Upgrade or No? i5-4690k to R7 1700x

[barch88]

Hi, I'm finally getting around to doing some upgrading to my rig since the wife got me a nice 4k monitor for Christmas. My current setup is as follows:

 

i5-4690k @ 4.4GHz Overclock w/ H105 Cooler (which I had since I built the rig)

MSI Z97m "Gaming" motherboard

G-Skill 8GB of DDR3 w/ XMP enabled running at 2400

EVGA GTX 1080ti FTW3 edition (just upgraded this from a GTX 980)

EVGA 1100 PSU

 

My tasks include:

#1 - Gaming

#2 YouTube/browsing in background/2nd monitor

 

I don't do any video editing although I may want to finally get around to making YouTube videos and things. I'm wondering how significant of a performance boost, not only in speed but gaming would I see if I were to upgrade my board, chip, and ram (to ddr4)? I'm thinking about a Ryzen 7 1700x. The stock speeds are the same on the Ryzen 7 as my i5-4690k was before overclocking, but obviously its more threads. Here in Canada the R7 1700x is on sale for $380 for Boxing Day and that's like $160 less than retail. Worth the upgrade now? Is the RAM difference from ddr3 to ddr4 going to be bigger performance gains than the CPU? I know if I go AM4 it could be future proof for a few more years perhaps? Sad to see my 1150 was outdated 1 year after building my current rig.

 

Thanks for any suggestions.

[ARikozuM]

The 2nd revision of Ryzen should be coming soon. Waiting would be a good choice. 

[silasjdemone]

The 1600x might be a better choice, or even 1600. I could be talking out of my arse though. Only about 5-9fps diff between the 1700x and 1600x, Unless of course your streaming or have lots of other background stuffs going on while gaming.

 

Or like recently mentioned, you could wait.

[Jurrunio]

As a gaming rig, 4 cores is still fine. You can maybe get an i7 on the same platform if the 4690k isnt fast enough.

[Crunchy Dragon]

7 minutes ago, Jurrunio said:

As a gaming rig, 4 cores is still fine. You can maybe get an i7 on the same platform if the 4690k isnt fast enough.

I agree with this ^^^

 

I was about to suggest overclocking the 4690K, but then realized you had done that already.

[Moress]

At 4k, even with a 1080ti, you're not going to gain anything with a more powerful CPU. I would wait until at least the next generation of Ryzen/Intel's Cannonlake

[barch88]

28 minutes ago, Moress said:

At 4k, even with a 1080ti, you're not going to gain anything with a more powerful CPU. I would wait until at least the next generation of Ryzen/Intel's Cannonlake

Oh? Maybe I'll just wait 6 months and see then. I feel like the i5-4690k can be pushed to 4.6GHz stable and with my newly upgraded 1080ti I should have 60FPS @ 4k no problem. I just ordered the 1080ti so I haven't been able to see what kind of gains it yields me vs my 980.

 

40 minutes ago, Jurrunio said:

As a gaming rig, 4 cores is still fine. You can maybe get an i7 on the same platform if the 4690k isnt fast enough.

Yeah perhaps a used i7?

43 minutes ago, ARikozuM said:

The 2nd revision of Ryzen should be coming soon. Waiting would be a good choice. 

About how long, any idea?

[ARikozuM]

3 minutes ago, barch88 said:

About how long, any idea?

I think AMD stated a 1Q18 unveiling, but I'll have to check the Tech News sub-forum to confirm. I'm going to guess 2Q18, or 3Q18 at the latest, physical release. 

[johnukguy]

38 minutes ago, barch88 said:

Yeah perhaps a used i7?

About how long, any idea?

In just under two weeks time the new Ryzens are being revealed at CES, with pre ordering in the second week of January, and general availability around the beginning of March.

[DeadlyTitan]

at 4k, your CPU is not even a problem, its your GPU. you can easily hold until intel's next gen CPU's which are going to be awesome if the rumors are true. Core i7  with 8 core 16 threads and core i5's with 6 cores 12 threads or Zen 2 with 12 core 24 threads.. well they are all still rumors, so take them with a grain of salt. 

[barch88]

12 minutes ago, DeadlyTitan said:

at 4k, your CPU is not even a problem, its your GPU. you can easily hold until intel's next gen CPU's which are going to be awesome if the rumors are true. Core i7  with 8 core 16 threads and core i5's with 6 cores 12 threads or Zen 2 with 12 core 24 threads.. well they are all still rumors, so take them with a grain of salt. 

GPU the problem? As in my 980 or my 1080ti I just bought? lol How can the best card out be the problem? Thanks for the replies. I'll probably wait it out until next gens.

[DeadlyTitan]

1 minute ago, barch88 said:

GPU the problem? As in my 980 or my 1080ti I just bought? lol How can the best card out be the problem? Thanks for the replies. I'll probably wait it out until next gens.

Yep at 4k its the GPU that's holding you back, not the CPU.. i hate to break it for you but GTX 1080 TI is not capable of delivering smooth 60 FPS in demanding games at 4K at max settings.. It might be the most powerful GPU around for now but its still not enough for max 4k Gaming, maybe medium settings yes.. if you are playing at 1080p 144hz(not 60hz, CPU does not matter for 60hz gaming)  then sure its the CPU that's holding you back, Starting from 1440p CPU does not matter. 

[barch88]

3 hours ago, DeadlyTitan said:

Yep at 4k its the GPU that's holding you back, not the CPU.. i hate to break it for you but GTX 1080 TI is not capable of delivering smooth 60 FPS in demanding games at 4K at max settings.. It might be the most powerful GPU around for now but its still not enough for max 4k Gaming, maybe medium settings yes.. if you are playing at 1080p 144hz(not 60hz, CPU does not matter for 60hz gaming)  then sure its the CPU that's holding you back, Starting from 1440p CPU does not matter. 

I'm playing @ 60hz. What kind of results do you expect with my current rig setup as is and a 1080ti? 60hz @ 4k. My GPU will be here on Tuesday so I won't know until then, as of now I just really have that itch to upgrade and do an entire new build.

 

heres my monitor:

 

https://www.samsung.com/us/computing/monitors/uhd-and-wqhd/samsung-uhd-28-monitor-with-high-glossy-black-finish-lu28e590ds-za/

[epsilon84]

At 4K, since it is 99% GPU bound, you will get almost identical framerates compared to any 'modern' setup. I would sit tight with your setup for now. If anything, I suggest adding another 8GB of RAM as we are at the point where some of the latest games perform better with 16GB of RAM.

 

Btw, even if you happened to be CPU limited in very specific games, I wouldn't make the upgrade to Ryzen purely from a gaming perspective. An overclocked i7 4770K/4790K is still faster than Ryzen for gaming, and it's a drop in upgrade for your current motherboard, so you can save yourself a few hundred dollars in the process.

[barch88]

1 hour ago, epsilon84 said:

At 4K, since it is 99% GPU bound, you will get almost identical framerates compared to any 'modern' setup. I would sit tight with your setup for now. If anything, I suggest adding another 8GB of RAM as we are at the point where some of the latest games perform better with 16GB of RAM.

 

Btw, even if you happened to be CPU limited in very specific games, I wouldn't make the upgrade to Ryzen purely from a gaming perspective. An overclocked i7 4770K/4790K is still faster than Ryzen for gaming, and it's a drop in upgrade for your current motherboard, so you can save yourself a few hundred dollars in the process.

Really appreciate this post. I'll post on Tuesday/Wed when I get to test the new GPU out. Thanks everyone

[DeadlyTitan]

6 hours ago, barch88 said:

I'm playing @ 60hz. What kind of results do you expect with my current rig setup as is and a 1080ti? 60hz @ 4k. My GPU will be here on Tuesday so I won't know until then, as of now I just really have that itch to upgrade and do an entire new build.

 

heres my monitor:

 

https://www.samsung.com/us/computing/monitors/uhd-and-wqhd/samsung-uhd-28-monitor-with-high-glossy-black-finish-lu28e590ds-za/

Games are rendered in this process 

• CPU does the calculations and sends the data to GPU 
• GPU receives the data from CPU and then renders the Image on the screen

CPU and GPU have a fixed performance metric. For CPU its the amount of frames it can calculate per second (FPS) 

for GPU its the amount of pixels it can fill out in a second (you can read this on the GPU specifications described as Pixel Fill Rate) 

 

lets do some simple maths to understand this better.

Lets take 1080 Ti for example.It has a Peak pixel fill rate of 139 Gpixels/s. It means it can output 139 gigapixel at any given time under optimal conditions.

 

Now lets look at 1080p, 1080p have a total of 1920 x 1080 = 2,073,600 Pixels, now if you have a 60hz screen then it means your screen refreshes 60 times a second so multiply that number with 60 and we get 124,416,000, now you see what you need to keep up with 60 fps at 1080p.

 

Now increasing the resolution to 1440p we have 3,686,400 Pixels and for 60 FPS we have 221,184,000, now you see where we are going with this?

 

At 4k you have 8,294,400 Pixels and for 60 FPS we need 497,664,000 now you see how higher resolutions increase the load on GPU? higher the resolution and refresh rate more pixels the GPU must render.

 

There are ofc a lot of other factors that come into a game FPS and i have just given a basic simplified version, there are factors like how well the game is optimized and textures and other stuff.

 

So basically cpu can render a set number of frames depending on how optimized the game is. The number of frames a CPU can calculate does not depend on the graphic fidelity or resolution. So for example lets assume i5 2500 can calculate 120 fps in farcry 4 game. that number does not change and that will be the MAX FPS you can get on that CPU provided GPU can keep up with your demands regarding graphic quality and resolution you play at.

 

This is exactly why we say at 4K your CPU does not matter and its your GPU that is bottle necking as long as you have a good enough CPU,at the same time its the other way around when you comes to lower resolution and lower refresh rate. 

 

 

Hope this info helps. 

 

 

PS. what model of 1080 Ti are you getting ? am just curious to know. 

[Inversion]

11 hours ago, barch88 said:

Hi, I'm finally getting around to doing some upgrading to my rig since the wife got me a nice 4k monitor for Christmas. My current setup is as follows:

 

i5-4690k @ 4.4GHz Overclock w/ H105 Cooler (which I had since I built the rig)

MSI Z97m "Gaming" motherboard

G-Skill 8GB of DDR3 w/ XMP enabled running at 2400

EVGA GTX 1080ti FTW3 edition (just upgraded this from a GTX 980)

EVGA 1100 PSU

 

My tasks include:

#1 - Gaming

#2 YouTube/browsing in background/2nd monitor

 

I don't do any video editing although I may want to finally get around to making YouTube videos and things. I'm wondering how significant of a performance boost, not only in speed but gaming would I see if I were to upgrade my board, chip, and ram (to ddr4)? I'm thinking about a Ryzen 7 1700x. The stock speeds are the same on the Ryzen 7 as my i5-4690k was before overclocking, but obviously its more threads. Here in Canada the R7 1700x is on sale for $380 for Boxing Day and that's like $160 less than retail. Worth the upgrade now? Is the RAM difference from ddr3 to ddr4 going to be bigger performance gains than the CPU? I know if I go AM4 it could be future proof for a few more years perhaps? Sad to see my 1150 was outdated 1 year after building my current rig.

 

Thanks for any suggestions.

If you want to get into serious editing then get the 1700x. Can't say no to more cores and threads. If budget is more your concern then I'd recommend the R5 1600. The Bang for the Buck on that chip is astronomical. Hardware Canucks awarded it that in the 2017 Hardware Awards. I'd say AM4 is the platform to be on right now over Intel since AMD is expected to support it for the next few years whereas LGA 1151 has been on the last 3 generations of Intel Chip and they will probably update it soon.

[barch88]

5 hours ago, Inversion said:

If you want to get into serious editing then get the 1700x. Can't say no to more cores and threads. If budget is more your concern then I'd recommend the R5 1600. The Bang for the Buck on that chip is astronomical. Hardware Canucks awarded it that in the 2017 Hardware Awards. I'd say AM4 is the platform to be on right now over Intel since AMD is expected to support it for the next few years whereas LGA 1151 has been on the last 3 generations of Intel Chip and they will probably update it soon.

Thank you. I'll probably go with the 1700x if I do decide to do it in the next few months, or at least if I wait until Gen 2 I'll probably go AM4.

5 hours ago, DeadlyTitan said:

Games are rendered in this process 

• CPU does the calculations and sends the data to GPU 
• GPU receives the data from CPU and then renders the Image on the screen

CPU and GPU have a fixed performance metric. For CPU its the amount of frames it can calculate per second (FPS) 

for GPU its the amount of pixels it can fill out in a second (you can read this on the GPU specifications described as Pixel Fill Rate) 

 

lets do some simple maths to understand this better.

Lets take 1080 Ti for example.It has a Peak pixel fill rate of 139 Gpixels/s. It means it can output 139 gigapixel at any given time under optimal conditions.

 

Now lets look at 1080p, 1080p have a total of 1920 x 1080 = 2,073,600 Pixels, now if you have a 60hz screen then it means your screen refreshes 60 times a second so multiply that number with 60 and we get 124,416,000, now you see what you need to keep up with 60 fps at 1080p.

 

Now increasing the resolution to 1440p we have 3,686,400 Pixels and for 60 FPS we have 221,184,000, now you see where we are going with this?

 

At 4k you have 8,294,400 Pixels and for 60 FPS we need 497,664,000 now you see how higher resolutions increase the load on GPU? higher the resolution and refresh rate more pixels the GPU must render.

 

There are ofc a lot of other factors that come into a game FPS and i have just given a basic simplified version, there are factors like how well the game is optimized and textures and other stuff.

 

So basically cpu can render a set number of frames depending on how optimized the game is. The number of frames a CPU can calculate does not depend on the graphic fidelity or resolution. So for example lets assume i5 2500 can calculate 120 fps in farcry 4 game. that number does not change and that will be the MAX FPS you can get on that CPU provided GPU can keep up with your demands regarding graphic quality and resolution you play at.

 

This is exactly why we say at 4K your CPU does not matter and its your GPU that is bottle necking as long as you have a good enough CPU,at the same time its the other way around when you comes to lower resolution and lower refresh rate. 

 

 

Hope this info helps. 

 

 

PS. what model of 1080 Ti are you getting ? am just curious to know. 

Thanks for the reply. It does help make more sense. I appreciate you taking the time to type that. I have this model GPU: https://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814487338&_ga=2.199942702.1285693768.1514661072-1212954719.1514661071

 

So with that GPU, 4k/60Hz monitor, and my CPU - what kind of results, roughly, do you expect for me? I know obviously it could vary but I'm hoping overall I can manage 4k at like 50-60 FPS. I primarily play Rainbow Six Seige which isn't all that demanding tbh.

[DeadlyTitan]

18 minutes ago, barch88 said:

Thank you. I'll probably go with the 1700x if I do decide to do it in the next few months, or at least if I wait until Gen 2 I'll probably go AM4.

Thanks for the reply. It does help make more sense. I appreciate you taking the time to type that. I have this model GPU: https://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814487338&_ga=2.199942702.1285693768.1514661072-1212954719.1514661071

 

So with that GPU, 4k/60Hz monitor, and my CPU - what kind of results, roughly, do you expect for me? I know obviously it could vary but I'm hoping overall I can manage 4k at like 50-60 FPS. I primarily play Rainbow Six Seige which isn't all that demanding tbh.

Dont worry, you will be very happy with the results. you can get 60 FPS in most games (cant promise in future games) 

 

This video describes it better. Watch it  

 

and then this

 

 

that is a good card   i myself got a 1080 Ti a about 2 days ago and i was soo excited. 

[neo05]

19 hours ago, barch88 said:

Hi, I'm finally getting around to doing some upgrading to my rig since the wife got me a nice 4k monitor for Christmas. My current setup is as follows:

 

i5-4690k @ 4.4GHz Overclock w/ H105 Cooler (which I had since I built the rig)

MSI Z97m "Gaming" motherboard

G-Skill 8GB of DDR3 w/ XMP enabled running at 2400

EVGA GTX 1080ti FTW3 edition (just upgraded this from a GTX 980)

EVGA 1100 PSU

 

My tasks include:

#1 - Gaming

#2 YouTube/browsing in background/2nd monitor

 

I don't do any video editing although I may want to finally get around to making YouTube videos and things. I'm wondering how significant of a performance boost, not only in speed but gaming would I see if I were to upgrade my board, chip, and ram (to ddr4)? I'm thinking about a Ryzen 7 1700x. The stock speeds are the same on the Ryzen 7 as my i5-4690k was before overclocking, but obviously its more threads. Here in Canada the R7 1700x is on sale for $380 for Boxing Day and that's like $160 less than retail. Worth the upgrade now? Is the RAM difference from ddr3 to ddr4 going to be bigger performance gains than the CPU? I know if I go AM4 it could be future proof for a few more years perhaps? Sad to see my 1150 was outdated 1 year after building my current rig.

 

Thanks for any suggestions.

the Ryzeb 7 1700X is a very good CPU so if you don't want to wait get it and you're gonna be fine for some years.