For multi core optimized software, streaming and rendering in general, the higher core/thread count on the FX 83xx and i7 series does matter however.
 

Azmodeth

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I getting ready to pull the trigger on an i7-4790, but then I saw this:


The new i5-6600k is cheaper and will overclock happily to give better performance.

What are your thoughts?
DDR4, its more future proof, and is MUCH faster.

WAIT - but the 6600K is still mid range. The 4790K is top tier. much higher performance. if you are thinking next gen get 6700k not 6600K
 
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Snakey

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I getting ready to pull the trigger on an i7-4790, but then I saw this:


The new i5-6600k is cheaper and will overclock happily to give better performance.

What are your thoughts?
Which ever one you want. be warned tho that over-clocking can sometimes damage your PC. I learnt that the hard way
 
Jul 6, 2014
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quote from PCMR subreddit:
This would be true except SC does utilize all cores (physical or logical). This was brought up because the 5960x has 16 logical cores, and if SC would use them. CR said they would but would recommend a SSD vs a 5960x and a 4770k would work just fine as well.
 
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