i5 2500K to ii7 4790k?

[RaistlinZ]

Since you have a MC nearby you can grab a 5820K w/ MSI SLI PLus X99 motherboard for $439.99.

That's only $40.00 more than the 4790k deal, and you're getting a sweet 6-core CPU.

DDR4 prices have also come down a bit. You can get 16GB 2400DDR4 for $143.99 @ Newegg. ($159.99 - 10% instant discount EMCASAX22)

If you're going to upgrade, I just think you're better off in the long run moving to a 6-core setup than another 4-core setup. Just my $0.02.

 

[bleucharm28]

I have the itch to upgrade as well. but you all think Z77 platform will do just fine?

I know for sure that I will want to get this Asus G-Synch Monitor. Asus RoG SWIFT PG27AQ 4K IPS G-SYNC Gaming Monitor
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1QiQ6y1jJ5A

This thing is will 1 Video Card will be fine? or do I need to go SLi?

 

[Dave3000]

Since you have a MC nearby you can grab a 5820K w/ MSI SLI PLus X99 motherboard for $439.99.

That's only $40.00 more than the 4790k deal, and you're getting a sweet 6-core CPU.

DDR4 prices have also come down a bit. You can get 16GB 2400DDR4 for $143.99 @ Newegg. ($159.99 - 10% instant discount EMCASAX22)

If you're going to upgrade, I just think you're better off in the long run moving to a 6-core setup than another 4-core setup. Just my $0.02.

Wouldn't the 700 MHz higher clocks of the 4790k nullify the advantage of the 5820k for gaming unless something uses more than 4 cores heavily, like video encoding or photo editing? As a gamer if I had a choice between a 4 GHz quad core and a 3.3 GHz hex core, both with the same IPC performance, I would choose the 4 GHz quad core.

 

[RaistlinZ]

Not when overclocked.

 

[crashtech]

Not when overclocked.

Do you know if there is a consensus regarding how high the average 5820K should overclock with decent cooling (high end air or big AIO)?

 

[Dave3000]

Not when overclocked.

That's the luck of the draw. You might end up with a 5820k that won't overclock past stock speeds and you might end up with a 4790k that won't overclock past stocks speeds. 4 GHz vs 3.3 GHz, not accounting for turbo boost.

 

[steve wilson]

I have an i5 2500k too. If you haven't OC'd it yet I'd suggest you do that. Your buying into an old platform, it's better to wait for skylake now. Unless you actually really need it for something that is going to save you a lot of time.

 

[crashtech]

That's the luck of the draw. You might end up with a 5820k that won't overclock past stock speeds and you might end up with a 4790k that won't overclock past stocks speeds. 4 GHz vs 3.3 GHz, not accounting for turbo boost.

Saying someone might get a sample that won't go past 3.3 is a bit of hyperbole, isn't it? It's conceivable to get one that will barely do 4.0, though. I just wonder how likely that is.

 

[WhoBeDaPlaya]

I have an i5 2500k too. If you haven't OC'd it yet I'd suggest you do that. Your buying into an old platform, it's better to wait for skylake now. Unless you actually really need it for something that is going to save you a lot of time.

Not if :

1) He needs a speed-up in apps that would benefit from MT (as a point of reference, my 3770 @ 4.1GHz performs 20% better in x264 encoding than my 2500K @ 4.5GHz)

2) He's going X99. It's not outdated until Intel releases the next HEDT platform, which will again be outmoded by the next consumer tick/tock. I miss the days when the HEDT platform came first and remained >>> the consumer stuff (i7 920).

 

[PhIlLy ChEeSe]

I have an i5 2500k too. If you haven't OC'd it yet I'd suggest you do that. Your buying into an old platform, it's better to wait for skylake now. Unless you actually really need it for something that is going to save you a lot of time.

+1
Bingo, new socket coming out soon.

 

[sxr7171]

I would not make that upgrade. Your 2500K overclocks to a point where it could be within 5-10% of the 4790k. Maybe even beat it since it overclocks so well. Let the itch subside and save your funds until there is a real advantage.

 

[crashtech]

A 2500K might beat a 4790K in clockspeed only, but likely not in any other metric. I think this is what the previous poster meant, but wanted to be sure. A 4790K running at max stock turbo bin (4.4) is pretty hard to beat.

 

[sxr7171]

A 2500K might beat a 4790K in clockspeed only, but likely not in any other metric. I think this is what the previous poster meant, but wanted to be sure. A 4790K running at max stock turbo bin (4.4) is pretty hard to beat.

Those 2500Ks would hit 5Ghz fairly commonly. IPC went up since but not really that much. Even new instructions didn't do much outside of certain use cases like transcoding etc. Whatever difference there may be is not worth $400-500. Skylake will be worth $400-500.

 

[crashtech]

And 4790K hits 4.7GHz fairly commonly. So that is still a 6% advantage to Sandy on clock speed, yet depending on the app, the IPC gains from Sandy to Haswell are +-10%. So it's either gonna be a wash, or Haswell is on top. And we are of course ignoring the benefits the HT can bring to very heavily threaded loads.

But I don't disagree that he should either wait, or go for X99.

 

[Ramses]

I have a couple Pentium 4's new in the box to sell you for $100 each.

Oddly enough there are some old CPU's that actually bring good money from collectors and such, especially NIB examples. Stick them in a drawer and check ebay every couple years, might surprise you.

 

[escrow4]

That's the luck of the draw. You might end up with a 5820k that won't overclock past stock speeds and you might end up with a 4790k that won't overclock past stocks speeds. 4 GHz vs 3.3 GHz, not accounting for turbo boost.

No it isn't. Any half decent X99 mobo will cheat and allow you to enable MCE which means a 5820K will run @ 3.6GHz across all six cores and 12 threads. A 5960X will hit 3.5GHz, and a 5930K will hit 3.7GHz. In single-player games that is enough to chuck minimums close to and averages right up to 60FPS on a single GPU easy. Stock volts of 1.1v or less. Cool and quiet. As in:

A 4.4GHz quad may give you a few more minimum FPS, but a brand new Haswell-E right now at stock is still more than sufficient.

 

[BonzaiDuck]

I think, once you find a chip like the Sandy Bridge that overclocks phenomenally or "just well," your perceptions are also biased by differences from previous generations of processors. You actually think that just the nominal clock speed is a measuring stick. Your actual usage of the processor and system may not really saturate it to the point where you sense any deficiency.

Someone in the forums posted a challenge or opportunity to make Cinebench comparisons. I discovered that my 2600K @ 4.7 would just "barely keep up" with a 4770K Haswell @ 4.4, or to be more honest -- it was behind by just a hair.

So one looks at the prospects for spending money and "upgrading." You see that you already have a near-perfect system. You can't really anticipate how the new project would turn out. It's not really a pressing concern.

"Mainstreamers" may keep a system for years, without a clue of what the top-end processors will do and no experience with overclocking. Folks here aren't in that category if they're all forum veterans.

The other factor is a comfort level with actual usage, a large collection of regularly used software, and the prospect that there would be more to do than simply complete a hardware configuration and basic OS installation. It's not a comfort-level you're willing to lose, even if it only means a few weeks or months doing without.

I just finished replacing an old Wolfdale system my brother was using. I had a second-hand year-old i5-3570K I picked up last year, and a $135 budget ASUS board. We decided to abjure overclocking it. But both of us were fairly impressed with it: my brother, from coming from the Wolfdale, and I -- seeing how it performed in comparison to the overclocked Sandy.

I might start acquiring parts for a new system during the latter part of this year. It might not be "finished" until some months or so into the next.

 

[lopri]

I have no intention of upgrading my systems anytime soon. (maybe never?) I am running 2500K @4.80GHz and 1045T @3.80GHz, with 16 GB and 32 GB of RAM respectively. It's been 4 years, haha.

Only thing that's worth considering for me would be X99 platform (or whatever might follow) with a 8 core chip. When such a CPU hits below $300 I might consider upgrading. 2500K to 4790K is a waste of $$$, IMO, unless you are benchmarking.

 

[crashtech]

I have no intention of upgrading my systems anytime soon. (maybe never?) I am running 2500K @4.80GHz and 1045T @3.80GHz, with 16 GB and 32 GB of RAM respectively. It's been 4 years, haha.

Only thing that's worth considering for me would be X99 platform (or whatever might follow) with a 8 core chip. When such a CPU hits below $300 I might consider upgrading. 2500K to 4790K is a waste of $$$, IMO, unless you are benchmarking.

There are those who can actually utilize HT in heavy loads, and for those few, going from 4C/4T to 4C/8T plus around 10% IPC increase can make a significant difference. Most of us talk in terms of games since that is the most demanding thing users commonly run, but we ought to be adding caveats with statements like yours instead of asserting them as a reality for all usage cases. Many games don't use HT on the i7 well, even registering performance regressions, but many other apps do not have this problem, like rendering and transcoding, for example.

 

[BonzaiDuck]

There are those who can actually utilize HT in heavy loads, and for those few, going from 4C/4T to 4C/8T plus around 10% IPC increase can make a significant difference. Most of us talk in terms of games since that is the most demanding thing users commonly run, but we ought to be adding caveats with statements like yours instead of asserting them as a reality for all usage cases. Many games don't use HT on the i7 well, even registering performance regressions, but many other apps do not have this problem, like rendering and transcoding, for example.

Actually, I think the HT factor explains my own 2600/2700K clocks compared to other assertions of 4.8 to 5.0. I OC"d both of them with HT enabled. So in my case, 4.7 is nothing to sneeze at.

In fact, today -- I think I'll try an experiment and turn off HT on the 2700K.

 

[poofyhairguy]

To me the magic line with CPU performance is 30%. I think a 30% improvement can be easily felt in day-to-day use. Lower than that and you either have to be really sensitive, have a very demanding use case, or you have to be a benchmark junkie. I almost always upgraded when 30% was on the table.

The IPC from Sandy to Haswell doesn't get you there. Neither do the clock speeds if you have a decent overclocking 2500K/2600K. Adding more cores technically gets you there, but few program utilize 4 cores completely and for the rest you will feel the lower clock per core. All the low hanging fruit has been picked. Now I get that 30% percent back on the energy bill, which considering North American cheap access to power (and power hungry GPUs anyway) isn't an improvement that is worth doing unless you are purposefully trying to move to a new form factor.

To go even further, I can't think of a new TASK that I am doing that my old C2Q desktop couldn't do. Back in the day that 30%+ perfect improvement was enough that maybe you could take on a new task, a new program, or maybe a new game your old computer wouldn't run. Now most games are GPU limited, as they are dragged down by the weak CPUs in console or the fact that the market has stagnated so much. Most of my fun now has been reliving the modern computer revolution on the mobile platform, and strive for the day my phone can do everything that C2Q desktop could do as well.

Actual 21st century compute tasks (like Siri, or Google Now, etc. ) need an army of the very best computers to work- I can't do it on the best desktop possible anyway. Not only are computers "good enough" for normals, it is getting to the point where they are good enough for high-end tasks that can be done on a PC too.

The saving grace for computers is VR. That will need a lot of compute power, and we will prefer it to be local for lag reasons. I hope in five years the reason to upgrade your system will be to run your brand new VR headset. By the time that market gets going maybe ARM will actually be challenging Intel, and the use case will be platform agnostic enough to drive the entire market.

Or not and VR will flop and computer enthusiasm will be a tale we tell our children. Either way it was a fun ride.

 

[Headfoot]

To go even further, I can't think of a new TASK that I am doing that my old C2Q desktop couldn't do. Back in the day that 30%+ perfect improvement was enough that maybe you could take on a new task, a new program, or maybe a new game your old computer wouldn't run. Now most games are GPU limited, as they are dragged down by the weak CPUs in console or the fact that the market has stagnated so much. Most of my fun now has been reliving the modern computer revolution on the mobile platform, and strive for the day my phone can do everything that C2Q desktop could do as well.

Being able to game isn't a binary thing. High clocked haswells get vastly, vastly better minimum frame rates even when GPU limited. C2Q is stuttery with hangs and drops if you actually game on it compared to Sandy @4.6 or better yet Haswell @4.5. Even my brother's 8320 @4.6 gets obvious stuttering in games like Neverwinter that only goes away as you turn down the CPU relevant effects (via the convenient CPU slider). This is despite the Average framerate being fine on a 290.

 

[JimKiler]

I have no intention of upgrading my systems anytime soon. (maybe never?) I am running 2500K @4.80GHz and 1045T @3.80GHz, with 16 GB and 32 GB of RAM respectively. It's been 4 years, haha.

Only thing that's worth considering for me would be X99 platform (or whatever might follow) with a 8 core chip. When such a CPU hits below $300 I might consider upgrading. 2500K to 4790K is a waste of $$$, IMO, unless you are benchmarking.

Even at stock i would not feel the need to upgrade either of those CPU's.

 

[Ramses]

Being able to game isn't a binary thing. High clocked haswells get vastly, vastly better minimum frame rates even when GPU limited. C2Q is stuttery with hangs and drops if you actually game on it compared to Sandy @4.6 or better yet Haswell @4.5. Even my brother's 8320 @4.6 gets obvious stuttering in games like Neverwinter that only goes away as you turn down the CPU relevant effects (via the convenient CPU slider). This is despite the Average framerate being fine on a 290.

I don't disagree, but that's the specific use case poofyhairguy spoke of, and I agree with everything else he said. +30%, or even less, used to have one saying "hey now I can run x software smoothly"(or concurrently with y software, or even just windows lol), where as now it's more like "ok, now I can go try to find some software (brand new game, and only some of them) to make use of the new cpu". The payoff just isn't there. I went from an 8350 to a 9590 to a 4790K, all were decked out with 16gb fast ram and fast SSD and good GPU's, the cpu upgrades were not worth the time it took to reinstall windows and all my software. And I do game, I just don't buy games till they are $15 or $20 on sale. Even if I did buy the newest games, with the amount of time I have to play as a late 30's guy with a job, wife, three dogs and a project car or two, I'd see performance gains very, very seldom. I'm secure enough(read: getting old) in my geekymanhood to turn down a video setting at this point to not have to upgrade personally. Just not worth it, and the not-worth-it-ness seems to be increasing with every new generation. The only things that have any interest anymore to me as for desktop PC/laptop are multi-cpu systems just because they are cool, and as poofyhairguy said, the promise of VR, and maybe shrinking my PC while maintaining the ability it has. I wish this wasn't the state of things, but it sure is in my world. Nor do I think badly of anyone that games a lot and can actually use a super new CPU, but I do think they are a shrinking minority. I never would have believed it years past but "good enough" really does seem to be an achievable and relatively static thing.

 

[escrow4]

Does clock speed really affect minimum's in single player games a lot? Like 20%+? I really want to see a 5820K @ 3.3GHz vs 3.6GHz MCE vs 4.0GHz vs max OC against a SNB at similar clocks vs a Haswell i5 @ 3.5GHz / max turbo / 4.0GHz / max OC in the last 5 or 6 major 2014/2015 AAA titles @ 1080p and above. Really curious.