I recently upgraded from the 8350 that was clocked at 4.5 Ghz and a 990fx board to the i7-4790k with the Asus Sabertooth mark 1. So far I have not been pleased with the performance. I carried over pretty much everything else from my last build. Which looks like this:
CPU: I7-4790k stock
CPU Cooler: Antec kuhler 650 (temp till I can get a swiftech h240x)
MB: Asus sabertooth z97 mark1
Ram: 8 gb Gskill 1866 ram with xmp enabled
HDDs are Samsung 840 256 gb ssd, WD 1 TB green WD 4 TB green
GPU: SLI Strix 970's
Power supply: Corsair RM 1000 modular
Case: NXZT switch 810 with all the extra fans added
My main question is why is there barely a performance increase from my old 8350. Here is just two games I play that would benefit from the faster CPU
AMD
BF4 online: 165 average between all maps
BF4 test range: 200
WoW: 145 ultra preset
Intel
BF4 online: 170 average between all maps
BF4 Test range: 200
WoW: 157 ultra preset
I will say that I have no right to complain that I am getting really good fps. My problem lies with the point that I wasted $550 for very little gain. The other thing that bothers me is the load times are significantly greater on the I7 than with the 8350. Also, I play a lot of other games but I never took the time to look at what fps they were as they are smooth as butter. I am simply using those two games as my "test" for worthiness of an upgrade. If someone knows of something that will greatly improve my performance I am all ears as I purchased these items off the assumption (from the reviews on youtube) that there would be an exponential amount of growth in fps between the two. A prompt response would be greatly appreciated as I am about to contact Fry's to return this and either keep my 8350 going or go get the 5930k. Again thanks for reading and I hope you have a solution to my problem.
-Brent
edit: I should have added that I am gaming at 1080p and using Windows 7
The only time you see an improvement with intel in gamind is in cpu bound senarios, and even still in games like bf4 it isnt that drastic. You really only see the improvement in productivity areas.
Thanks for the quick response. Do you think that I should just take the 4790k back as it really isn't worth the upgrade yet? I don't really do anything other than gaming on my machine anyways. I was also thinking if I taking it back and getting the 9590 as that may have been a better choice for an upgrade from a money stand point. Obviously I need better cooling for either upgrade or to keep. But finding a swiftech h240x is hard right now.
well from those numbers there IS a performance benefit, what you have to take into consideration is, if the delta is large enough between being on an 8350 versus an 4790K that if it even matters or makes sense to upgrade.
in your case it doesn't matter and didn't make sense, your pulling FPS thats far-beyond what even makes sense to consider an Upgrade of your CPU. so basically you really just wasted money because you only saw about a 5 to 6 frames of Extra Performance. HOWEVER looking at your "Numbers" this does Show you that there is a Bottleneck in the AMD CPU, but its VERY Minor, and i say minor cause the performance difference is a few frames, and not 15 to 20 frames from each other which it can be bad depending on YOUR definition of Bad.
if you could get a refund I'd do it maybe just grab a good 4K monitor those are relatively cheap now. but if not stay with it cause you are on a New Platform and you'll be fine for a while, it really doesn't make sense to jump on the Broadwell train at all. the only time you should consider an upgrade again in the CPU side is when DDR4 Becomes the Norm in the Mainstream Platform.
Thanks for the response Kat. I was thinking along the same lines I just wanted to see if anyone felt the same way about it. I seemed to have posted my last response just before yours. What do you think about returning (if I can) and getting a 9590. I may still be more of a side grade but I am wanting to do so to get better gaming performance at 1440p or 1600p as I have been looking towards going that way or go with a 144 hz monitor. Either or really.
No point of getting a 9590. Just get an 8350 an OC the balls off of it. That is all a 9590 is- an OCed 8350. That being said not every 8350 can hit 5.0Ghz. So if you want the guarantee get the 9590.
For these kinds of CPUs 8350, 4790k, 9590, and so on; there is only a slight difference in games. they are minimum frame rates, and frame smoothness. There is no bottleneck CPU side therefore, almost everything has to do with your graphics cards. That being said you are getting a slight improvement from a i7 the problem is your gaming experience has not changed. you might be getting more consistent FPS and have a higher minimum FPS, but, that isn't worth any money at the level you are already at (>60FPS). You might notice a bigger difference at 4k gaming as I assume this is at 1080p. If it was my money, I would send that back right away; keep your AMD and your money. Use that saved $$$ to get a better monitor or just keep saving for when you actually need a new rig.
There is a Bottleneck, that is just fact, and his numbers are proving that. the REAL question is it Noticeable? and the answer is No. unless you like to stare at FPS Counters in Your Games. and compare it to Intel-Based Systems.
Thanks for all of the replies! I'm going to see if Fry's will let me return it and I guess I'll have to wait for something better. I just hate that I live five hours away from the nearest one >.>. I was really hoping for the best as I see the benchmarks everywhere for games that use this processor and I'm not satisfied with the performance gain with such a highly recommended processor. I am sure that it will blow my 8350 away with other uses but with mine being strictly gaming the upgrade doesn't seem worth it. Thanks again for all your input!
Glad to be of help! also the i7 4970k won't blow away a 8350 it is better no question, but, only by so much. When both are overclocked the real difference depending on the application is only around 30%. thing is in gaming and "normal" activities both are so fast the differences are not noticed. Productivity software is where Intel has made real progress over AMD, other then that you just won't care/notice any difference.
Also I would like to note I have had a 4770k, 8350, a 4970k, and will have a 9590 in a few days. So its not like I'm a fanboy or something silly, I have them all, and just don't see Intel's claims to better performance in games. bottom line CPU's are not the problem for gaming GPU's are.
i agree, There was indeed a bottleneck with the AMD system, otherwise you would not getting higher frames with the i7. That being said, if you indeed allready scores about 150fps then there was basicly not realy a point for upgrading. Still, i know fore sure, as soon as you going to play allot of multiplayer, then you will definitely gonne notice, and feel the diffrence between the amd and intel cpu. especialy in MMO´s with big combats.
Manny diehard MMO multiplayer gamers complain about the FX performance in theire games, big combats allot of fps drops in the minimums.
Yes I completely removed everything from my SSD and did a fresh install. I also did the proper installation of the video cards. Installed one then installed the drivers, rebooted with the second one with no SLI bridge for the computer to recognize it, lastly rebooted with the SLI bridge and enabled SLI mode. I started with windows 8.1 and moved back to windows 7. Windows 8.1 had about 6-10 more fps then windows 7.... but I decided to skip 8.1 and just wait for 10 :).
The smoothness is the same in most games except WoW. Every 10 mins or so the i7 gets hung up for like half a second. The loading times are also significantly longer on the I7, which is what initially made me want to ask on the forums. I thought that there might be something wrong with my setup. I made sure that my power supply and ram were compatible with the I7, which they were, as I thought the ram was the problem. I forgot that the cpu only recognized the ram as 1600 mhz and promptly enabled XMP profile 1. Enabling this didn't really make a difference though.
I do have a stupid question though. Is there anything that I need to do with the ram if it was in an AMD system before this? I pretty sure there isn't but I have had that ram since my Phenom x6 1090T was cool.
I thought I'd put my temps out there as well. Just to be sure that it isn't throttling because of temps.