i7 upgrade question worth it? => very confused

W00dmann

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Jun 21, 2014
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Ok, to recap: I have an i7 920 (2.66 Ghz) and I am considering upgrading to a 4770K (or 4770... or 4790; one of those). This is because I'm using a single-threaded application that is getting bogged down a fair bit, so additional single-core performance is what I'm after. I have found it difficult to know if I'm in for a significant performance improvement or not, and if 'yes', then how much?

I posted on this forum a few days ago http://www.tomshardware.com/answers/id-2190590/920-4770k-worth-upgrade.html and the consensus seemed to be "big gains; worth the upgrade".

I posted a follow-up question about the value of "K" CPUs http://www.tomshardware.com/answers/id-2191683/question.html and suddenly people are saying the performance gains would be minimal, or even that I should buy an i3 (?!). I hate to ask again, but: what kind of performance improvement might I expect moving from a 920 to a 4770, and is it worth it? Thanks!
 
Solution
Maybe a picture will help. :)

XbzUj9k.jpg


The two Devil's Canyon processors will become available on June 15th. Until then we won't have real-life benchmarks to compare, but you can extrapolate from their clock speed and price how much they will be faster.

I used the non-K processors to show the marginal difference in single-thread performance between the i5 and i7, without obscuring the overclocking performance of the K-series.

Hope this help.

TL;DR.

Wait for Devil's Canyon i5-4690 on June 25th.

Actually, it doesn't really matter Look at this table: http://www.cpubenchmark.net/singleThread.html

That shows the single-threaded performance numbers that was submitted from all processors tested with the Passmark software. For those processors that can be overclocked, overclocking results are mixed in with regular results.

Use that, pick your price point and go for it.

Just one caveat/. That $75 Pentium G3258 3rd from the top is the new Devil's Canyon - overclocked. :) But very good value for $75. :D
 
Here's the Tom's review of it: http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/pentium-g3258-overclocking-performance,3849.html

It's like those Honda Civics that drag race on Nitro. :)

Look very carefully at that chart. The i5-series for a given iteration performs very near the i7 for the same generation.

The chart does not yet seem to have any Devil's Canyon i5 benchmarks, but compare the performance of the previous versions of the Haswell i7 and i5. Do the same for Ivy Bridge and Sandy Bridge. If you detect a pattern, then it's likely that pattern will hold for Devil's Canyone which are just special binned Haswell chips anyway.
 
another option for you is to get the intel xeon e3-1230v3. it is in a sense the same as the i7-4770, except it is clocked 0.1ghz slower, and does not have a built in gpu..... it will not be able to support a monitor on its own - you would need to buy a graphics card if you dont already own one.

also, since the haswell refresh of the i7-4790 is clocked 0.2ghz higher than the 4770, but only costs about $10 more currently, it is much more attractive than the 4770.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Xeon E3-1230 V3 3.3GHz Quad-Core Processor ($249.98 @ SuperBiiz)
Video Card: MSI Radeon R7 250 2GB Video Card ($59.99 @ Newegg)
Total: $309.97
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available

or

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i7-4790 3.6GHz Quad-Core Processor ($303.98 @ SuperBiiz)
Total: $303.98
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available

with the xeon option, you get a much more powerful gpu capable of playing any modern game at 1080p. in battlefield 4 you can run medium settings and average about 45fps. basically not quite as powerful as an xbox one or ps4, but much more power than a 360/ps3.

if you dont need or are not interested in gaming, the 4790 might be the better option since it is clocked 0.3ghz higher and is going to give roughly 7-10% more performance than the 1230v3 all the way around in your highly threaded apps.

but if your not using high threads, more than 4 extreme performance threads, the i5-4690 would be almost $100 cheaper and is going to give you almost exactly the same single core single thread performance(also 2/3/4 thread performance) as the 4770/4790/1230v3

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i5-4690 3.5GHz Quad-Core Processor ($214.99 @ Amazon)
Total: $214.99
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available

safe to say, any one of these processors are going to give your a very huge jump in performance... to the point that it is almost laughable. hope this helps.... cheers!!!
 

W00dmann

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Jun 21, 2014
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Thanks guys, really appreciate the feedback. I can see that the 4790 is an easy pick above the 4770. Returning to my original question, I think what I'm hearing is that upgrading to the 4770 or 4790 is worth it, eg. I should see a significant performance boost over my 920. If you think otherwise, speak now or forever hold your peace! :)

What are these "devil's canyon" CPUs? Now I'm getting greedy ;) Sounds like even more performance is coming available.
 
Maybe a picture will help. :)

XbzUj9k.jpg


The two Devil's Canyon processors will become available on June 15th. Until then we won't have real-life benchmarks to compare, but you can extrapolate from their clock speed and price how much they will be faster.

I used the non-K processors to show the marginal difference in single-thread performance between the i5 and i7, without obscuring the overclocking performance of the K-series.

Hope this help.

TL;DR.

Wait for Devil's Canyon i5-4690 on June 25th.

 
Solution