Worth upgrading to a 4790k from a 2500k?

Been considering this for awhile and it seems like the 2500k is still doing ok but its starting to show its age a bit, is it worth it at this time to upgrade being that broadwell wont make any big leaps and skylake wont be out for another year or more? If i do this im going to buy some new ram and just swap my 780ti in to the new board.

Mainly looking at this for Rome 2 and other strategy games as thats were i'll see the benefit the most but i imagine id see a decent leap in other games too. Any advice welcome, thanks guys

If you don't edit anything I'd say grab i5 4690 or 4690K if you're going to OC, Don't get i7 mainly for gaming.

Not much of a difference in performance. Wait Until Skylake.

This is coming from someone who owns an i7 4770k.

Not really. If you want an i7 just try and grab a cheap 2600k.

You're better off waiting.

I just built a 4790K system for someone and it didn't feel much different then 2600k or 3770k.

Heck if you wait long enough DX12 supported games will make your CPU last even longer.

what age?

when overclocked it easily matches all the rest of the cpu because it runs so cool. You can overclock a i5-2500k to 5 ghz on air. While the ivy's and haswells are a bit better clock for clock they'll never go that high because they're hot potatoes (especially haswell)

The only problem you have is pci 3.0 but you need 4 gtx 680 to really see a difference (like 5 percent)

If you want more performance you have to go to the extreme boards. You won't find it with mainstream cpu's or it is you don't want to overclock at all. Even an 4.5 ghz overclock will give you some more performance and even maxed out overclocks with haswell or ivy won't give you much more perfomance because they won't be stable anymore above 4.5 ghz on average. They're still faster clock for clock though but not enough to be worth an upgrade because you can match it when you overclock the i5-2500 higher.

You want more performance, get an 6 or 8-core cpu from intel. The i7-5820 is only about 400$ right now, the motherboards are at least 200$ though.

I'v been reading as far as games go the 4790k is still better right now, most games dont take advantage of those extra 2 cores yet and benefit more from the extra speed of the 4790k. Also i get what most of you are saying in terms of waiting because of there being little difference in GPU bound games but for CPU bound games like Civ 5, the upcoming beyond earth, Gal Civ 3, and Total War the difference will be much more noticeable. So from that point of view is it still not worth the upgrade?

The only speed difference can come from the hyperthreading on the i7 (or it is you can have a very nice overclock on that haswell). But that won't be much since pc games will always benefit from extra cpu speed instead of extra threads. Once the core is maxed out , the hyperthreading won't do much. More cores however will give you more performance, if the game supports it. This benchmark only shows sandy bridges but it shows you the difference between i7 and i5. As you can see the stock i7-2600 is the same as the stock i5-2500.

While the i7 3970x does show some extra performance on stock settings, when overclocked the gap becomes really significant. So there are games that really use those extra cores.

As for difference in speed. The i5-2500k overclocked comes very close to the i5-4690k and i7-4790k in the following benchmark. However the i5-4690k and i7-4790k have one of the best overclocks here, while the 5 ghz on the i5-2500k is not the best. They tested a couple of cpu's and 4.7 was more normal than 4.8 on the haswell cpu. A 5.2 ghz overclock on the i5-2500k would have give a better comparison and the performance would be , like i said, almost the same.

You can also see here that there's hardly any difference between i7 and i5 and while the 6 core i7-3960x falls a bit behind. Do know that this is a sandy bridge that doesn't have such a high overclock. Shogun 2 is an older game than rome II and probably doesn't support more than 4 cores so the i7-3960x at lower clock speeds has lower performance here.

So, there's a chance the upcoming games will support more than 4 cores, you can wait out the benchmarks and then see if you upgrade to an i7-5820k but an upgrade from the i5-2500k to the i7-4790k seems pretty much useless to me, or it is you don't want to overclock at all. Do know that an 4.5 ghz overclock on a sandy is a breeze. If you want very high overclocks you'll be in the realm of change voltages, baseclocks and a lot of testing.

The sandy will always be a safer bet when overclocking because of it's thermals. You'll be confronted with the scorching temperatures of the haswells pretty fast. The intel cpu's have thermal protection but when you start overclocking the haswell they get hot so fast that they'll fry your system before the thermal protection kicks in, if you have a cooling failure of course. On a very high overclock with the sandy you could have the same problems, but with a normal overclock the sandy could be the difference between life and death when a cooling failure happens.

Do know that the i7-5820k is the same architecture as the haswell (devil) series. So it will have the same clock for clock advantage but it will have the same thermals too (they're hot potatoes) but at 400$ that cpu is a steal.

@evildead6789 said:

@dudy80 said:

@evildead6789 said:

@dudy80 said:

Been considering this for awhile and it seems like the 2500k is still doing ok but its starting to show its age a bit, is it worth it at this time to upgrade being that broadwell wont make any big leaps and skylake wont be out for another year or more? If i do this im going to buy some new ram and just swap my 780ti in to the new board.

Mainly looking at this for Rome 2 and other strategy games as thats were i'll see the benefit the most but i imagine id see a decent leap in other games too. Any advice welcome, thanks guys

what age?

when overclocked it easily matches all the rest of the cpu because it runs so cool. You can overclock a i5-2500k to 5 ghz on air. Why the ivy's and haswells are a bit better clock for clock they'll never go that high because they're hot potatoes (especially haswell)

The only problem you have is pci 3.0 but you need 4 gtx 680 to really see a difference (like 5 percent)

If you want more performance you have to go to the extreme boards. You won't find it with mainstream cpu's or it is you don't want to overclock at all. Even an 4.5 ghz overclock will give you some more performance and even maxed out overclocks with haswell or ivy won't give you much more.

You want more performance, get an 6 or 8-core cpu from intel. The i7-5820 is only about 400$ right now, the motherboards are at least 200$ though.

I'v been reading as far as games go the 4790k is still better right now, most games dont take advantage of those extra 2 cores yet and benefit more from the extra speed of the 4790k. Also i get what most of you are saying in terms of waiting because of there being little difference in GPU bound games but for CPU bound games like Civ 5, the upcoming beyond earth, Gal Civ 3, and Total War the difference will be much more noticeable. So from that point of view is it still not worth the upgrade?

The only speed difference can come from the hyperthreading on the i7 (or it is you can have a very nice overclock on that haswell). But that won't be much since pc games will always benefit from extra cpu speed instead of extra threads. Once the core is maxed out , the hyperthreading won't do much. More cores however will give you more performance, if the game supports it. This benchmark only shows sandy bridges but it shows you the difference between i7 and i5. As you can see the stock i7-2600 is the same as the stock i5-2500.

While the i7 3970x does show some extra performance on stock settings, when overclocked the gap becomes really significant. So there are games that really use those extra cores.

As for difference in speed. The i5-2500k overclocked comes very close to the i5-4690k and i7-4790k in the following benchmark. However the i5-4690k and i7-4790k have one of the best overclocks here, while the 5 ghz on the i5-2500k is not the best. They tested a couple of cpu's and 4.7 was more normal than 4.8 on the haswell cpu. A 5.2 ghz overclock on the i5-2500k would have give a better comparison and the performance would be , like i said, almost the same.

You can also see here that there's hardly any difference between i7 and i5 and while the 6 core i7-3960x falls a bit behind. Do know that this is a sandy bridge that doesn't have such a high overclock. Shogun 2 is an older game than rome II and probably doesn't support more than 4 cores.

So, there's a chance the upcoming games will support more than 4 cores, you can wait out the benchmarks and then see if you upgrade to an i7-5820k but an upgrade from the i5-2500k to the i7-4790k seems pretty much useless to me, or it is you don't want to overclock at all.

Do know that the i7-5820k is the same architecture as the haswell (devil) series. So it will have the same clock for clock advantage but it will have the same thermals too (they're hot potatoes) but at 400$ that cpu is a steal.

Thing is id have to sped about 200 bucks more because of the crazy DDR4 prices, and from my point of view by the time most games do start making use of 6 cores (most dont make use of 4 yet) DDR4 will be cheaper and there will be other options out there.

That's not really true is it, for a 100$ you already have ddr4 2x4 gb. Ddr3 is not much cheaper.

and total war II is already making use of more cores, if the game will need more cpu power , it will do just that. You will pay more for your motherboard , but you'll have a lot of pci lanes as well and a good mother for haswell overclocking will not be much cheaper anyway.

You'll pay more of course , but upgrading to mainstream haswell is pretty much useless. Don't forget you can sell your current system as well.

Thinking about the 5820k, i guess its only around 150 bucks more or so... Would i be ok going with this and this for the ram and Mobo? Im stretching my budget a bit as it is so its about as much as i want to spend. Also dumb question here but i'v been using the same PSU since 2008, it was a good one, a Antec SG-850 and its still truckin fine, will it be compatible? Thanks for the help.

Ram: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231791

Mobo: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813130796

Which I would argue is a complete waste of money if you already have a I5 2500k, and your just going to use it for gaming.. Inless your doing some kind of extreme gaming, absolute waste of money.. Bottom line, inless money is not a obstacle, there is no reason for you to upgrade from a 2500k inless you must play at extremely high resolutions with everything cranked on everything..

Its not just about performance, i like to upgrade ever few years, its a hobby like anything else.

This RAM and mobo are really good choices.

The PSU should be fine, you will just have the sleep states disabled. Which are useless to most enthusiast people...

Just check if you got 8pin (or 2x4pin) CPU power connector.

Yea, i know i have the 8 pin connector, my current board uses it. Thanks, think im going to take the plunge.

It's useful if you want to add 50% to your physics score on firestrike.

So all said and done i spent way more then i planned to, actually went with a Gigabyte motherboard and Corsair ram as i liked the look of the board more and i figure if i get a little faster ram now down the road atleast i can reuse it, plus the bundle discount was nice. I suppose thats the one positive thing about going with DDR4 is that it will be around for quite awhile.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboDealDetails.aspx?ItemList=Combo.1870850

Then i had to get a cpu cooler cus i hate stock coolers so i went with this...

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835608045

And i also decided to get new case fans as some of mine are getting rough... Got 6 of these to throw in my Antec 1200. Will be neat to see it red instead of blue.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00F6S0XJO/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

And the 5820k on top of all that obviously, looking forward to messing with this stuff, thanks for the help and i'll try and post some pictures when i get it put together later this week. One nice thing is i'll be good for quite awhile now, dont see me having to upgrade again until towards the end of the generation or if i just get the itch again in a few years. Its still overkill but i like messing with new hardware.

yeah that's all good, but you're paying too much for that ram though. Faster ram speeds won't give you more performance in games. It wil be better for overclocking probably , but i would be carefull with that brand new system.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dWgzA2C61z4

As someone else mentioned the sleep states won't be compatible. I would prefer a new psu with a brand new system though, you never know, and corsair builds are just better

@evildead6789: Hmm i actually got ram that was even more expensive then that on the thought that faster would be better atleaset down the road.... I linked it in the post before yours, i may have messed up there. And as far as the PSU goes i kinda want to change it but dont know if i can afford a good PSU on top of all of this, out of curiously what would you recommend, though im considering using the one i have for a few months then swapping it out.

As said about performance; no. The mobo upgrade neither really.

That's even better, though more expensive combo. I was about to tell you to about the Gigabyte X99-UD4 which is the best value for Core i7-5820K, cause it can do 3-way SLI at x8/x8/x8/x4. But I thought you wanted a more budget build.

Actually i7-5820K + Gigabyte X99-UD4 + 3x GTX970 is a cheap way to make a monsterpiece of gaming PC (your PSU can't support it though...).

I already have a 780ti so i dont really want to think about buying a new card right now haha, i plan to keep a eye out for a deal on a second one here as there beiing phased out though at 1080p im not too worried about it as a single 780ti is already overkill on most things.

Yeah 780ti is overkill indeed. Till the next Crysis or Metro anyway... Or Witcher who knows? ...

And you bought all these just to play 1 single game on max performance?

EDIT: as I said before, if you only game and not edit or anything alike you're good with any i5:

Yea, The Witcher looks like it will push hardware.

Im still able to change my order so im wondering if i should go with a cheaper ram looking around it seems it is sorta pointless to go with a higher speed ram. Anyone recommend me a decent set of 16gig DDR4? I really know jack about ram timings and frequency.

G.SKILL Ripjaws 4 series 16GB (4 x 4GB) 288-Pin DDR4 SDRAM DDR4 2400 (PC4-19200) $259^.99

DDR4 prices are sky rocketed atm. This is the cheapest I could find with heatsink... And available...

@Coseniath: Thats what i figured, thanks

@PredatorRules: Its not just for Total War, i'll see benifits in other games as well and i dont disagree its overkill and overpriced but i also like messing with new hardware and i get the itch to upgrade every few years. I wasen't planning on going 6 core but i talked mysself into it because im in the mood to build a kickass pc and i enjoy it.

Also looking for recommendations on a psu, may get a new one while im at it.

IMO what you should've done is sell that 780ti, get 2x 970 and brand new PSU - that would've given you WAY more fps.

And since you're worried about bottleneck an i5 4690K as well =)

@PredatorRules: Like i said before why bother with SLI 970's when i have a single 780ti and only run games at 1080p? Im not a huge fan of dual gpu setupus anyways as it depends too much on drivers and games supporting it.

you can stay with your current psu if you reall need too but an corsair rm 650 will do an excellent job.

You can save money by only buying 2X4 gb ram. You can add more ram later, i can never imagine you will need more than 16 gb in the next 5 years.

That gigabyte motherboard will be good but i would really go for that msi, it will be more durable and easier to use.

Don't look at the pci lanes all extreme boards have 4 pci-e slots with a bare minimum of more than mainstream boards.

Most games support now SLI, 2014 - aside that - future proof and more raw power incase of crappy ports.

Like some already said, wait for future skylake cpus and see how they are... your current 2500k is pretty solid still for most games. So few will gain much from a 4790k to justify the cost.

I have a 2600k @ 4.6ghz and also a 4700k @ 4.5ghz, the speed difference is nearly nothing between the two. video compressions barely faster on the 4700 and games even less... maybe 5% faster in games on the 4700k. fact is, i could overclock my 2600k to 5.0ghz if i got a bigger water cooler on it, while on my 4700k i am max out on it, unless i was stupid enough to risk delidding it and maybe hoping i could cool it better after that, but not gonna since 4.5ghz seems to be far more then enough clocks for any games i run into.

So its up to you whether 5-10% speed increase is worth spending money on brand new motherboard and cpu.

Also look at those benchmarks that were posted, you are only gaining a few fps more when matched with a cpu at stock speeds.

Your lucky....my i7 4770k is so hot that even with a Noctua NH-D14 it reaches 72C in Crysis 3 when it's only oced to 4.0ghz with 1.2v on the CPU.

Other games only get to 62 or the 50s. Only Crysis 3 got that high because it utilized hyperthreading.

I know I have the heatsink properly seated because the temps drop instantly when I stop playing a game.

If I wanted I know I could RMA the CPU and get a replacement from Intel because I know even for an i7 4770k mine runs hotter than most.

But it's still far away from the dangerous limit of 95c and I don't want to wait for a replacement CPU so I will just leave it as is for now.

I wouldnt waste time sending it back, if im doing video compression and all 8 threads are maxing out i'll hit high 70s at times, never a lockup and not a problem. I guess 72c at 4.0 ghz is warmer then mine would be at that clock speed? but i dunno, i think your doing alright.

I have my volts on my cpu at 1.315v for 4.5ghz. to hit 4.6 or anything higher i had to add a really huge amount more volts and the heat went crazy at that point. So for me 4.5ghz was the max i could hit without going into freaky 90-100c temps. No doubt the 3rd and 4th gen intel cpus don't quite overclock as high and reliable like those nice 2nd gen.

I'm using a Corsair H110 water cooler btw, cools to similar levels as your cooler does.

You need to drop the voltage. I made some tests and with the same speed (3,9GHz) 1.09v vs 1,15v. The difference was 7-8C!!!!

I am using a Raven 3 case with NH-U12S. So airflow is not a problem. Not to mention that I got an A/C for my room only (overkill...)...

Its not your problem only. Haswell runs hot near 1,2V and more...

I vote wait. 2500k is still an great cpu.

Can't drop my voltage.

I will get a blue screen if I do.

Tested with prime95 and I needed 1.2v when stress testing at 4.0ghz or it would blue screen.

Oh, then you have a really bad sample. I hear people reaching even 4,6Ghz stable at 1,2V...

Nah those are golden samples.

My sample is rather average.

That's very rare, most can't hit 4.6Ghz.

Mine needs 1.3v for 4.3Ghz.

I don't know. OC like this is all over the web. Well this is an overkill 4,7GHz with only 1,214V...

This is 4,2Ghz with only 1,09V. And this is 4,4Ghz with only 1,183V.

But mostly achieve around 4,5GHz. There are a lot bad samples too.

There are also a lot of people doing undevolting in order to reduce temps.

This one in this video has 3,9Ghz at 1.032V.

Motherboards also play a very important role. I use ROG mobo too.

Maybe it helps a lot in order to achieve better results...

I have been in a similar boat for quite some time. I too have the i5 2500k along side a 780ti and have been on the bleeding edge for some time now. Everyone says to wait for skylake. Fair enough, but what does skylake actually bring to the table as opposed to Haswell or Devils Canyon?

@Coseniath said:

@Postmortem123 said:

@Coseniath said:

@RyviusARC said:

Can't drop my voltage.

I will get a blue screen if I do.

Tested with prime95 and I needed 1.2v when stress testing at 4.0ghz or it would blue screen.

Oh, then you have a really bad sample. I hear people reaching even 4,6Ghz stable at 1,2V...

That's very rare, most can't hit 4.6Ghz.

Mine needs 1.3v for 4.3Ghz.

I don't know. OC like this is all over the web. Well this is an overkill 4,7GHz with only 1,214V...

This is 4,2Ghz with only 1,09V. And this is 4,4Ghz with only 1,183V.

But mostly achieve around 4,5GHz. There are a lot bad samples too.

There are also a lot of people doing undevolting in order to reduce temps.

This one in this video has 3,9Ghz at 1.032V.

Loading Video...

Motherboards also play a very important role. I use ROG mobo too.

Maybe it helps a lot in order to achieve better results...

You do know tens of thousands of people....even more have Haswell CPUs so reading a few posts online doesn't mean it's the norm.

To go beyond 4.2ghz most i7 CPUs needed 1.25v or higher.

Usually people who were even abled to hit above 4.6ghz had around 1.35v.

Sometimes going up 0.1ghz would require a substantial increase in voltage.

Edit...my whole long awesome post was deleted...thanks you stupid microcrap keyboard!!!!

Well, to sum it up. I also have a 2500K OCed to 4.3 on air. Planetside 2, battlefield 4 and other games like that run at 60fps with no issues with all the goodies maxed out. I run a 7970 Ghz edition and the the 2500K is not worth upgrading because you won't see more than a 5% increase in performance. I wonder if the GTX970 is a worthy upgrade?

Any opinions on the GTX970? Is it a worth an upgrade from a 7970 ghz edition?

Xa3phod