Considering upgrade, have a 4790k

[drewjn]

I was considering upgrading from my 970 to manage a dual monitor setup with 1440p ips and 1080p 144hz monitors. What is a worthwhile change, and should I worry on bottlenecks at this point?

[Xx_MadJack_xX]

i think a 4790k will be fine bottle neck wise if you want to handle 1440p or 1080 144mhz Gaming a 1060 or 1070 would be good 

[CostcoSamples]

Your 4790k is just about the best for gaming.  6700k is a tiny bit better.  Are you looking to game on both displays simultaneously, or just one?

[WereCat]

Don't worry about bottlenecks.

While 1060 would be an upgrade it won't be that much better to be really worth it.

I would say 1070 is what you should be looking for.

[RadiatingLight]

Either a 1070 or 1080.

1080 will give you a slight CPU bottleneck, but more performance than the 1070 overall

[Ichi]

4790k is still very much near the top for gaming usage.

I would say upgrade GPU to anything above 1070 at this point.

[drewjn]

@WereCat I was thinking 1070 or 1080 (latter in case I eventually consider getting a 4k setup). A 1060 would practically be a near even trade, so it wouldn't be that worthwhile.

 

@CostcoSamples Probably game on one and use the other for multitasking. I don't really do racing or other game genres that would make decent use of having the game split into multiple monitors.

[Mick Naughty]

As long as you don't sli the 4790 will be ok. I regret getting it as my "upgrade" but it works. Should handle a single card just fine. 

[CostcoSamples]

3 hours ago, drewjn said:

@WereCat I was thinking 1070 or 1080 (latter in case I eventually consider getting a 4k setup). A 1060 would practically be a near even trade, so it wouldn't be that worthwhile.

 

@CostcoSamples Probably game on one and use the other for multitasking. I don't really do racing or other game genres that would make decent use of having the game split into multiple monitors.

For 1080p 144hz, a single gtx 1070 will be perfect.  For 1440p 144hz gaming, a 1070 is OK but you'll definitely benefit from the extra power in the 1080.  The 4790k will not bottleneck a 1080 in this scenario.

 

In my rig, I have a gtx 1070 with 4690k, and 165hz 1440p.  I often wish I had more GPU power to keep FPS over 100 (otherwise what's the point of having a high refresh rate display?!).  But the i5 CPUs do tend to bottleneck a high end GPU when gaming at very high frame rates.  The higher the frame rate, the harder your CPU must work to keep up (this is also where RAM speed starts to really matter).  I will most likely upgrade to an i7 and 1080 ti next year.

[drewjn]

8 hours ago, Abyssal Radon said:

No one has asled what your budget is and where you live? I would recommend a 1080 if you can afford it. 

I did mention what I was considering, so those questions were unneeded. It looks like I'll get a 1080, or wait for the 1080ti.

[Vode]

Upgrading to another quadcore CPU is a waste of money at best.

[drewjn]

7 hours ago, Vode said:

Upgrading to another quadcore CPU is a waste of money at best.

I only said GPU, not CPU. I hadn't planned on any upgrade when there is obviously no need. To be fair, I did ask if there were any current GPUs that may be throttled by it, but that was more out of curiosity, and for future reference.

[Vode]

Just now, drewjn said:

I only said GPU, not CPU. I hadn't planned on any upgrade when there is obviously no need. To be fair, I did ask if there were any current GPUs that may be throttled by it, but that was more out of curiosity, and for future reference.

My bad.

[drewjn]

Just now, Vode said:

My bad.

No worries. There is also the issue on @CostcoSamplesthoughts of going i5 quad core to i7 quad core (for himself), but that is possibly more viable/sensible in that it will give him hyperthreading, as i5 (at least, last time I looked at them) did not have such features.

[Vode]

Just now, drewjn said:

No worries. There is also the issue on @CostcoSamplesthoughts of going i5 quad core to i7 quad core (for himself), but that is possibly more viable/sensible in that it will give him hyperthreading, as i5 (at least, last time I looked at them) did not have such features.

The HT is kind of a mixed bag though. In some games it doesn't metter. In some it does. Check what games you personally play first and if tgey are benefitting from HT.

[CostcoSamples]

2 hours ago, drewjn said:

No worries. There is also the issue on @CostcoSamplesthoughts of going i5 quad core to i7 quad core (for himself), but that is possibly more viable/sensible in that it will give him hyperthreading, as i5 (at least, last time I looked at them) did not have such features.

 

2 hours ago, Vode said:

The HT is kind of a mixed bag though. In some games it doesn't metter. In some it does. Check what games you personally play first and if tgey are benefitting from HT.

While it's true that HT isn't always useful, I think we can make the argument that for a build intended to last 3 to 4 years, it's usefulness may increase over time.  But for me the main benefit of the i7 is the higher clock speeds that come with it.  Others have posted test results comparing an OC'd i5 to stock i7 (ie. both at same clock speeds) and frame rates were very nearly the same in games like Witcher 3 and GTA V (using a Titan XP).  It seems like 4 cores is still the sweet spot, and clock speed is king.  

[Vode]

19 minutes ago, CostcoSamples said:

 

While it's true that HT isn't always useful, I think we can make the argument that for a build intended to last 3 to 4 years, it's usefulness may increase over time.  But for me the main benefit of the i7 is the higher clock speeds that come with it.  Others have posted test results comparing an OC'd i5 to stock i7 (ie. both at same clock speeds) and frame rates were very nearly the same in games like Witcher 3 and GTA V (using a Titan XP).  It seems like 4 cores is still the sweet spot, and clock speed is king.  

True. 

 

Nowadays I'd recommend an i7 if you can afford it very easily anyways or do need it for video work. 

 

Otherwise it's probably better to put the extra 100 bucks into the video card. It could mean getting an RX 480 instead of the RX 460 or a GTX 1070 instrad of the GTX 1060. That's a performance gap no i7 (Socket 1151) is going to provide over an i5.

[drewjn]

@Vode

@CostcoSamples

 

Very true on the stock i7 vs the i5. The 4690k and 4790k are truly differentiated by number of threads, but the 4790k runs perfectly fine without an oc, while 4690k usually is oc'd to get around the same (or a tad better) performance when oc'd (yes, you can oc it for far more, but we don't need to get down to the level of liquid nitrogen, etc). If not overclocking for great performance is fine enough, why bother to go through the extra, and potentially destructive/unsafe, effort?

 

I personally would go equivalent i7 if you can afford it, even if you don't necessarily need it beyond gaming. Granted, that isn't a rule of thumb, purely just personal preference.

[Tiberiusisgame]

A lot of good advice here. I have the 4790K with 980 SLI on a 1440p G-Sync and there is no bottleneck here. 40 lanes means 16 for each card, provided your board supports it. 6th gen Intel is approximately a 15% improvement over the 4th gen but it's irrelevant in gaming terms. I think that chip should last you for a while.

 

Can't speak as to what the 10 series can deliver but it's an obvious choice considering how hard it is to find 9 series stuff at better prices, right?

[CostcoSamples]

5 hours ago, drewjn said:

@Vode

@CostcoSamples

 

Very true on the stock i7 vs the i5. The 4690k and 4790k are truly differentiated by number of threads, but the 4790k runs perfectly fine without an oc, while 4690k usually is oc'd to get around the same (or a tad better) performance when oc'd (yes, you can oc it for far more, but we don't need to get down to the level of liquid nitrogen, etc). If not overclocking for great performance is fine enough, why bother to go through the extra, and potentially destructive/unsafe, effort?

 

I personally would go equivalent i7 if you can afford it, even if you don't necessarily need it beyond gaming. Granted, that isn't a rule of thumb, purely just personal preference.

Yeah, I agree, the i7 is the way to go for gaming when you've got the money.  If I can find a deal on a 4790k I might got for it.  Otherwise I'll upgrade to Kaby Lake next year.

 

I've tried a bit of overclocking, and I think my i5 has plenty of head room.  The thing is, stability is a primary factor for me because I use the machine for work.  I can't be messing around with overclocking that might potentially cause my system to freeze up at a really bad time (ie. in the middle of doing something important).  It's fun to play around with on the weekend, but I would never leave my i5 running at 4.5 ghz for daily use.