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4690k vs 4790k for gaming

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GearingMass

Member
Joined
Jun 24, 2014
Location
TX/CO
I'm getting ready to build a new rig and I'm trying to decide between these two for gaming. To start, yes, I know that, for now, games don't really leverage the extra threads, save for a few.

Whenever I see the i5 vs i7 discussion though, that's usually the only thing I see debated as far as gaming goes (I don't video edit, etc). My curiosity is in the increased base clock speed. Does the additional 500Mhz base clock in the i7 contribute to a higher OC over the i5? I know it varies between every single CPU, but on average, does the i7 best the i5 in OC speeds?

So my final question, does the idea that multithreading might become very beneficial for games in the next few years, along with the higher OC (??) justify the $85-$100 premium b/t the two for a gaming rig?
 
If you can grab the i7, go for it. No one here can say what the next will use "for sure" certainly not in the next year anyway.

But! That difference in price can make the difference between getting a mediocre graphics card, and a really good one. For now, GPU > CPU in most games.

If you're concerned about speed, them you can get a 4670k and overclock it to match
 
4690K is fine for today's games. It's possible that we'll start to see games taking advantage of 8 threads but I'm sure they'll be written so that they still get great performance on 4, as i5's are more common than i7's in the install base of PC users.

If u are at all concerned about cost for your next CPU purchase, you can safely go with the i5.
 
For now it's hard to find any games that use more than 4 threads. Some games are using 2 threads for physics and 2 for everything else. Barely any title will use HT. Some online games are scalling good up to 4 threads.
Also expect that many new games will be prepared for PC and new consoles at the same time so I doubt they will be optimized for 8 threads. Market is constantly moving to consoles just because there is higher profit and it's not hard to notice that new consoles have worse specification than the new average PC.
Better is to get faster graphics card for the price difference between i5 and i7.
I expect that new PC games will need more graphics memory than more CPU threads. Games are not much more complicated than 2-3 years ago. Just textures are larger and bigger monitors become more popular.
 
I have the 4790K OC'd to 4.7 Ghz using Asus AI, it is working well. With my airflow I run 30-35c idle and 55-60c under heavy Planetside 2 (Ultra Settings/1080 Resolution) gameplay.

Impressive! What CPU cooler are you using?
 
I am using thermaltake NiC C5 with Arctic Silver 5 compound.

Now it gets too close to max tdp for me on a P95 torture test. But for everyday use and gaming it works great.

On a side note the ambient room temp is around 20-22c
 
if you have a top end gpu and budget is not an issue, by all means get the i7 you can just turn off ht, if your on a budget get the i5 and put more in the gpu.
a top end card would be a gtx780 or an r290.
 
I am using thermaltake NiC C5 with Arctic Silver 5 compound.

Now it gets too close to max tdp for me on a P95 torture test. But for everyday use and gaming it works great.

On a side note the ambient room temp is around 20-22c

Arctic silver 5 is a dinosaur. Noctua NTH1 or Arctic MX2/MX4 are much better choices and are non capacitive. AS5 is dangerous stuff. Also these other pastes out perform it.
 
Arctic silver 5 is a dinosaur. Noctua NTH1 or Arctic MX2/MX4 are much better choices and are non capacitive. AS5 is dangerous stuff. Also these other pastes out perform it.

Agree. I haven't used any metal based compounds is years. I strictly stick to MX4. MX2 and MX4 are great. MX3 was a disaster, It was so thick, it wouldn't spread. The only time I ran with other than MX4 was sub-zero. You are kinda stuck with Ceramique on those circumstances.

NEVER use a conductive TIM on a GPU, especially the GPU RAM.
 
Agree. I haven't used any metal based compounds is years. I strictly stick to MX4. MX2 and MX4 are great. MX3 was a disaster, It was so thick, it wouldn't spread. The only time I ran with other than MX4 was sub-zero. You are kinda stuck with Ceramique on those circumstances.

NEVER use a conductive TIM on a GPU, especially the GPU RAM.

Gelid supreme works good for everything and is in reasonable price ( I'm probably the only one on OCF who is mentioning this TIM all the time :p )
 
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