I7 4770 still worth buying?

[genericusername]

I am currently running with a FX 8350, 8GB of RAM and a 6GB GTX 1060 for my gaming setup, but I have been looking at upgrading for some time now. Some guy on Craigslist near me is selling a 4770 with  an H97 motherboard and a 4x4 set of Kingston Hyper X RAM for like $400. All I ever really use my computer for is gaming, and was wondering if it's still worth it for an older i7 like that, or if I should just buy new parts like Ryzen or something. Any recommendations?

[rodrosenberg]

I think so my little ITX rig run one and it seems to keep up fine with the 1080 

[Sakkura]

It's not worth $400, but if you can get the price down it's still a perfectly usable gaming CPU.

 

For reference, you can get a Ryzen 5 1600 with a B350 board and 16GB of RAM for about the same price, off the shelf. Since the 4770 isn't as good as the Ryzen chip and cannot be overclocked, and the hardware is used, it should cost considerably less than $400 to be worth it.

[Light-Yagami]

Haswell might be worth it now. Like today. But you're probably buying it for years to come. In 2-3 years, that chip will become.. Well really old. I think that if this is a new build with intent to last, go with the latest generation. 

 

But that's just what I'd do..

[Sakkura]

5 minutes ago, Light-Yagami said:

Haswell might be worth it now. Like today. But you're probably buying it for years to come. In 2-3 years, that chip will become.. Well really old. I think that if this is a new build with intent to last, go with the latest generation. 

 

But that's just what I'd do..

There is no magical point where a CPU becomes "old" and "bad" - and Haswell is still practically on par with Ryzen on IPC, and only a few percent behind Coffee Lake.

 

If the price is right, the CPU is certainly a viable purchase now and for the future.

[Swealteek]

If you get him down to 325 to 350 maby. Its a tuf sell do with ryzen 

 

 

Gaming on haswall is still good but not for 400 USD save a litte and grap A Ryzen 1400X and 8GB of ram  heck here is samting new for 399 with 6 cores 12 Th 16GB of ram and Matx motherbord

 

https://pcpartpicker.com/list/gxZFnn

[Nuc lover]

I'd pay extra to get the i5-8400. It's more powerful and not that much more expensive.

[Sakkura]

3 minutes ago, Nuc lover said:

I'd pay extra to get the i5-8400. It's more powerful and not that much more expensive.

It's a nice chip, but as long as it requires an expensive Z370 board it isn't really in a comparable price range. You're either looking at Ryzen or a quad core from Intel.

[Nuc lover]

1 minute ago, Sakkura said:

It's a nice chip, but as long as it requires an expensive Z370 board it isn't really in a comparable price range. You're either looking at Ryzen or a quad core from Intel.

It's actually better value for gaming than the 1600, even if combined with a z370.

[JoostinOnline]

49 minutes ago, Sakkura said:

There is no magical point where a CPU becomes "old" and "bad" - and Haswell is still practically on par with Ryzen on IPC, and only a few percent behind Coffee Lake.

It's a good bit behind Coffee Lake.   Two more cores, four more threads, and a much higher overclock (with an unlocked one).  It's a huge leap from even Kaby Lake.

[Sakkura]

5 minutes ago, Nuc lover said:

It's actually better value for gaming than the 1600, even if combined with a z370.

Nope. 7.3% more 1080p gaming performance at stock, for around 20% more spent on CPU and motherboard, assuming a decent B350 motherboard for Ryzen.

 

The performance difference is even smaller once you OC.

1 minute ago, JoostinOnline said:

It's a good bit behind Coffee Lake.   Two more cores, four more threads, and a much higher overclock (with an unlocked one).  It's a huge leap from even Kaby Lake.

None of that is IPC.

[JoostinOnline]

3 minutes ago, Sakkura said:

Nope. 7.3% more 1080p gaming performance at stock, for around 20% more spent on CPU and motherboard, assuming a decent B350 motherboard for Ryzen.

 

The performance difference is even smaller once you OC.

None of that is IPC.

Given that you can OC to 5.1GHz on air, I'd say it's a lot better.  If I push my 4790K past 4.6, it either throttles heavily or crashes, and that's on a giant-ass cooler.  I missed that you said IPC, but there is a lot more to it than that anyway.

[Sakkura]

Just now, JoostinOnline said:

Given that you can OC to 5.1GHz on air, I'd say it's a lot better.  If I push my 4790K past 4.6, it either throttles heavily or crashes, and that's on a giant-ass cooler.  I missed that you said IPC, but there is a lot more to it than that anyway.

I was only comparing IPC. Cores and clocks are a completely different story.

 

The extension of it is that the Core i7-4770 is roughly comparable to a Ryzen 5 1500X at stock.

[Nuc lover]

2 minutes ago, Sakkura said:

Nope. 7.3% more 1080p gaming performance at stock, for around 20% more spent on CPU and motherboard, assuming a decent B350 motherboard for Ryzen.

 

The performance difference is even smaller once you OC.

None of that is IPC.

You should check Hardware Unboxed latest video comparing the Ryzen lienup to the Coffee Lake and Kaby, 720p benchmarks are more relative in comparing CPUs as we remove any GPU bottleneck. Because resolution doesn't affect CPU performance, but it does with GPU. You should watch the whole video to better understand what i'm trying to say here. I know buying a z370 with an 8400 is pointless, but there are some people who don't care about spending more money on pointless things. the best option here is to wait for h310 and b360 to launch and that's the smartest thing to do.

 

[Phate.exe]

As others have said, $400 puts you into a R5/B350 setup, and you'll be on a brand new platform with long term support.

 

I'd lowball the crap out of them, and if you can get those parts for $300 I'd do it, but even if you do that, you're not gonna be that far off from just buying new fancyboy parts.

[JoostinOnline]

3 minutes ago, Sakkura said:

I was only comparing IPC. Cores and clocks are a completely different story.

 

The extension of it is that the Core i7-4770 is roughly comparable to a Ryzen 5 1500X at stock.

Okay, well the OP is asking if it's worth buying.  It isn't.  If he already had an H97 motherboard and RAM, then yes.  But you can get a better CL or Ryzen system NEW for that money.

2 minutes ago, Nuc lover said:

I know buying a z370 with an 8400 is pointless, but there are some people who don't care about spending more money on pointless things. the best option here is to wait for h310 and b360 to launch and that's the smartest thing to do

It's not pointless.  Z boards tend to be better quality, and it gives you an upgrade path for the future.  It's not practical in most situations, but it's not pointless.

[JoostinOnline]

Just now, valdyrgramr said:

Z boards really just give you a the OC option on unlocked processors.  You can get a decent H version that nearly matches.  

Maybe it's just chance, but in my experience, Z series motherboards continue to get driver updates long after H and B ones are abandoned.  Hell, my MSI Z97 board is still getting semi-regular updates.  But yes, the main reason is for OC.  It's very rare that I would ever recommend a Z board with a locked processor (in fact, I've only done it twice), but I was just making a point.

[Sakkura]

52 minutes ago, Nuc lover said:

You should check Hardware Unboxed latest video comparing the Ryzen lienup to the Coffee Lake and Kaby, 720p benchmarks are more relative in comparing CPUs

 

720p benchmarks are only relevant to raw CPU performance benchmarking; it's not relevant to actual real-world gaming performance.

 

It's more comparable to non-gaming workloads or synthetics like 3DMark Physics.

[Devin92]

2 hours ago, Sakkura said:

It's not worth $400, but if you can get the price down it's still a perfectly usable gaming CPU.

 

For reference, you can get a Ryzen 5 1600 with a B350 board and 16GB of RAM for about the same price, off the shelf. Since the 4770 isn't as good as the Ryzen chip and cannot be overclocked, and the hardware is used, it should cost considerably less than $400 to be worth it.

so basically a used 4770 should be on similar price as a ryzen 5 new? given that ddr4 RAM is expensive than ddr3. Cause I am thinking about upgrading my CPU and was wondering wuts the ideal price point of a used 4770/4790

[Sakkura]

22 minutes ago, Devin92 said:

so basically a used 4770 should be on similar price as a ryzen 5 new? given that ddr4 RAM is expensive than ddr3. Cause I am thinking about upgrading my CPU and was wondering wuts the ideal price point of a used 4770/4790

Maybe. I'd compare the combined price of CPU/RAM/mobo to get the full picture.

[JoostinOnline]

42 minutes ago, valdyrgramr said:

Because MSI.  Gigabyte and ASUS keep their boards updated.

1. MSI obviously keeps them updated.  I just explained that after four years they're still releasing updates.
2. The one time I bought a Gigabyte board, they stopped releasing updates after less than a year.  And it really needed them.  Never buying Gigabyte again.

[JusticeBeaver]

As for a 4770 being current today? I would say yes, I am running:

 

4770K no OC (don't ask my why I haven't)

Ripjaw 16gig ram

MSI- Z97 GD65 Board

EVGA 1080ti FTW

 

On 1080p on Shadows of Mordor max everything I get 175fps... I know its an older game, but still graphically demanding.

I am about to do a test on 1440p ultra wide this week, but I do not see a reason for me to swap just yet. If I struggle to get 100fps on 1440p  then I may consider selling my setup and upgrading. However, I just watched a video where a OC I7 2700k was still getting the job done.

[Light-Yagami]

4 hours ago, Sakkura said:

There is no magical point where a CPU becomes "old" and "bad" - and Haswell is still practically on par with Ryzen on IPC, and only a few percent behind Coffee Lake.

 

If the price is right, the CPU is certainly a viable purchase now and for the future.

It'a like saying Q6600 is viable if you get it for 5 bucks.

 

I don't go by that logic.. sorry

[SteveGrabowski0]

The 4770 is still a nice gaming cpu. I have a slight variant of it (Xeon E3-1231v3, which is an i7-4470 minus 100 MHz and minus the igp but plus support for ECC memory) and it's still amazing for gaming. But $400 is steep for used hardware. Especially when the board is H97 instead of Z97 so you can't OC the memory.

[JoostinOnline]

14 hours ago, valdyrgramr said:

I've had Gigabyte boards on updates both H and Z.  My point was that MSI only updates Zs after.  That's one company, not every.  MSI also has horrible customer service, a terrible RMA department that's understaffed, and terrible quality control.  I had one board have a PCIe lane fall completely off.  Their 480 armor edition also generated a ton of heat compared to a Sapphire or XFX.  Never buying from MSI again.  Anyways, back to the original point considering the price they guy is asking for I'd say no.  He's asking too much considering other options as mentioned before.

Literally never had one problem with MSI.  The one time I had a board go bad, they replaced it in a week.  I've had tons of problems with Gigabyte.  My guess is we've just had bad luck with different companies.

 

And I agree that the bundle is a bad purchase.