Architecturally, Core i7-4790K is the same as its predecessor. If you want to know more about Haswell, check out The Core i7-4770K Review: Haswell Is Faster; Desktop Enthusiasts Yawn.
Really, our purpose today is comparing the previous flagship to Intel’s most recent effort. With that in mind, I ran both CPUs in stock and peak-overclocked form through the newest build of our benchmark suite.
| Test Hardware | |
|---|---|
| Processors | Intel Core i7-4790K (Haswell) 4.0 GHz (40 * 100 MHz), LGA 1150, 8 MB Shared L3, Hyper-Threading enabled, Turbo Boost enabled, Power-savings enabled |
| Intel Core i7-4770K (Haswell) 3.5 GHz (35 * 100 MHz), LGA 1150, 8 MB Shared L3, Hyper-Threading enabled, Turbo Boost enabled, Power-savings enabled | |
| Motherboard | MSI Z97 Gaming 7 (LGA 1150) Intel Z97 Express, BIOS 1.3 |
| Memory | G.Skill 16 GB (4 x 4 GB) DDR3-1600, F3-12800CL9Q2-32GBZL @ DDR3-1600 at 1.5 V |
| Hard Drive | Samsung 840 Pro 256 GB, SATA 6 Gb/s |
| Graphics | Nvidia GeForce GTX Titan 6 GB |
| Power Supply | Corsair AX860i, 80 PLUS Platinum, 860 W |
| Heat Sink | Noctua NH-U12S, Fan set to 100% duty cycle |
| System Software And Drivers | |
| Operating System | Windows 8 Professional x64 |
| DirectX | DirectX 11 |
| Graphics Driver | Nvidia GeForce Release 337.88 |
Obviously, the overclocks on both processors represent a limited look into what you might get in the wild. What I can say, though, is our Core i7-4770K is a retail-purchased processor that I snagged from Newegg (and not the press sample we were using previously, which hit 4.7 GHz). It better represents what many of our readers report: using strong air cooling and 1.275 V, four cores are stable at 4.2 GHz, with more lightly-threaded workloads running up to 4.5 GHz. It’s hard to apply significantly more voltage and not run into thermal issues, so we tend toward settings that (ideally) won’t do as much damage to the CPU over time.
My Core i7-4790K is a press sample. Nevertheless, it’s not an outrageous overclocker. I was able to get it up to 4.6 GHz across all four cores using 1.31 V, with single-threaded tasks jumping up to 4.8 GHz. In this case, it appears possible to apply higher voltages to dial in a more stable/higher overclock. However, we’re still apprehensive about going much higher than 1.3 V on Intel’s 22 nm process.

All tests are run on MSI's Z97 Gaming 7 motherboard running the latest 1.3 firmware. We populated all four of its memory slots with 4 GB modules, dropped in a GeForce GTX Titan graphics card, and hooked up Samsung's 840 Pro SSD.
| Benchmark Configuration | |
|---|---|
| Adobe Creative Suite | |
| Adobe After Effects CC | Version 12.0.0.404 x64: Create Video which includes three Streams, 210 Frames, Render Multiple Frames Simultaneosly |
| Adobe Photoshop CC | Version 14.0 x64: Filter 15.7 MB TIF Image: Radial Blur, Shape Blur, Median, Polar Coordinates |
| Adobe Premeire Pro CC | Version 7.0.0, 6.61 GB MXF Project to H.264 to H.264 Blu-ray, Output 1920x1080, Maximum Quality |
| Audio/Video Encoding | |
| iTunes | Version 11.0.4.4 x64: Audio CD (Terminator II SE), 53 minutes, default AAC format |
| LAME MP3 | Version 3.98.3: Audio CD "Terminator II SE", 53 min, convert WAV to MP3 audio format, Command: -b 160 --nores (160 Kb/s) |
| HandBrake CLI | Version: 0.9.9: Video from Canon EOS 7D (1920x1080, 25 FPS) 1 Minutes 22 Seconds Audio: PCM-S16, 48,000 Hz, Two-Channel, to Video: AVC1 Audio: AAC (High Profile) |
| TotalCode Studio 2.5 | Version: 2.5.0.10677: MPEG-2 to H.264, MainConcept H.264/AVC Codec, 28 sec HDTV 1920x1080 (MPEG-2), Audio: MPEG-2 (44.1 kHz, 2 Channel, 16-Bit, 224 Kb/s), Codec: H.264 Pro, Mode: PAL 50i (25 FPS), Profile: H.264 BD HDMV |
| Productivity | |
| ABBYY FineReader | Version 11.0.102.583: Read PDF save to Doc, Source: Political Economy (J. Broadhurst 1842) 111 Pages |
| Adobe Acrobat XI | Version 11.0.0: Print PDF from 115 Page PowerPoint, 128-bit RC4 Encryption |
| Autodesk 3ds Max 2012 and 2013 | Version 14.0 x64: Space Flyby Mentalray, 248 Frames, 1440x1080 |
| Blender | Version: 2.68a, Cycles Engine, Syntax blender -b thg.blend -f 1, 1920x1080, 8x Anti-Aliasing, Render THG.blend frame 1 |
| Visual Studio 2010 | Version 10.0, Compile Google Chrome, Scripted |
| File Compression | |
| WinZip | Version 18.0 Pro: THG-Workload (1.3 GB) to ZIP, command line switches "-a -ez -p -r" |
| WinRAR | Version 5.0: THG-Workload (1.3 GB) to RAR, command line switches "winrar a -r -m3" |
| 7-Zip | Version 9.30 Alpha: THG-Workload (1.3 GB) to .7z, command line switches "a -t7z -r -m0=LZMA2 -mx=5" |
| Synthetic Benchmarks and Settings | |
| 3DMark 11 | Version: 1.0.5 |
| PCMark 8 | Version: 2.0, Creative (Conventional) |
- Intel Core i7-4790K: Devil's Canyon Is For Enthusiasts
- Overclocking Core i7-4790K And TIM Performance
- How We Tested Core i7-4790K
- Results: Synthetics
- Results: Content Creation
- Results: Adobe CC
- Results: Productivity And Media Encoding
- Results: Compression Apps
- Results: Power Consumption
- Core i7-4790K Adds Enthusiast Appeal To Haswell
bring back solder intel.
I built my PC at the end of last year, beginning of this one and went with a i7-4930k. I really wanted a six core processor and have not been disappointed. I have been itching to build another PC because it was really fun to put the plan of components together and although my hands were to big and my medical conditions prevented me from getting to do a lot of the building, my wife helped a lot with that part and it was nice to see the finished product in action. With that being said, I don't have a lot of money for anything right now and hope that my disability pay finally comes through so I can start picking together parts for a computer for my wife. She won't need anything as powerful as I have, and the i7-4790k sounds pretty sweet.
On a side note, this website annoys me. I click to add comment and the default fields are for signing up, no logging in, and when I do, I am back to the homepage. Great.
bring back solder intel.
Second problem: Why is Tom's using 1.275 V for 4200MHz on both units? Is that actually 1.275v with LLC disabled or is LLC on a setting resulting in the lowest load voltage? If one of those units need 1.275v to be stable at 4200 you have a real donkey sample on your hands. Even the worst i7-4770k are stable at 1.20v @ 4200. Or was the over voltage designed to test an unrealistic incompetent situation to either emphasize or DE-emphasize the TIM difference?
Voltage wall is still at the approximate same place. Heat is still the limiting factor. I expect some of the better binned 4670K will hit equal or better than the 4690K.
I'll stay with my 3570K @ 4.3ghz - this clearly isn't much of a step up. Looks like I'm waiting for a DDR4 system in a couple years.
Not impressed.
My interest lies in, will the devils canyon i5 4690k be able to hit the same clocks and temperatures as the i7 4790k at the same voltages, or for the i7 is there just a more extensive binning process or something of the sort? Your comment at the beginning of the article when discussing these realistic and sustainable overclocks really hit home in relation to this.
Second problem: Why is Tom's using 1.275 V for 4200MHz on both units? Is that actually 1.275v with LLC disabled or is LLC on a setting resulting in the lowest load voltage? If one of those units need 1.275v to be stable at 4200 you have a real donkey sample on your hands. Even the worst i7-4770k are stable at 1.20v @ 4200. Or was the over voltage designed to test an unrealistic incompetent situation to either emphasize or DE-emphasize the TIM difference?
The point of running both CPUs at the same voltage and the same clock rate is measuring the difference of the TIM. For the rest of the tests, each chip is pushed as fast as it'll go, stably.
The FX-8350 at stock was roughly the same time as the i7-3770K in your 3DSM fly-by render ...
So why would you go out of your way to compare Devil's Canyon to the A10-7850K ??
Still, even though the performance is another step faster than AMD, for my purposes the cost is still a bit high. Still, I'd love to see what it can do at 5.0 GHz.