Name: Results: Content Creation - Core i7-4790K Review: Devil&#039;s Canyon Tantalizes Enthusiasts
Author: Chris Angelini

Core i7-4790K Review: Devil's Canyon Tantalizes Enthusiasts

by Chris Angelini June 10, 2014 at 3:00 AM

Results: Content Creation

It's difficult to get a sense of scale from four comparison points. However, if we were to add, say, AMD's Kaveri-based A10-7850K to the chart, you'd see a workload completion time in 3ds Max 2012 of 3:46. That's 1:45 longer than a stock Core i7-4790K. In the context of our battle between Haswell-based processors, though, the biggest benefit again comes from overclocking the stock Core i7-4770K. Of course, a stock 4790K is just a bit quicker, and applying some extra clock rate to the new CPU helps even more.

For the sake of comparison, a Core i7-4790K, overclocked, is almost as fast as a Core i7-3930K at its default clock rate in this well-threaded application.

Expect steady improvements as you step from Core i7-4770K at its factory frequencies to the same CPU overclocked to a Core i7-4790K. Blender easily taxes all four cores on both processors, so the overclocked chips are operating at 4.2 and 4.4 GHz, respectively.

Vegas Pro 12 is set up to exploit our GeForce GTX Titan through OpenCL. Despite the fact that we're offloading some of the host processing workload, CPU performance does still matter, as only some of the rendering process is accelerated.

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neon neophyte 3 years ago

so one of their biggest selling points ended up resulting in a 6 degree difference.

bring back solder intel.
roymustang 3 years ago

It would've been nice to show benchmarks and temps vs sandy bridge (2600K) at same frequency to help us gauge the progress (or the lack of) that's been made in the last three and a half years.

Other Comments

NBSN 3 years ago

Really nice read. I am very excited to see how well the i7-4790k performed, and that means in 2-3 years the CPUs that will be out are going to be amazing. It will be nice to start seeing stock clocked 4 GHz to 4.5 GHz Intel CPUs to better keep up with the AMD overclocking that many builders do. I prefer Intel and really feel that they offer the best performance for their CPUs.

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.
smeezekitty 3 years ago

4GHz base clock on an intel chip wowie
dark_wizzie 3 years ago

The average overclock based upon my Google Doc of about 185 overclocks now averages at 4.55ghz for Haswell. A tim change isn't going to gain an extra 200mhz and even then, it's being generous.

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.
roymustang 3 years ago

It would've been nice to show benchmarks and temps vs sandy bridge (2600K) at same frequency to help us gauge the progress (or the lack of) that's been made in the last three and a half years.
neon neophyte 3 years ago

so one of their biggest selling points ended up resulting in a 6 degree difference.

bring back solder intel.
tomfreak 3 years ago

Seriously u should bench it against the old Hex core like 990X, 3930K, 4930K.
Amdlova 3 years ago

nice improve please where i put my razor? no way 6ºc improve. my ambient temp hits 45ºc my old 3770k 4.6ghz hit 88ºc on core. with this "new shinning old tech" i can't hit the 4.2ghz. intel miss and miss Hard!
NBSN 3 years ago

I think that the whole real point of releasing this new processor and the others to follow it is simple. Intel wants to offer a better stock clock for those that do not want to or do not know how to overclock their processor. And since AMD allows easier overclocking, or at least a whole lot more processors that can be overclocked than the ones that Intel specifies for their own products. This will help a lot of consumers decide Intel over AMD if they continue to offer comparative clocks.
ssdpro 3 years ago

First problem: 6C between the old and new TIM is something, but not much. As one of the big improvement features, that is disappointing.

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?
Adroid 3 years ago

Sorry, but I'm entirely unimpressed. Improved TIM is a waste of time. I thought this was going to release with fluxless solder. 6° worth the wait ? 6° is the difference between air cooling and water cooling.

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.
RealBloodyMess 3 years ago

In the comparison chart vs the 4770k on page 1, it lists the stock Turbo boost clock for the 4790k @ 4.4Ghz. Why then are you limiting it to 4.2? Seems unfair not to let us see what it's capable of even in stock form!
cknobman 3 years ago

This is about as exciting as watching grass grow.

Not impressed.
dwatterworth 3 years ago

I'd be more interested in the i5 - 4690K overclocking ability than the i7 - 4790K. As a freelance 3d artist in the architecture and engineering field, I'm constantly running renders/animations that go for multiple days. With a very limited hardware investment budget, an unlocked i5 at the same clocks as an unlocked i7 will run ~15% slower or so once all translations etc are complete, yet the i5 costs ~30% less than the i7.

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.
anthony8989 3 years ago

"You might call the Core i7-4790K Haswell’s Super Saiyan form." - You've just become my new hero.
cangelini 3 years ago

Quote:

First problem: 6C between the old and new TIM is something, but not much. As one of the big improvement features, that is disappointing.

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.
dvanburen 3 years ago

So where is the variant with 4GHz base clock, without the 'K' modifier, and with vt-d?
Wisecracker 3 years ago

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 ??
maddogfargo 3 years ago

Another few percent faster than the 4770 but at the same price, 6c cooler, and 4.4GHz turbo out of the box. I anticipate some nice OC results with this one.

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.
loki1944 3 years ago

Having jumped from an i7 960 to a 4770K for gaming (both had a GTX 780), and seen pretty much no performance improvement across the board between the 2 (960@4.1Ghz and 4770K@4.2Ghz), I definitely can't buy into this, these are minuscule performance increases overall from my personal experience.
babernet_1 3 years ago

Why on Earth the Noctua NH-U12S? A good cooler, but not the best. They are leaving MHz on the floor! Something is fishy, I think Toms' and Intel are at war.