4690K > 4790K!

[SekcAli]

I build PCs for people around my area who ask me to do so. I ask for their budget and try to put together a rig that suits their needs within said budget.

 

One of my clients and I agreed on putting together their rig tomorrow, but we are coming across some last minute disagreements.

 

This is the core of what I initially intended to build for him:

 

CPU: Intel i5 4690K

RAM: Kingston HyperX Fury Black 2x4GB

GPU: ASUS GTX 750 Ti

Motherboard: ASUS Z97-A

 

He suddenly approached me and said he wanted an i7 4790K processor because it's the best chip available.

After hours of trying to convince him otherwise, I couldn't change his mind.

 

Keep in mind, LinusTechTips Community, that my client intends to use this rig for Battlefield 4 gaming. He does not work with videos at all and the most likely situation in which he'd use video editting software is for a school project. I've told him many times that hyper threading will not benefit him at all. It'll only make his videos render a bit faster, but what's the point of going an entire $100 over budget if he's rarely going to edit videos.

 

I finally thought I had convinced him that the 4690K would be a better choice for him because not only can he very easily easily overclock it to 4.0 GHz like the 4790K, he wouldn't have the same bottleneck problems either. A 4790K is way too overpowering for a measly 750 Ti, but he is not listening to me what so ever.

 

After I finally gave up on him, I realized that if he really does just want to spend more money to deck out his rig, I told him that a MUCH better solution would be to drop the 4790K and get the Maximus VII Hero because it matches his colour theme, red/black, and just looks absolutely gorgeous:

 

He was heavily swayed by the stunning looks of the VII Hero and what he said next boggled my mind. He told me he'll get both the i7 and the VII Hero.

 

Why would you pair the Hero & 4790K with a 750 Ti?

 

This question could not be erased from my mind.

Please, Community, help me convince him that his best options in this situation are:

1) DROP THE 4790K, stick with the 4690K and get the RoG board

OR
2) Drop BOTH the RoG board AND the 4790K, stick with the 4690K and get a better GPU than the 750 Ti

 

If I can't change his mind by myself, maybe you all can help me.

[JoshM]

I would do the second one as I would want to play bf4 above 30fps at 1080p. Get an R9 270x minium lolz

[SAV1OUR]

2

 

RoG boards are over priced paper weights and you don't need the i7. your better off getting something like the 4690k a msi g55 sli and a 290 

[Manny Calavera]

750ti is something like a HD7790. Its underpowered even for battlefield 3. You wont play bf4 smoothly on this card thats for sure unless you really drop the settings.

 

Just for the record: you could compare this graphics card performance to graphics performance of Xbone.

[ShadowCaptain]

If he does not know anything PCs then just get him a locked CPU and cheaper motherboard, this will give you more budget for a better GPU

 

OCing would be pointless if you are only using a 750ti for your GPU, might as well get a cheap i5 4440, an h81/b85 board and spend that money on graphics

 

You have to balance your builds more 

[TheMcSame]

2 would be the more cost effective option.

 

1 would be good if he really wants a set colour scheme without decimating his budget.

[dragoon20005]

even with all the reasoning you can throw at him

 

just let your client enjoy his i7 with the 750Ti

 

ppl learn from mistakes

 

we just need them to fall down

[heavygrounds]

For gaming, he needs a better GPU. The motherboard is overkill and so is the i7.

As long as he's not using applications which benefit from the 8 threads, he does not need the i7.

 

Tell him that he's cheaping out on the GPU and that he should sacrifice the i7 and the mobo in order to get much better gaming performance.

 

Go for 2 and get something like a 770. A 750ti will not give him that gaming performance that he hopes for. Plus there's no need for that motherboard, unless he's looking for some extreme overclocks...

[Glenwing]

Game performance is reliant on graphics card computing power much more so than the CPU.  I have a rig in the other room that can play AAA titles buttery smooth with maxed settings at 1080p even though it's using a 5-year old Phenom II quad-core from 2009 as the CPU, and it's not even overclocked.  Why?  Because it's paired with a high-end modern graphics card, and that's what really matters for games.  I'd even go so far as to say the CPU is relatively unimportant.

 

As for the i7-4790K being the "best chip available" compared to the i5-4690K, it should be noted that they are actually the same chip from manufacturing.  The only difference is that the i5 has the Hyper-threading feature artificially disabled, and it doesn't affect game performance anyway.  That, and Intel put a "5" instead of a "7" in the name, but the "i5/i7" ranking is completely arbitrary and doesn't mean anything specific.  There are plenty of i5s that are more powerful than i7s even within the same generation. As far as games are concerned, the two chips in question here are the exact same processor.  (The difference in frequency, 3.5GHz vs. 4.0GHz, is again completely arbitrary since you can change the frequency to whatever you want with a few clicks in the BIOS, so the factory setting doesn't matter at all.  It's like two displays with the same brightness capability, but one comes set at 60% brightness out of the box, and the other is set to 80%.  Either one can still go up to 100% with a button press, so you wouldn't say the second one is a "brighter" display than the first.  The factory setting is irrelevant when the setting is customizable.)

 

Motherboard likewise does not affect performance.  A build balanced like this is spending excess money everywhere except where it really matters, which is the GPU, by far.  For a high-budget gaming build, the GPU should be at least in the $300 range.  I wouldn't consider moving beyond the i5-4690K unless I had over $1000 worth of GPUs, and from there the next step would be an Intel 6-core on socket 2011.  Pick up a GTX 780 or R9 290 rather than an i7; that is where all the gaming performance will come from.  A 750 Ti won't get you far.

[eLucid]

It's his money...

[GloriousPain]

2 >.< he's just created himself a monster honestly bro I would've swayed him towards a Xeon system then brought up the GPU and suggesting something like a 770 

[Manny Calavera]

The only difference is that the i5 has the Hyper-threading feature artificially disabled

why dont we get 6 core without hyperthreadinG? For like 400$

[TheRunningOtaku]

2. 

Your client sounds like a kid who wants the best simply because it's the best without any thought to budgeting and performance. 

Just let him waste his money and if he comes back to you tell hem that you tried to tell him.

The 750 ti is a mid-range/value card, and the 4690k is a beast performance part (not so much as the i7, but still in a different class)

 

Honestly an i5 is probably already overkill for the 750ti. A much better option would be to go with something like a H85 and an i5-4670 without it overclocked (he would probably fry the chip and blame someone else) and upgrade the GPU to something higher end, like a R9 280 or GTX 770.

 

But again, it's his money, and if he really wants to, let him do what he wants. 

[Chronos5618]

Defo option 2. 4690K and a better graphics card is a no brainer. Absolutely no realistic benefit to gaming with hyperthreading, and the 750ti just isn't going to cut it in the long run. I like the ROG boards, but aren't necessary for overclocking. Something like the MSI Gaming 3 or 5 would do nicely and still ft the color scheme. End of the day, it is his money, but it would be a waste.            

[Guest]

i5 4440, cheap h61 motherboard and a beast gpu, much better choice.

[TheMcSame]

Now that I've had a little think about it here's what I think you should do.

 

- Slip Xeons and socket 2011 into a conversation,

- Hopefully he asks about it and you say it's more powerful,

- Try to persuade him just one more time to go with an i5,

- If he doesn't change his mind build the PC he wants,

- If he comes back complaining about gaming performnace you can say you tried to tell him and he didn't listen,

 

 

Seriously though, let him waste his money. It's clear he isn't going to change his mind, if he comes back complaining about his rig only being able to run medium/ medium-high on games at least you can say you tried to tell him. He'll learn eventually. 

[runit3]

#2....Although, since it appears flair and waste seems to appease your client tell him to save his money for another month or two and just go all out with an option #3, all of the above. If he refuses to choose any reasonable option give him this analogy, a 750 ti w/a ROG and 4790k is like putting wagon wheels on a Maserati, it's going to look nice but you're not going to be going anywhere fast.

[Real_PhillBert]

Sounds to me like you are over doing your job. You are being paid to provide an informed opinion and to build a PC. It sounds like you did your job and explained to him that there are better ways to spend his budget than an ROG board, 4790k and a 750ti, but at the end of the day it is his money. Let him make the decisions on how to spend it.

[Judist]

#1

Swapping in a new 800 series will be easy. Might as well have a killer mobo/cpu until then.