Intel i7-4790K & i5-4690K in 2020: Benchmarks vs. Ryzen 3600, 9700K
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Date: 2020-05-06
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Comments and reviews: 10
Mikkel
I have built 3 i7-4790K workstations over the past two years, i started with a i7-4770K because the shop had that in stock and not the i7-4790K I wanted, but I cranked it to 4GHz no problem. Recently I have built a second dual E5-2690 (v1) on another ASUS Z9PE-D8 WS from eBay in France, it came with two E5-2640s which are now spares with one doing duty in a chinese X79 board I bought for testing out that niche platform. Turns out my duals are getting quite hot running with 3 140mm fans in a Phanteks Luxe white (v1) (with BOINC doing Rosetta on the CPUs and Einstein on two Palit GTX 1060 3G) And I have a plans for the 3rd Luxe I got. Once I realised that the Lxue v2 does not come in white I hoarded two of the v1s. I have a Sharkoon CA-M case using an ASUS Z97 Pro matx board and that seems fine. I love it when older technology becomes sort of affordable to acquire even if some of it can be expected to act up due to age and wear. I have a non working Z9PA-D16 in the basement. it got harder and harder to boot, one day it just put up errorcodes every time I tried and it went to the basement and I lucked into that second Z9PE-D8 WS. I have had two 1150 board s go bad. ASUS Z97-A just decided to not turn on one afternoon when I came home from work. And the replacement board rebooted when it wanted to and I chose to get the money back and get the ASRock Z97 OC Formula. It still works reasonably. I did get two more 1150 boards on eBay China, ASRock Z87 OC Formula and one of those stopped working after 4 months and is also in a box in the basement. I have a i7-4770K and 3 i7-4790K in boards that are right now working. But I don't know for how long I will be able to use this and Windows 7 Pro x64. I am not going for modern boards or Windows 10. I have tried a Gigabyte Z370 board with a i7-8700K and it currently does Rosetta on BOINC on Linux 24/7 (in the only Apple thing I ever bought - a G5 case with a Corsair SF450. Windows 7 did not like the board. At least I could not make that work. 4th gen is I think ideal for me. CPUs are under 100W, and they are easier to cool than the 115-130W E5-26xx family but they are also still decent for games, I am getting into Fortnite now and it runs just fine with onboard graphics.
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I have built 3 i7-4790K workstations over the past two years, i started with a i7-4770K because the shop had that in stock and not the i7-4790K I wanted, but I cranked it to 4GHz no problem. Recently I have built a second dual E5-2690 (v1) on another ASUS Z9PE-D8 WS from eBay in France, it came with two E5-2640s which are now spares with one doing duty in a chinese X79 board I bought for testing out that niche platform. Turns out my duals are getting quite hot running with 3 140mm fans in a Phanteks Luxe white (v1) (with BOINC doing Rosetta on the CPUs and Einstein on two Palit GTX 1060 3G) And I have a plans for the 3rd Luxe I got. Once I realised that the Lxue v2 does not come in white I hoarded two of the v1s. I have a Sharkoon CA-M case using an ASUS Z97 Pro matx board and that seems fine. I love it when older technology becomes sort of affordable to acquire even if some of it can be expected to act up due to age and wear. I have a non working Z9PA-D16 in the basement. it got harder and harder to boot, one day it just put up errorcodes every time I tried and it went to the basement and I lucked into that second Z9PE-D8 WS. I have had two 1150 board s go bad. ASUS Z97-A just decided to not turn on one afternoon when I came home from work. And the replacement board rebooted when it wanted to and I chose to get the money back and get the ASRock Z97 OC Formula. It still works reasonably. I did get two more 1150 boards on eBay China, ASRock Z87 OC Formula and one of those stopped working after 4 months and is also in a box in the basement. I have a i7-4770K and 3 i7-4790K in boards that are right now working. But I don't know for how long I will be able to use this and Windows 7 Pro x64. I am not going for modern boards or Windows 10. I have tried a Gigabyte Z370 board with a i7-8700K and it currently does Rosetta on BOINC on Linux 24/7 (in the only Apple thing I ever bought - a G5 case with a Corsair SF450. Windows 7 did not like the board. At least I could not make that work. 4th gen is I think ideal for me. CPUs are under 100W, and they are easier to cool than the 115-130W E5-26xx family but they are also still decent for games, I am getting into Fortnite now and it runs just fine with onboard graphics.
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Joey
Been rocking my 4790K since 2015. Still pushing my 2x 1080's for 1440P Gaming with no hic-ups. Upgrading has been so tempting with all the recent hardware releases, however for a mostly gaming computer, hardly seems worth it unless you spring for a R7 3700X or 9900K in which case you're talking about 700 give or take for maybe a 30 FPS with even less improvement on average lows & 1% lows. Looking at minimum and 1% low framerates, many of the games even at 1080p the 4790k isn't far off, and is at times faster with lows/1% lows then even something like the R7 3700X. While average framerates do fall behind, most all the time the 4790k and 4690K are well beyond the 60 FPS mark, and we're talking gaming after. So if you're a high refresh and FPS junkie, yeah, there is reason for upgrade. But it's funny how us PC MASTERRACE people soon forget that the majority of gamers are playing on 30-60 FPS consoles, and we rarely hear them complain. When it comes down to it, it does indeed depend on if your PC still lives up to your standards like Steve said. If not, 500-700 Upgrade path for 30 FPS it is. Hoping ZEN 4 will seal the deal for me, until then the o'l 4790K will just keep on crunching.
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Been rocking my 4790K since 2015. Still pushing my 2x 1080's for 1440P Gaming with no hic-ups. Upgrading has been so tempting with all the recent hardware releases, however for a mostly gaming computer, hardly seems worth it unless you spring for a R7 3700X or 9900K in which case you're talking about 700 give or take for maybe a 30 FPS with even less improvement on average lows & 1% lows. Looking at minimum and 1% low framerates, many of the games even at 1080p the 4790k isn't far off, and is at times faster with lows/1% lows then even something like the R7 3700X. While average framerates do fall behind, most all the time the 4790k and 4690K are well beyond the 60 FPS mark, and we're talking gaming after. So if you're a high refresh and FPS junkie, yeah, there is reason for upgrade. But it's funny how us PC MASTERRACE people soon forget that the majority of gamers are playing on 30-60 FPS consoles, and we rarely hear them complain. When it comes down to it, it does indeed depend on if your PC still lives up to your standards like Steve said. If not, 500-700 Upgrade path for 30 FPS it is. Hoping ZEN 4 will seal the deal for me, until then the o'l 4790K will just keep on crunching.
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DxCKnew
On 2017 I upgraded my 3770 machine to a binned and delided 7700K because I could not maintain 144fps in some games to keep up with my new back then 144hz monitor. FPS got better but I still could not maintain 144fps in some games, especially unoptimized ones from Ubi oft and such. Given the marginal improvement in this area overall, I came to a conclusion that there is no CPU exist that can satisfy my very simple requirement for 144fps, and so I decided it does not worth it to upgrade my system anytime soon. As of now there is still no CPU on the market which can maintain 144fps at all games, while games becomes more and more unoptimized given the powerful enough hardware makes most developers think it does no worth it to optimize beyond the previous decade 60fps standard on modern hardware.
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On 2017 I upgraded my 3770 machine to a binned and delided 7700K because I could not maintain 144fps in some games to keep up with my new back then 144hz monitor. FPS got better but I still could not maintain 144fps in some games, especially unoptimized ones from Ubi oft and such. Given the marginal improvement in this area overall, I came to a conclusion that there is no CPU exist that can satisfy my very simple requirement for 144fps, and so I decided it does not worth it to upgrade my system anytime soon. As of now there is still no CPU on the market which can maintain 144fps at all games, while games becomes more and more unoptimized given the powerful enough hardware makes most developers think it does no worth it to optimize beyond the previous decade 60fps standard on modern hardware.
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Metal
still running a 4790K with a 970. all stock settings. i play doom eternal now. runs butter smooth. guess i get around 80FPS or so. so i am fine with that. my resolution is 1080p 60hz. so for a 5 year old system it still runs perfectly fine for what i do. i wish handbrake was a little faster. but thats not that big of a deal. But i am thinking about to upgrade next year when the DDR 5 will be released and the new Zen CPUs. for now i am fine. the only games i play is overwatch and classic doom with mods. and now doom eternal. dont care for newer games because in my eyes they equally sucks anyway. bad optimization most of the time. even on higher spec systems. so no i am fine with what i do. so i can sit it out for a nother year. but next year i will upgrade for sure.
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still running a 4790K with a 970. all stock settings. i play doom eternal now. runs butter smooth. guess i get around 80FPS or so. so i am fine with that. my resolution is 1080p 60hz. so for a 5 year old system it still runs perfectly fine for what i do. i wish handbrake was a little faster. but thats not that big of a deal. But i am thinking about to upgrade next year when the DDR 5 will be released and the new Zen CPUs. for now i am fine. the only games i play is overwatch and classic doom with mods. and now doom eternal. dont care for newer games because in my eyes they equally sucks anyway. bad optimization most of the time. even on higher spec systems. so no i am fine with what i do. so i can sit it out for a nother year. but next year i will upgrade for sure.
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crowntotheundergroud
i just replaced my 4790k with a 9700k. I only got the 9700k because I was able to get it from Microcenter for 280 with the purchase of a motherboard. I just looked at the prices of the 4790k on ebay and you can still get rid of it for over 200? I was shocked. I'd consider having a processor who's value degrades that little being a plus. I can sell it + the mobo it came with and maybe the ram as well then it is as if I upgraded to a 9700k, faster ram, and nvme (and rgb lol) capabilities for about 150 (Altogether i paid 560 for the upgrade. I'm still trying to justify this purchase as the 3800x is more future proof.
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i just replaced my 4790k with a 9700k. I only got the 9700k because I was able to get it from Microcenter for 280 with the purchase of a motherboard. I just looked at the prices of the 4790k on ebay and you can still get rid of it for over 200? I was shocked. I'd consider having a processor who's value degrades that little being a plus. I can sell it + the mobo it came with and maybe the ram as well then it is as if I upgraded to a 9700k, faster ram, and nvme (and rgb lol) capabilities for about 150 (Altogether i paid 560 for the upgrade. I'm still trying to justify this purchase as the 3800x is more future proof.
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Karl
First of all, thanks for the comparison video. much needed. 2nd, thanks for losing the '4C/4T is dead' nonsense. It all depends on what you play and what refresh your monitor is at. I play a lot of sim games (DCS World, Steel Beasts, IL2, etc, and although I WANT to upgrade to a 3600, my 4670k 4. 5GHz is still plenty good enough on my 75Hz 1440p Freesync monitor playing games that are still based on single core performance. 75fps is fast enough. Unless you only play Assassin's Creed and/or twitchy console-ish FPS games like Fortnite at 144fps, upgrade your GPU first.
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First of all, thanks for the comparison video. much needed. 2nd, thanks for losing the '4C/4T is dead' nonsense. It all depends on what you play and what refresh your monitor is at. I play a lot of sim games (DCS World, Steel Beasts, IL2, etc, and although I WANT to upgrade to a 3600, my 4670k 4. 5GHz is still plenty good enough on my 75Hz 1440p Freesync monitor playing games that are still based on single core performance. 75fps is fast enough. Unless you only play Assassin's Creed and/or twitchy console-ish FPS games like Fortnite at 144fps, upgrade your GPU first.
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Mark
The 4790k is on par with a 2700X. The 2700X sells for 180 new. I'd say second hand the 4790k would be worth about 125. I wouldn't spend 125 to go from a 4690k to a 4790k though. That's a harder sell IMO and I can see upgrading from it being a 50-70 upgrade. But just because someone wants to upgrade from an i5 to an i7 in the same generation doesn't mean the i7 gets devalued in anyway. That would be like saying the i7 9700k is only worth 100 because I am upgrading from a 9600k. If anything, the path would be to sell the 4690k for about 75 and buy the 4790k for 125.
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The 4790k is on par with a 2700X. The 2700X sells for 180 new. I'd say second hand the 4790k would be worth about 125. I wouldn't spend 125 to go from a 4690k to a 4790k though. That's a harder sell IMO and I can see upgrading from it being a 50-70 upgrade. But just because someone wants to upgrade from an i5 to an i7 in the same generation doesn't mean the i7 gets devalued in anyway. That would be like saying the i7 9700k is only worth 100 because I am upgrading from a 9600k. If anything, the path would be to sell the 4690k for about 75 and buy the 4790k for 125.
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Carlos
I just upgrade my i5 4690k to a Ryzen 3600. the 4690k I had it overclock to 4. 4 MHz it can go up to 4. 6 MHz it did his job for almost 6 years I let him relax now it was a great cpu I never had any issues with it. it run any game that I use to trow in my Pc from all of call duty titles PUBG Battle Field ApeX Fornite anything. he is retired now. from gaming. now the 3600 Amd is the new kid in the block let s see how he will performance the next 5 years. and I pay for my 3600 159 in Microcenter. They have really good deals in the one in westbury NY Long Island.
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I just upgrade my i5 4690k to a Ryzen 3600. the 4690k I had it overclock to 4. 4 MHz it can go up to 4. 6 MHz it did his job for almost 6 years I let him relax now it was a great cpu I never had any issues with it. it run any game that I use to trow in my Pc from all of call duty titles PUBG Battle Field ApeX Fornite anything. he is retired now. from gaming. now the 3600 Amd is the new kid in the block let s see how he will performance the next 5 years. and I pay for my 3600 159 in Microcenter. They have really good deals in the one in westbury NY Long Island.
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Mandu
I have a 4790k and just went with a 3800x I found on sale. I still think the 4790k has a year or two left in it, especially if you overclock, but I wanted to upgrade some other parts anyway and I do a lot of other things on my computer a 3000 could really help out with. I typically forget about hardware inbetween my upgrades so it was a nice surprise to see that AMD is actually even a consideration this go around and AM4 looks promising. Last time I owned an AMD chip was an FX-8350. Now let's hope they can do the same thing to Nvidia.
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I have a 4790k and just went with a 3800x I found on sale. I still think the 4790k has a year or two left in it, especially if you overclock, but I wanted to upgrade some other parts anyway and I do a lot of other things on my computer a 3000 could really help out with. I typically forget about hardware inbetween my upgrades so it was a nice surprise to see that AMD is actually even a consideration this go around and AM4 looks promising. Last time I owned an AMD chip was an FX-8350. Now let's hope they can do the same thing to Nvidia.
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Jeff
I have an i7-4790 (non-K) with a GTX 1070. Using a more reasonable GPU would make for a better comparison in the should I upgrade? question. No one (if they have half a brain) who owns a Haswell is going to pair it with a RTX 2080 Ti. That's nuts. The real question for the average gamer is if you have a decent but not top of the line GPU like mine would you benefit enough from a CPU upgrade (such as an Ryzen 5 3600) to justify a completely new platform. This video didn't answer that. I doubt it would though.
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I have an i7-4790 (non-K) with a GTX 1070. Using a more reasonable GPU would make for a better comparison in the should I upgrade? question. No one (if they have half a brain) who owns a Haswell is going to pair it with a RTX 2080 Ti. That's nuts. The real question for the average gamer is if you have a decent but not top of the line GPU like mine would you benefit enough from a CPU upgrade (such as an Ryzen 5 3600) to justify a completely new platform. This video didn't answer that. I doubt it would though.
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