Is the 4690K Good enough for 60FPS Gaming, or 4790K or Bust?

[poofyhairguy]

My G3258 was a fun chip, fun to play with at least, and I credit it for inspiring me to build my first Mini ITX rig. But I have gotten tired of even OCed dual core performance in many modern games, and I just recently bought an AMD 480 to hopefully be able to play more modern games on it. I also have a Z97 board with 8GB of RAM so I can use a real K chip.

Is the 4690k good enough for 1080p 60fps gaming the next few years or is it 4790K or bust? I look at the benchmarks and I see the 4690k beating my main rig's 2600k in a few games so it seems good enough for me, but the last couple of years it seems i7s are dominating overall. I can afford a 4690K pretty soon, but I would have to suffer for a few months to build up to a 4790K. Would it be worth it in a few years if I never upgrade the GPU?

Thank you in advance.

 

[LTC8K6]

If you want 8 threads, you can go with a Xeon such as a 1231-V3 and run it at 3.8ghz on your board. It's quite a bit cheaper than an i7 since it lacks an IGP.

 

[poofyhairguy]

Oh wow, I didn't even think of a Xeon. It can't OC though right? I kinda need at least 4GHz+ for Dolphin (the system's main purpose).

 

[daveybrat]

I'd just go with the 4690K. Easy to overclock and should easily hit 4GHz+ with an aftermarket cooler.

I won't be upgrading mine for a long time. Had it for 2 years now and still a workhorse. Of course the next upgrade will be a new GPU.

Also, if you have a Microcenter near you they are only $199.99

 

[SPBHM]

the price difference is hard to justify I think, specially if you OC both...

unless the rest of the PC is also very high end, in which case I think it would make sense, like if you have a 1080 or something... in some games it might be possible to notice the difference from HT.

 

[Majcric]

if you have to wait a few months and never upgrade the GPU might not be worth it. But otherwise Id say get the i7 4790k

Out of curiosity what GPU are you using?

 

[LTC8K6]

A 4790K will need a better cooler than what it comes with. It's barely even adequate for stock speeds.

 

[poofyhairguy]

Out of curiosity what GPU are you using?

This system will have a AMD 480 8GB (if I can flash my 4GB model to give me those last 4) by the end of the day.

 

[poofyhairguy]

A 4790K will need a better cooler than what it comes with. It's barely even adequate for stock speeds.

I have an old H60 water cooler that the G3258 currently uses that I expect to use with the new CPU.

 

[know of fence]

If you want 8 threads, you can go with a Xeon such as a 1231-V3 and run it at 3.8ghz on your board. It's quite a bit cheaper than an i7 since it lacks an IGP.

Wow the price difference is around 10-20 bucks, so Xeon with bigger cache and 8 threads is a much better choice, IMHO. Overclocking isn't all that great for games - just a waste of power and heat, it's mostly for system responsiveness. Unless you want 144 FPS at SVGA resolutions or something. You can still tweak the CPU without OC.

4690 is 3.5/3.9 GHz and still behind.

 

[DrMrLordX]

If you want the best minimum FPS possible, overclocking may help. Extra thread capacity thanks to HT may not help that much. It's really going to depend on a game-by-game basis.

Within the context of your platform, the best choice MIGHT be the i7-5675c (or i7-5775c, your choice) if your board can handle it properly. That has overclocking capability and that sweet sweet l4 eDRAM. Buuuuuuut many boards just don't support the chip very well.

 

[Zodiark1593]

If you want the best minimum FPS possible, overclocking may help. Extra thread capacity thanks to HT may not help that much. It's really going to depend on a game-by-game basis.

Within the context of your platform, the best choice MIGHT be the i7-5675c (or i7-5775c, your choice) if your board can handle it properly. That has overclocking capability and that sweet sweet l4 eDRAM. Buuuuuuut many boards just don't support the chip very well.

Clockspeed on Broadwell is also lower, so emulation might not perform as well as a highly clocked Haswell.

I'd go with the 4790K if you can squeeze the budget, otherwise, an OCd i5 will be a stellar performer in emulation, and still decently competent in more modern ventures.

 

[DrMrLordX]

But the l4 on Broadwell-C really does help. Sometimes stock i7-5775c beats stock i7-4790k in games which is ridiculous.

 

[gammaray]

if you want 60fps, i say dont worry about the 4690k and upgrade the video card instead. i am sure a 4690k will handle all games easily at 1080p, no bottleneck.