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i7-4790K Devil's Canyon or i5-6600K 6M Skylake?

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Thinking about upgrading my gaming rig. Currently I'm quite happy with it but I wouldn't mind upgrading my HTPC with my current gaming rig's mobo, ram and cpu.

For the cpu I really don't want to spend more that $320 and the i7-4790k looks like a nice chip. Though Skylake's are hard to come by I could hold out for the i5-6600K but tbh I wonder if I will get more performance out of the older i7?

That also brings me to the memory. The i7 means I'll be sticking with DDR3 but DDR4 i hear is awesome paired with the skylake cpu.

What do you all think?
 
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The difference between DDR3 and DDR4 is negligible. I'd argue that the i7 would potentially last longer before requiring an upgrade overall, but for nothing but games, an i5 is all you really need. In your position, I'd buy whichever is the cheapest and most hassle free option, because both will perform similarly in games at least.
 
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i have a 6600K based rig, and also a 980 like you, it's a totally adequate pair for gaming (as RCoon mentioned)
a 4790K unless you really need the extra thread, not worth the overprice, where i am a 4690K is 279chf a 4790K is 379chf a 6600K is 289chf and a 6700K is 479chf (ridiculous overprice on the 6700K ... :laugh: )

and DDR3 to DDR4 a little comparative indication : DDR3 1600 C9 is equal to DDR4 2133 C15 (yep DDR4 is a ... stepdown due to the timings ... :D, at last under 2666) mainly why i did take a DDR4 2800 C14 kit. (also the DDR4 price is similar to the DDR3 now where i live)

and older i7 ... come on .... the Haswell Devil's Canyon are not old ... i would still have my 4690K and laugh to Skylaker if i didn't got a bad luck strike :laugh:

also i did read a article which in gaming positioned the 6600K 6700K on top of the chart for gaming, pictures processing and even CPU dependent games

Photo processing:
1. 5960X
2. 6700K
3. 6600K
4. 5775C
5. FX-9590
6. 5820K

Games (Batman AO, BF hardline)
1. 6700K
2. 6600K
3. 5960X
4. 5820K
5. FX-9590
6. 4820K

Games (TW Rome II CoH2)
1. 5960X
2. 6700K
3. 5930K
4. 6600K
5. 5820K
6. 5775C
7. 4960X

funny enough a 4670K or a 4770K is located around the 13th and 8th place respectively

ofc the chart from that press is situation dependent i guess, but the 6600K is a great bang for bucks in the end
 
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6600K when OC is slightly better than 4790K OC in single thread.
4790K OC is better in multi thread.
I will choose 6600K in game that is single thread bound such as ARMA 3 , DayZ , Cities Skylines , Total War Series , Skyrim.
Choose 4790K for general AAA title like BF4 , GTA V , Witcher 3 and newer games.
 
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4790k is a beast, my suggest is to buy it !
 
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6600K when OC is slightly better than 4790K OC in single thread.
4790K OC is better in multi thread.
I will choose 6600K in game that is single thread bound such as ARMA 3 , DayZ , Cities Skylines , Total War Series , Skyrim.
Choose 4790K for general AAA title like BF4 , GTA V , Witcher 3 and newer games.
albeit the fact that even in BF4 TWIII (didn't test GTA V) a quad is enough or equal in performances (+/-1-2fps) to a quad + HT (tested between a 4790K and a 4690K )
 
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you could buy another 980 card and go sli.. and leave the rest alone.. he he..

that is what i would do..

trog
 
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you could buy another 980 card and go sli.. and leave the rest alone.. he he..

that is what i would do..

trog
except that it would cost more than what he has in mind ... :p
 
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i vote for the 4790K, you can get motherboards for it very cheap, bought a h97 and h81 itx on amazon for 70 bucks. dunno why i bought em but hey cheap parts ftw, lol.
 
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I'd say 4790K for ..less hassles.
IMO ddr4 sucks...so far..
If you buy used you can save a lot..probably already have ddr3..
I've sold 2 1150 mobos lately for $90 and $130 respectively.
They were nice, too.
 
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except that it would cost more than what he has in mind ... :p

true but the performance gain would be well worth the relative small extra money.. there wont be much "gaming" gain with anything else..

but failing that i would go for the 4790K.. :)

trog
 
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Benchmark Scores Faster than yours... I'd bet on it. :)
you could buy another 980 card and go sli.. and leave the rest alone.. he he..

that is what i would do..

trog
@ 1080p... brilliant advice...:shadedshu:



Personally, I say get the best you can afford. If you are only gaming, I would go skylake and 6600K. With a budget that supports it, I do not see a point in getting Haswell.
 
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true but the performance gain would be well worth the relative small extra money.. there wont be much "gaming" gain with anything else..

but failing that i would go for the 4790K.. :)

trog
that... is when SLI work as intended ... and above 1600p preferably :D
@ 1080p... brilliant advice...:shadedshu:



Personally, I say get the best you can afford. If you are only gaming, I would go skylake and 6600K. With a budget that supports it, I do not see a point in getting Haswell.
and that ...
 
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@ 1080p... brilliant advice...:shadedshu:



Personally, I say get the best you can afford. If you are only gaming, I would go skylake and 6600K. With a budget that supports it, I do not see a point in getting Haswell.

if the OP is only gaming at 1080 his system is perfectly okay as it is.. he he

i assume he just wants to spend some money on an "upgrade" and one that will show some real "immediate" performance gains.. i simply suggested the one i thought was the best method of getting a real upgrade.. also he isnt fixed at 1080 for ever..

tis a hard thing though.. choosing the best way to spend a limited amount of money.. the OP is kind of stuck in a no-mans lands with a budget that isnt really large enough to go the whole hog..

trog

ps.. sli works okay.. its only folks that dont run it that imply that it dosnt.. he he
 
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Benchmark Scores Faster than yours... I'd bet on it. :)
hehe.. check those things before posting. hehe

Who knows what he will go up to. But buying a GPU now for 1080p with no mention of an upgrade is a waste of his cash IMO.

SLI and CFx have their moments of terrible. I have used both and went back to a single card to save the hassle (2560x1440 for the record). Unless one runs multiple monitors, or uses 4K there isn't remotely a need for SLI/CFx. I will always steer people away from it, especially people that don't know what they are doing as it it isn't a 'set it and forget it' type of thing.
 
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if the OP is only gaming at 1080 his system is perfectly okay as it is.. he he

i assume he just wants to spend some money on an "upgrade" and one that will show some real "immediate" performance gains.. i simply suggested the what i thought was the best method of getting a real upgrade.. also he isnt fixed at 1080 for ever..

tis a hard thing though.. choosing the best way to spend a limited amount of money.. the OP is kind of stuck in a no-mans lands..

trog

ps.. sli works okay.. its only folks that dont run it that imply that it dosnt.. he he
except there is no "real" performance gain in SLI (well ok ... when it works ...) the logical step up would be a 980Ti and no SLI profile hassle :p
i know ... SLI is good, SLI is life ... (i will tell that to my GTX 580 Matrix Platinum SLI who was the last one i used before going single gpu, with some re attempt at SLI and CFX from time to time, only to go back to "one" higher tier GPU )

and even a single 980 can drive a lot of games up to 1600p (unless you go into pointless 4K dream ofc )

ok to the OP
best option for gaming a cheap but good Z170 mobo a set of 8 or 16gb DDR 4 (2666 C14 ideally or above, i got my 4x4 2800 C14 for 150chf) and a 6600K
best option for allround and some encoding if needed a cheap but good H97/Z97 mobo, re using your DDR3 and a 4790K

if only gaming in majority and probably some encoding (who knows) a 6600K is also sufficient, lots of charts put the 6600K not so far from a 4790K in those task

hehe.. check those things before posting. hehe

Who knows what he will go up to. But buying a GPU now for 1080p with no mention of an upgrade is a waste of his cash IMO.

SLI and CFx have their moments of terrible. I have used both and went back to a single card to save the hassle (2560x1440 for the record). Unless one runs multiple monitors, or uses 4K there isn't remotely a need for SLI/CFx. I will always steer people away from it, especially people that don't know what they are doing as it it isn't a 'set it and forget it' type of thing.
see ... not only people who don't use it agree ... (me include ... :p )
 
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What's with this "he he" thing?

Anyway, for gaming, I don't see the need for HT. So, Skylake 6600k if I were in his shoes.

However, if his system spec is current and correct, I don't see the need for upgrade just for gaming. I mean the guy has 980 already and the CPU is decent enough. I'd hold out for one more gen.
 

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Well I went from a 2600K to a 4790K quite recently and okay I got an 1K in 3D Mark but outside of that I haven't seen any huge gains in games.
 

peche

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Benchmark Scores well I've fried a 775' P4 12 years ago, that counts?
Thinking about upgrading my gaming rig. Currently I'm quite happy with it but I wouldn't mind upgrading my HTPC with my current gaming rig's mobo, ram and cpu.

For the cpu I really don't want to spend more that $320 and the i7-4790k looks like a nice chip. Though Skylake's are hard to come by I could hold out for the i5-6600K but tbh I wonder if I will get more performance out of the older i7?

That also brings me to the memory. The i7 means I'll be sticking with DDR3 but DDR4 i hear is awesome paired with the skylake cpu.

What do you all think?
that righ can last 1 year and a half more lad... no need to replace.. get 5.0ghz on that i5 and then if posible add 8Gb ram, because the entire system is fine!


Regards,
 

cdawall

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6600K and you may as well go DDR4. Price difference is negligible.
 
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Well since this thread is doing exactly what I would have done... it begs the question, do any of us Sandybridge owners NEED to upgrade? I've seen various reports of up to 20fps across the board in modern titles gained on CPU/mobo alone (Skylake, maybe Haswell). That's odd to me. Only when there is a large architecture change do we expect any thing remotely close to that kind of gain from a CPU - especially at higher resolution where programs are GPU bound.

I definitely don't want to go DDR4. The cost makes it really unattractive. I don't mind buying used, though fell really behind in my knowledge, with all the different Intel chips floating around.
 
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Benchmark Scores Faster than yours... I'd bet on it. :)
1. DDR4 pricing is not bad at all compared to DDR3.. check out newegg. ;)
2. It was deemed 'worth it' by Anantech that SB owners on down will see appreciable gains. There are 4 generations there... Sandybridge, Ivybridge, Broadwell, and Skylake. ;)
 
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Benchmark Scores FFXIV ARR Benchmark 12,883 on i7 2600k 15,098 on AM5 7600x
1. DDR4 pricing is not bad at all compared to DDR3.. check out newegg. ;)
2. It was deemed 'worth it' by Anantech that SB owners on down will see appreciable gains. There are 4 generations there... Sandybridge, Ivybridge, Broadwell, and Skylake. ;)

Is it fair to say that it will be down to 4790 vs 6600/6700?
 
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Thanks for the replies guys!

1. I suppose I wasnt very clear before. My current rig in 'system specs' plays every single game I want at Ultra levels (and some tweaking) with solid performance. I don't need to upgrade it.

2. My HTPC on the other hand is pretty old now (specs listed in my first post) and I want to upgrade it. So I thought instead of just upgrading the HTPC, maybe I should upgrade my game rig and pull the old bits out and put into my HTPC! Now two PC's get an update. :)

3. As for money.... The $320 I listed in my original post was what I wanted to spend towards the new CPU. I have more money to spend on a mobo and memory. Total budget for those three parts I would like to keep around $700 or less BUT I can spend more. I actually allocated around $950 for this but bought a R9 280X yesterday for $153 to go into my HTPC.

4. I use my gaming rig mainly for gaming, lots of it, and music/videos. My current cpu seems to handle everything I throw at it just fine. It's my HTPC that really needs an upgrade but I figure if I'm buying new kit I may as well upgrade the gaming pc (which I built back in 2012) and toss my old kit into my even older htpc.

I think the 6600K would be a great cpu and it costs less than the 4790K so that would be cool. I think maybe I will build two systems off these CPU's on newegg and see which one would ultimately be cheaper.
 
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