Going from 8320 to 4790k. Is it worth it?

The best i7 that I have ever owned was the 4700mq, which I believe it was comparable to the 8320 that I have in my desktop. I've always had AMD cpus in my desktops, and I have been debating the need to switch to an i7.

Although I game, it is less than 10% of what I do with my desktop. I develop, design, render and process photos with my machine. The 8320 does well, but I do find it choking at times when I have....say 30 high resolution photos opened in PS, lightroom with a large catalogue opened, dw with tons of files opened, a bunch of chrome windows and several other misc programs on a two screen setup.

Will I see a significant difference moving to the 4790k? I've always assumed that the law of diminishing marginal returns kick in at i7 and fx level cpus. Am I wrong? If I don't have a gazillion things opened at one time, my desktop is blazing fast, but I'm not that disciplined.

Specs:

8320
M5 something something mono
ASUS 7870 DC2 V2
Thermaltake Toughpower 750w
XLR 8 SSD
WD Black and Blue
16gb corsair vengence

Sounds like what you are doing you would befit with more memory 32GB since it is chocking, CPU's are smooth a slow or smooth and fast.

once you go intel you wont go back.....i say do it its time for a upgrade

the AMD FX series only really compares to the i5 series... there are times when they get close to the i7 crowd but not often.

the FX is actually aimed at the i5. any socket 1150, 2011 or 2011v3 i7 is going to outperform most of the FX 9xxx series in most scenarios.

It isnt worth it to go to an i5, but the i7 will definitely get you some improvement

I would look up benchmarks that compare what you are trying to do in photoshop between the two CPUs. I would actually guess they are going to be closer than you expect due to both using 8 threads.

Janus has a valid point. Also photoshop is capable of using direct compute for some things isnt it?

Most people will blindly tell you go Intel it's better. Yes single core Ipc is definitely lacking on AMD vs Intel. In gaming you will get a few FPS more using a Intel chip over an AMD in non cpu intensive games. In cpu intensive games the difference will be greater or if one games using SLI/Crossfire the Intel will out pace the AMD. When it come to programs that utilize all of the AMD "cores" or modules the 8320 will likely be outpaced again by the 4770k/4790k. That all said I have both, sort of, my Fx-8350 is oced to 4.7 daily and my 4770k is at 4.4. I have rendered videos on both, granted not the same as photoshop. My findings when rendering large video files were that the 4770k only out paces the 8350 by around 2-3 minutes in an 40 min render. If saving that much time is worth the cost by all means get a 4790k but you may not see that great of a difference. I will also note that I use the Fx 8350 as my every day rig because I find that it is just a bit smoother when doing the things I do on it. I cannot quantify exactly why I feel this way but I do. For comparison sake both rigs have a SSD, both are on custom loops, both have 8g of Ram and I run the 4770k with my ram at 2200 Mhz as opposed to a bit over 1866 on the AMD.

I'd say that more memory would probably benefit you better than an i7.

Financially speaking, you would probably end up spending $450+ on an i7 and board, where as you could get a pair of Vengence that match yours, or a full 32gb kit if you have the 4x4gb currently, for a lot less. Plus, as wingman99 said, it sounds more to me like a memory bottleneck than CPU.

may see more benefit out of a 5820K if it can utilize 12 threads , if so have to think it would destroy the 8320 and the 4790

If frugal can get on that platform for about $ 200.00 more than a z97

I can't imagine that photo work will utilize more than 4 threads, so I'm thinking that the 8320 he's already got is overkill. I used to use gimp for things like that, and my quad core phenomII was plenty.