4790k vs 4790 vs 4590

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bishopsboy56

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Jun 18, 2014
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Hi there guys! I'm going to build a computer soonish and am tossing up between three different cpu/mobo options:
The 'basic' option: spend ~$340 on a i5 40950 and H97 motherboard
OR
spend an additional $120 on the i7 4790 (with the same mobo)
OR
spend an additional $300 (or $180 more than the i7) and get the i7 4790k, aftermarket cooler and Z97 mobo.
Just wondering what your thoughts on the matter are! I'm planning on using the computer for gaming and possibly a bit of CAD (I'm an engineering student). Is it worth getting the i7 and then possibly overclocking? How big a performance boost does overclocking give? (I could also go with the i5 4690k and OC...) I'm just a bit lost with all the different info :)
Thanks
Bishopsboy
 
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HEXiT

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if your doing cad at a serious level and not just playing with it, then your best bet would be a socket 2011 3930k 6 core.
if your main focus is playing games then any i5 quad core thats faster than 2.6 ghz is enough. so get the cheapest motherboard and cpu then put the money you save towards a better gpu.
im ot kidding my bro in-law got a 4440 and it handles everything he throws at it for gaming...
 
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bishopsboy56

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Yeah, I might just stick with the i5, put some of the money saved towards getting a r9 290x instead of the 290 and pocket the rest :) Is the hyperthreading in the i7 more useful for video editing rather than CAD then? I'm planning on spending about $1800 or so on the whole build, any graphics card recommendations?
 
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drill97

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Between the three CPUs you specified I would only choose the i7-4790K, but it's very expensive. I would also consider others, like the i5-4670K,the i5-4690K or the i7-4770K. They both allow you to overclock and run at really high clock speeds. If you plan on mostly gaming go for one of the i5, if you plan to do CAD go for one of the i7 or one with Socket 2011.

It mostly depends on your needs and budget. You don't need a really high-end CPU for gaming, but you do need it for CAD. Maybe if you could give an idea of what you plan to spend or what you can afford it would be easier to help you make a decision. ;)
 
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bishopsboy56

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I'm planning on spending about $1800 or so, the computer would be used more for gaming with a bit of CAD on the side for a uni project or two
 
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drill97

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With that budget I think you should definitely go for the i7 (4770K or 4790K). It won't make a huge difference now but it'll handle more stuff in the future. And it has the hyper-threading which the i5 doesn't. Hyper-threading makes a huge difference in stuff like 3D Rendering and it does make a significant improvement in playing 3D games aswell.

In conclusion, with that budget I would definitely consider the i7.
 
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bishopsboy56

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Ok thanks! I'll probably go with the 4790k then, because it gives best futureproofing plus bragging rights :) Any mobo in particular that you recommend? One that supports CrossFire would be good so i can get a second graphics card sometime in the next couple years when it starts to get a bit slow. What graphics card would you recommend with my budget?
 
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drill97

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With your budget I would go for the top GPU on the market for a reasonable price, if you want AMD for future Crossfire. Maybe the Gigabyte Radeon R9 290X, it costs about $500 on Amazon right now. If you think that's too expensive consider a Radeon R9 280X for about $300-$350.

About the motherboard, I'm not quite sure, it depends on what kind of features you want. I would go for one with a Z97 chipset but give me an idea of what kind of features you want on your Motherboard (number of SATA ports, PCI and PCI-E slots, USB 3.0, built-in Wireless Card or not, etc). You can also go for one of the a little bit older Z87, the difference is almost irrelevant.

List of possible Graphics Cards: http://goo.gl/72fBxg
List of possible Motherboards: http://goo.gl/5xiurR
 
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DubbleClick

DubbleClick

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Using the gigabyte z97x-sli (supports sli/crossfire) here. Was mainly a budged decision as it has fairly good overclocking performance for a great price. Other boards in the mid price segment that offer same performance used to be like 30-40$ more for a slight increase. So unless you plan on high overclocking (past ~4.7 +/- 100mhz) I can recommend it to you. DRAM voltage setting lacks a bit though (only 0.02v increase steps) and the auto setting for the processor is crap until you do a BIOS update to version F5. Voltage names might be a bit confusing too but you can find tutorials on those easily.
 
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drill97

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The R9 290 is great aswell (completely forgot about it). Good luck with everything, I hope everything works great.
 
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