Gaming with the i7 4790 in 2023.

[@agrantd]

i had the 4790 matched with a 970 for the longest time. good times.

[@RandomGaminginHD]

Nice combo

[@CesconetoG]

I had the 4790k + 970, kept me gaming until 2021 when I got an ex miner's 1070. Iv since upgraded but my wife is still using the olg rig to play hogwarts legacy and witcher 3.

[@NathanOakley1980]

@@CesconetoGyeah, I had a 4790k and 980 Until recently. Loved it, very snappy.

[@rayers1000]

Still have this, the K version. It's a boss honestly. Not the top anymore but extremely solid along with the MSi 970.

[@Fox_Mulder350]

I started out in 2014 with an asrock extreme 3 z97 motherboard, 2x4gb 1600mhz ram from gskill, a i5-4460 and a GTX 970. About 2 years ago i upgraded to an i7-4790 and an additional 2x4gb 1600 mhz RAM. Last year i upgraded to an i7-4790k that i got cheap. And this year I finally got my dream graphics card the GTX 1080 Ti. My PC is in its final form lol. My PCs final specs are: Asrock extreme 3 z97 motherboard I7-4790K Gskill 16gb 4x4gb 1600mhz ram GTX 1080 Ti Edit: probably won't build another PC until Windows 11 becomes mandatory LOL. But right now all I play is modded Skyrim, modded Oblivion, modded Fallout New Vegas, Witcher 3 and a bunch of old games. The only thing that drove me to upgrade was modded Skyrim and well I had to get the GTX 1080 Ti. It was my dream graphics card after all

[@TR1PLE_6]

OMG, this was my previous CPU for the last 8 years! It came in a Dell XPS 8700 with a GTX 745 and 16GB (4x4) DDR3. It's been paired with a 970, 1070 and then a 3060 Ti. I made the jump to a R7 5700X and yes, the difference was immediately noticeable! Watch Dogs Legion went from 20-30 FPS at 1080p ultra to over 80 and Assassin's Creed Valhalla jumped from about 79 to 105!

[@Toothless69420]

i know how it is i still have my i7 4770 and shes holding back my gpu bad

[@savagesam205]

I had an XPS 8500. Was a reliable unit!

[@DualPerformance]

I'm doing a similar jump, from GTX 770 > 1660 Ti, currently using an I7 3770 oc 4.1, my plan is to avoid upgrade GPU, and buy first the cpu combo, and later a GPU, maybe a 3060, because the RTX 40 lineup is very dissapointing, I want to buy a 7600X

[@risen2663]

I had the same system until a month ago, I upgraded the 8700 from the stock gtx 745 to a gtx 1070. Now I have a r9 5900x and a 3070 in the brand new computer I built last month.

[@Wockes]

I had the same cpu for around 7 years. My only problem with it was how powerhungry it was

[@1letteraday]

People who bought this in 2014 are so lucky, what a CPU! I'm still using my i7 4790 for my Online Job. Im gonna use this until it dies lol. Almost decade of service.

[@Perissoto]

So nice to see a 4th gen i7 running modern games, I think that haswell has been aging much better than sandy and ivy bridge thanks to avx2

[@Trick-Framed]

Yep. Haswell is the new baseline for entry level PC gaming DUE to AVX2. I wouldn't recommend anything lower, not even for kids that want to play Minecraft.

[@Blox117]

Unless you "play" (I use the word loosely) starfield. Where the minimum is a 14900k overclocked with 10000mt ddr5 and 4090ti water-cooled edition

[@Blox117]

To be fair, no one wants to play garbage field

[@eniff2925]

​@@Blox117I have a 4670k and starfield plays fine. Most of the time of you are not in the cities cpu is at 40% utilization.

[@Blox117]

@@eniff2925 imagine paying for garbage

[@chimeron260]

the K variant was the first cpu that I bought for my first build. used it all the way up till 2020, it was a great chip, and I know it went from me to my brother to one of my brothers friends, so there's a chance it's still kicking somewhere. edit: I checked my order history and man, that 17-4790k cost me $330 in 2014. that i3-12300 is a pretty good value considering

[@xprogrunds2836]

im still rolling my i7-4790k / evga gtx 1070 superclocked and will run that atleast 2-3years more

[@AllAloneInUK]

Same here with an overclocked i7 3770 (4.2 all core boost) 32GB of RAM and rtx 2060 12gb. I game at 1440p so the cpu has a bit more breathing room, it will serve me until next gen of GPUs. If cryptocurrency madness hadn’t happened I would have upgraded my rig several times over 😅

[@jamegumb7298]

I started out at 486/DX2 for my first build. Been a while.

[@Xander_fps]

@@xprogrunds2836How long have you had it? Mines is about 6-7 years old.

[@EpicChemicalKid]

Using an i7 4790k w/ a 2060 and still holding up pretty well tbh

[@thatwilldopig]

I’m the same but non k with a 2060 & a 60hz 1080 monitor. She still surprises me, as I thought starfield would be the death of her but managing to get an enjoyable experience (outside of the population hubs)

[@dominicshortbow1828]

I acually used to run a i7-4790, 32gb ddr3 1600, and rtx 2060. though in some titles the cpu was holding me back. But I now upgraded to a Ryzen 7 7700x, 32gb ddr5 6000, and rtx 4070 and it was a fricken massive upgrade

[@hamzahcovers4893]

same here, just with a 3g 1060 😅

[@flyingunderwear]

At 1440p my old 4790k keeps up with a 3070 95% of the time.

[@justinpatterson5291]

I would have loved to see how my old 4770k rig handled a 2060. I bought the EVGA ITX version. Good card. But, I think my 2600X is holding it back. It won't hold a steady 75FPS.

[@Mystikk666]

Earlier this year I retired my well-used Xeon E3-1231v3 (which I understand to be essentially an i7-4770) and replaced it with a Ryzen 5 5600x. The Xeon had originally been paired with a GTX 960 (2GB), then a 1060 (6GB), and finally an RTX 2070 Super. The Xeon served me well even in _Cyberpunk 2077_ (the most recent currently installed game in my library).

[@another3997]

​@@argcades I've got one of the 1270 v3 chips in my main desktop. It cost very little from Ebay, and it blew the socks off the old, dual core i3 that it originally came with. My GPU isn't great, but it's fine for older games. The 11th gen i5 in my laptop is probably faster, but without adding an external GPU, it's not a great games machine either. 😁

[@bdhale34]

@@argcades4770 only has 100mhz higher boost than the 1231v3 same core count same thread count same base clock. The 1270v3 has a 100mhz higher base clock than the 4770 but equal boost clock. So it's a toss up which one is actually closer to the 4770. I always say the 1231 is pretty much on par with the 4770 or basically the same chip as other than the max boost clock every other spec lines up.

[@Numer1Polak]

Still running my 1230v3 with a gtx970. Serves me well since I dont play too many games anymore and dont care about graphics too much

[@Rockden]

​@@another3997I've got the exact same Xeon on my main rig, it does everything I need :)

[@drumyogi9281]

That is what I am still using. The E3 1231v3 that I purchased in in 2017, I believe. I was on a budget and I was upgrading my chip from some Intel dual core, I think a G325? I don’t remember but the Xeon has been great.

[@Mainstayjay]

My last 4790k Cpu died recently. I have owned 3 over the years. Rip to the Cpu that I have used the most. I may just buy another on Ebay and pop that into the motherboard and be back in business. My brother is still making do with a 4790k and Rx580 8gb rig, he wouldn't call it "making do" though became he absolutely loves that PC. I bought a 1080p Ips panel monitor for him last year. I really enjoy that he enjoys that old rig so much!

[@DualPerformance]

killed by overclocking? my I7 3770 has been with overclock since 2013, that's 9 years! with this system, got all ram slots filled and is pretty stable

[@Mainstayjay]

@@DualPerformance yea, long term OC killed it.

[@eniff2925]

What do you mean killed it? I am running 4670k overclocked at 1.37V for the last 5 years and it hasn't even degraded a bit.

[@Mainstayjay]

​@@eniff2925are you the Cpu OC investigator? Such a superior overclocker you are young padawan.

[@eniff2925]

@@Mainstayjay no I'm just genuinely interested in how you managed to kill it, for precaution

[@narwhal4304]

While I don't have a 4790, I do have a second PC with a 4770 with an Asus H87 board and RX 480 in an Asus prebuilt case that originally had an i5 650. I plan on giving it to my mom since she doesn't have a PC strong enough for gaming, but her fiance, my brother and I do. All that to say I'm not surprised, but am still happy a GPU upgrade wouldn't be a bad idea. Maybe not a 3060ti though, I would think more like an RX 5600XT.

[@capblack7367]

That will have MASSIVE CPU bottleneck

[@narwhal4304]

@@capblack7367 Would it? I assumed something around GTX 1070/1660 Super performance was the highest end the CPU could handle, but I didn't think it would be terribly noticeable.

[@peters.7428]

@@narwhal4304 I wouldn't go past GTX 1070 performance level GPU. maybe consider selling that build and for like 400$ you can get a build with r5 3600, a320 (maybe b450 if youre lucky), 16gb ddr4 3200 cl16 and GTX 1070, all used ofc, except SSD and PSU.

[@Drumonymus]

​@@capblack7367always depends on the resolution you're playing at. The bottleneck can almost always be shifted to the GPU.

[@narwhal4304]

@@peters.7428 I'm not worried about the platform too much mainly because my dad is gonna upgrade from his r5 2600 to either LGA 1700 or AM5, so I'll probably put the b450 board from his computer in this one and then just get a 3600.

[@suspeh]

Back in 2018 I was putting together the same combo, it was like the dream build for my budget, now in 2023 I feel nostalgic

[@Lostcontroller]

I've just upgraded to this a month ago and I'm really enjoying using this cpu paired with an rx 480.

[@agsechogd6406]

you should get the ryzen 5 3600 and a b450 motherboard for like £40 more and way faster performance

[@another3997]

​@@agsechogd6406That's assuming he has the money, that those parts are readily available, and the rest of his components are suitable. Because adding a new PSU and new RAM will push the price up.

[@vadnegru]

​@@agsechogd6406it's easy to look at the price of 2600 and wonder why people use older systems but in many cases the only thing that transferable is SSD, not even a case because the old one would just choke shiny new system.

[@agsechogd6406]

@@vadnegru that’s a good point tbf

[@cortezbaldur413]

​@@agsechogd6406also on the x79 platform u can buy a 10 core xeon that boosts to 3.6ghz not the highest fps u will see but a solid choice when u realise u can buy it for 40 bucks at worst and literally 20 pretty easily. Forgot the xeons name but it's a multitasking beast even now. 10 cores 20 threads.

[@years-fp7pp]

paired it with a 970 and still running strong since 2016

[@monolofiminimal]

I'm still using my i7-4790K@4.5GHz + gtx1070FE. If I can't get an upgrade anytime soon I might have to start making my own games lol - but we all know there's shitloads of great games that are more fun than most AAA games so I'm not too worried. Gigantic backlog too.

[@genx156]

By the time you get to Cyberpunk & StarField - they'll be patched so much they'll run nice on your PC 😂😂

[@Marco-cl9pb]

Still using a non overclocked 4790K and a 3060ti and I'm still happy with the combo even at 1440p, just need to be careful not to set rendered distance to max in some games, same with shadow quality

[@princekells2]

Just enjoy it, all this upgrades are competition and marketing strategies, game developers add sensors of generation CPU to game files to make people buy the CPUs, ask yourself why most old CPUs are expensive

[@argcades]

the k variant turbo's up to 4.4ghz on one core by default... if you set it to boost to all cores up to 4.4 with a semi decent cooler you should get a pretty good 10% up in performance compared to this video.

[@mryellow6918]

@@princekells2 ?

[@princekells2]

@@mryellow6918 is there anything that matters please?

[@Riga_Style]

You know, the higher the monitor resolution and settings, the less the load on the processors, which is logical because then the entire load falls on the video card 😊😊😊

[@desktopstu4145]

One of my gaming pcs, mostly used by some of my kids, uses an i7 4790K (not overclocked) with 16gb DDR3, GTX 980 and an m.2 500gb hd. It runs quiet, its powerful enough for their needs and I see no reason to change it.

[@goury]

You're loosing a lot of potential performance. Clock it to at least 4.8G. It's not overclocking for k-type cpu, it's just clocking. It's what they're made for. As long as you can keep it under 80°C, nothing bad will happen to it.

[@michubern1444]

​@@gourynot really worth it for the 5 fps more in 2023

[@goury]

@@sebastiaodeabreu7297 in this case it will not enjoy k-type cpu either

[@MrBluePoochyena]

@@michubern1444 I mean, just a switch to i5-4460 (3.4Ghz All Core turbo) to i5-4670K@4Ghz (atm because still using Intel stock until new cooler arrives) gave me a nice +15FPS in some games paired with a GTX 1070@1080P, though definitely will not be as big of an difference with the 4790K most likely already allcore boosting @4.4Ghz

[@michubern1444]

where do you live? sure a overclock helpes at that point yes@@MrBluePoochyena

[@judgewest2000]

I'm on the i4790K writing this message, right now. Original purchase back in 2015 and I am blown away I can still use this. It's my professional machine (software developer), my communication (google / teams), my plex server, and my gaming machine.

[@MetalJody1990]

I have this CPU paired with an RTX 3050. I think this combo is pretty well balanced. Great performance in almost every game I have. The biggest reason I would upgrade is to play PS3 games like Motorstorm and MGS3 at 60 fps.

[@diegoleiva7242]

That's about as powerful as I'd go on the GPU with that CPU, that's a great combo. I used to own a Ryzen 7 3750H which is more or less on par with the 4790 and with a GTX1650 I was mostly GPU bound in games, except for CP2077 which crushed both my CPU and GPU.

[@jonjohnson2844]

You’re still leaving a lot of FPS on the table without upgrading to even a newer budget cpu though

[@dallesamllhals9161]

@@diegoleiva7242 OH NOES! I've gotta RTX 2070 with a 1100t! HOW DARE I!??

[@howaboutsomesoyfood]

honestly if you have the budget you should go for something like an 11th gen i5 or similar Ryzen.

[@upfront2375]

@@jonjohnson2844 Yep, I had a 4460 back then and I read everywhere that I could get away with a 2060S at most, and no bottlenecks.. well my rx580 from mining rig and my friend's 1060 even bottlenecked it Lol a lot of false info online. I wouldn't go higher than a 1660ti or regular 2060 with even the K version! bcoz the core count and low cache is the main issue. You are 100% correct

[@mattparker9726]

4:52 and this is why having the ability to lock framerates is KEY in modern graphical options IMO. If you set Starfield to 30 fps capped, you'd probably never even notice it dipped.

[@markojovanovic9651]

You can do that in the driver you know? For amd you can atleast but I'm pretty sure there should be an option for nvidia too

[@atilioallen]

@@markojovanovic9651 with RivaTuner Statistics Server you can cap the fps in any game or the whole system

[@jordancox559]

I absolutely loved my 4790k. I still have my system with it and a 1650. Absolutely love to fire it up and try new games 😂 it's shocking how well it works half the time.

[@Mark-mu4pj]

Great video, it's always interesting to see how older GPUs handle current games.

[@wundyboy]

The rigs from those days really gave you a proper value as they are still running fine for daily tasks and light gaming... let's say with a 980ti or a 1070/80...😊

[@ypoora1]

4790k and a gtx 1080/ti has been a surprisingly good pairing in my experience. The 4690k i was using way back did NOT fair so well though. If you need to get my on the cheap the 4790k is a good option.

[@hairystyles4212]

1080ti still kicks ass, powerful card

[@smyth0109]

My first PC was an in i5 4460 & R9 390. Upgraded to an i7 4790 for a few years and it was a great combo

[@tibornemeth7991]

i have i7 4790nonk and r9 290x 4gb and 16 gb ddr3 1600mhz ram and 480gb ssd and win 20 bf1 on ultra settings fhd multiplayer is awesome!

[@tnbn55]

@@tibornemeth7991 Should of got the faster k. Works in any non-overclock board, and adds an extra kick ⚡to the gpu slot.

[@TiborSzarvas]

I just did the same upgrade from 4460 to 4790, I can feel the difference! Currently paired with an RX580 8GB and games run decently.

[@BrickTextures-hm1uy]

4460? First? How old are you? (0_o)

[@TiborSzarvas]

@@BrickTextures-hm1uy didn't even notice that :D you're not asking me, but i'd like to share that my family's first pc was a 486 which then we upgraded to pentium 2 then pentium 3 then a p4 celeron, etc etc. good times!

[@mommick]

I still have my 4790k it has been overclocked since 2015 oc was 4.7ghz also with 2400mhz ram it run most game just fine with my 5700xt

[@onlypvpcaterina-6669]

Try the last of us, a plagues tale requiem and uncharted 4 all on ultra and let me know how they work out 😉

[@gerbearneronero]

@@onlypvpcaterina-6669 What’s with the elitism?

[@onlypvpcaterina-6669]

@@gerbearneronero Nothing, Just when i had a 3820 quadcore 3.6 ghz i could run a plagues tale requiem pretty good in most areas, Same with uncharted 4 with a fix i could play it on unsupported chipset instructions vmx1 as it need vmx2, And the last of us was, Meh not good at all, I was ust being humours i meant nothing by it, Just with some games that will start to force us to upgrade, Like i have now, Time to get with the times i guess.

[@eniff2925]

Can I borrow it from you? I want to upgrade my 4670k

[@onlypvpcaterina-6669]

@@eniff2925 Haha lol, Sure, I have a ryzen 5 5700x now anyway 🤭

[@mr.random3943]

I have the Xeon E3-1231 v3 (which is basicly the 4790 without the igpu and clocked a bit lower) paired with an Rtx 2060 (r9 380x previously) and it served me well for many years, but I am thinking of upgrading soon, as it is quite a bottleneck for me these days. Also as a warning to people building PC's now ... if you want to upgrade your PC in the future, dont buy tech standards that are on the way out. I have to basically buy a completly new pc to upgrade, since this cpu and the 4790 were the last of the 1050 socket and a newer socket also means DDR 4 / 5 ram instead of my current DDR 3 ram.

[@vicm1010]

I owned a 4770K with Corsair Platinum 16GB 1600MHZ DDR3 Ram, Asus z87 Tuff Sabertooth motherboard and it is still going strong. It really has paid for itself and can still sustain some high end 1080P Gaming. I did delid the cpu and used Conductonaut liquid metal because temps were horrible. Overclocked it to 4.4 GHZ stable. Worth every penny I spent on the build. I sold it to a family member who is enjoying it now for streaming and gaming.

[@kazaku]

I Have the 4790k paired with a gtx 1070 and 24gigs of ram, still running pretty good These beasts can still give fine experience in modern games that released more than 8 years after them, which is really cool I might upgrade sometime in the future but since it can run pretty much everything, I can also wait better prices on the newer hardware

[@haaxxx9]

Besides the ram (16GB) I have nearly the exact same setup. I recently bought a entry lever gaming laptop with a 3050 that I added in 32GB DDR5 and 2TB of storage that put it close to a grand. Besides the VRAM limitations it’s a slightly better version of my aging desktop that I had for 8 years now. It still holds up well at 1080P high settings but it is start to show it’s age. Plus I am not too enthusiastic about new AAA games and the games I play usually is old or an indie game that most of the time runs very well. I’m happy for what I got now and don’t want to change anything about my current setup until it dies on me.

[@stanley3647]

Mine 4790k was very easy to overclock just by changing turbo frequency limits. If Your MB has this option in BIOS, it is a must :) Depends on CPU batch, results may vary but my chip run 4.4 (all cores), 4.5(3), 4.6(2) and 4.7 (single). This was archieved without any voltage change! Plus side of this o/c is: when CPU is on low usage, it slow down and stay cool.

[@syaondri]

Even MamaMio is surprised, thanks for the experience My i3 died after my cat dropped my PC from the table probably short-circuiting something along the way and I've been surviving on an old laptop Hopefully I'll be able to get one of these soon especially the K Version XD

[@kazaku]

​@@syaondri She could also make this face seing what happened to your pc ! If the rest of the build is fine and compatible with it, you should probably go with the K variant. It's the most powerfull of this plateform and it's getting pretty cheap right now (around 60/70€ in my country)

[@syaondri]

@@kazaku yea I can see that XD sadly I only see the very one seller on my city who had the k version, dunno if it'll still be on stock when I had the money, hopefully no one's aiming for it for the next month XD

[@bigdog95321]

It's actually insane. My buddy just texted me saying he's playing Starfield on a 4790 with a 1060 and wanted an upgrade. I'm just shocked it even runs.

[@elite_pencil]

The slightly older i5-3570k + 7970GHz edition GPU lasted until i got a R5 2600x and 2080ti. I was always scared of overclocking so i didn't do it until i had my upgrade parts at the house, and when i finally pushed the OC on the 3570k, it was a beast! I missed out on so much over the years by not just trying it. Live and learn :)

[@josejuanandrade4439]

Hope you've upgraded thAT 2600x. Thats quite a weak chip for a 2080ti. I know, i had it myself, and it was limiting the 6700xt i had in there for a bit so badly.

[@elite_pencil]

Oh ye, 4090 and 7700x now. The 2600x/2080ti was running a 3440x1440 screen and did fine, but i upgraded to a 5600x before the x3d's came out. That 6700xt is a good one, i love amd gpus. They age like wine with their driver sorcery

[@user-lp5wb2rb3v]

wow 4090? I wonder how much a 6800xt + 5800x3d would compare fps and price wise lol@@elite_pencil

[@Trick-Framed]

No no, they age like wine due to a lack of people programming the drivers. They aren't Nvidia. They do not have deep enough pockets yet @@elite_pencil However we will not see full performance out of the 6700 for a while. Why you ask? They are saving the best for last with the consoles. I noticed that AMD drivers gimp the 6700 in 4k (2160p). That being said, it will see the performance uplift in a driver update near the end of the console lifecycle that will see 4k running at acceptable and playable framerates. 4k 30 and 4k 60. It's a side effect of the 6700 tech being in the current consoles.

[@vadnegru]

​@@Trick-Framedyep, amd drivers is a mess. I tried to use PC without connected monitor and mouse/keyboard to play VR via virtual desktop and it just kept crashing for half and hour, not even letting me to remote into. After reboots it started to working fine.

[@ojajebiemamo]

Still using my 4790k, purchased in 2014, now paired with 3080ti. It does act as a bottleneck here and there, but overall it's a much more capable little CPU that i would've given it credit for.

[@michubern1444]

Thats just wrong man 😅 atleast in 4k?

[@ojajebiemamo]

@@michubern1444 1440p My previous gpu (980ti) died, needed something to replace it, and since I know I'm gonna need a new platform soon, I just got the 3080ti. I even managed to max it out in some games, but yeah, the old i7 and the ddr3 ram usually holds it back.

[@mixedmind7668]

my proud i7 4790 is handling rx 7600 pretty good ! All games ultra, starfiled high with fsr 2 fro 60 to 100+ fps in interiors. The CPU in most cases , for new games is working at 80% or above. There are games where the card is at 99%. It draws 180W on mac at default settings so it is great for my old Corsair HX650. I upgraded from RX 580 .. It is day and night difference. More than 100% fps on everything.@@michubern1444

[@DarkBowser64]

Didn't have a 4790/K but did have an i7-4770 until last year when I built a new PC with an R9 5900X, had the i7-4770 PC from around late 2017-mid 2022 (was a hand-me-down from a friend). It was still performing very well for basically everything I wanted it to do, just wanted more horsepower for more recent games and more leeway to boost settings if I wanted, as I was starting to feel limited. Haswell (4th gen) was an incredible generation in terms of performance and for ages not much in the way of huge CPU power boosts happened until Ryzen truly challenged Intel to squeeze more performance out, so the 4th gen chips with hyperthreading are still delivering surprisingly good performance for their almost decade-old age. You really can't go wrong with the 4th gen i7s today as long as you're getting them for a reasonably cheap price.

[@bean420man]

I just installed a 3080 in a system with my old 4690K @ 4.7 GHZ. You’re not the only madman out there. My main rig is a 5900X/7900 XTX combo though and it is nice, even with Starfield.

[@Trick-Framed]

I ran a GTX 1080 FE with an FX 8350 when the GTX 1080 came out. It actually allowed me to play in 4k as the processor was the bottleneck for everything else.

[@Fina1Ragnarok]

Man, the fact that the ol' 4790 can give you console like fps in a cpu intense area of Starfield is impressive imo.

[@null643]

For their age still great, using it for personal servers and it does its job well. Glad we went with intel back in the day and not AMD FX' CPU's.

[@Nicolo-ue9xu]

Yeah, when I have seen the console FPS I was thinking I was fucked and couldn't play starfield. But I basically do over 30 FPS almost all the time and in normal planet 50 and in closed area 80, so yeah this chip will have me covered for another year or two.

[@Ozzianman]

​@@null643 Same. 4770k and 1070ti is now used in my media server handling anything from ripping Blu-rays, compressing and serving them through Jellyfin, to hosting game servers for me and my buds.

[@vulgartrendkill]

I still have my 4770k with my 1060 6gb and it still stands up very well with older games.

[@AbatedFawn]

i7 4790k was my first cpu and didn't upgrade until I got a i9 9900k. It was AMAZING

[@RandomGaminginHD]

Nice upgrade. Really like the idea of getting one of those first i9s myself

[@AbatedFawn]

@@RandomGaminginHD I have a 13900k now, thanks to future me having a job lol

[@Cloud8504]

This takes me back! It feels like now I'm going to need to upgrade my CPU like 2 more times in the next decade, while my old i5 3570k ran games like a beast from 2012 until like 2018-2019. I paired 3 different GPUs with that thing over those years. First a hand me down ATI 4850, then my first GPU I purchased was an AMD HD 6950, and finally in 2015 I got a GTX 970 and that lasted me until my 3060 I have now!

[@quan-uo5ws]

Why would you need to upgrade? I just bought a pc with the I5 13400f and im not considering any upgrade for atleast 10 years, while the gpu (rtx 4060) is definetely getting replaced in 2-4 years.

[@Cloud8504]

Because I have a R5 5600 that's already OC'd and already getting pegged by games like Cyberpunk 2.0, which can't hold 60fps at 720p when driving through the city. Definitely CPU limited as my 3060 isn't even hitting 60% usage at that resolution. It's honestly fine for a majority of games at the moment, but there's a good amount of games out right now that are really pushing CPUs, and I'm not thinking that's going to improve much in the coming years

[@quan-uo5ws]

@@Cloud8504 well maybe if devs optimize their shitty games this stuff wouldnt happen.

[@NoFcknClu]

this is what im using with an rx580 and honestly it still holds up great

[@lagginswag]

Cousin has the xeon variant thats similar and hes happy, with an rx 580 8g special edition. I'd have told him to get a stronger or newer card tho. (Myself being an rx 480 8g user since 2018)

[@gandi69]

My brother in law ran a 4790k for a long time with a 1080ti but I can’t help but think now that 10th/11th gen i3/i5 and motherboard combos can be had for virtually the same money it’d be fool hardy to buy something of this age. I recently bought a barebones build with an i3 12100f with ram and but no storage for just under £120 used, absolute no brainer.

[@Boi-ud3dk]

Great video! Would be interesting to see an "ultimate ddr3 pc" :) If you have somewhere around good mobo with i7 4790k & overclock ddr3 2400mhz+ :)

[@greatwavefan397]

or the 5775c again

[@ItsMeLeo]

It would be pretty cool. But for the ultimate ddr3 machine he should use some rare z170 with ddr3 support and one 7700k. You could also mod those motherboard to support 8th and 9th gen cpus too.

[@Boi-ud3dk]

@@ItsMeLeo oh cool, thought support of ddr3 stopped on 2011 socket :)

[@ItsMeLeo]

@@Boi-ud3dk Some Z170 board support DDR3L but you can use normal DDR3 as well. The Asrock Z170 Gaming K4/D3 is one of them

[@Kvergetakis]

I hava an MSI z87 mpower paired with 4790k (4.8ghz delid) and (XMP) 2400mhz ram. I paired it with my old 6700xt. Its a beast. Im rendering arcades and console games on batocera at 4K resolution. Its my new HTPC and still my favorite gaming pc of all time.

[@asadhossain522]

Still using I7-3770k @4.40ghz with newly added RTX 4070(from evga gtx980ti). Planning to upgrade my cpu to I5-13600k or better near future.

[@dominicshortbow1828]

damn bet the 4070 is heavily being helt back by the 3770k

[@asadhossain522]

@@dominicshortbow1828 Yes true.

[@Eff_One]

I've got the 4790K paired with a GTX 1080 in one of my rigs. It still holds up well considering its age.

[@ThatBritishGuy]

Im still rockin a 3770 and it's still enjoyable for most of the games i play, crazy to think how long a CPU can last you before needing an upgrade.

[@Yerinjibbang]

niceee i got a 3770k too a good cpu goes a long way

[@astealoth]

I recently bought a 4770 and a bare bones Optiplex 7020 SFF. For this setup I also got a GT 1030 G5 LP, a 4x4gb LP DDR3 RAM kit, 2x 250gb SSDs, a SATA power splitter, an Xbox 360 for Windows wireless receiver, and 2 Xbox 360 controllers. It is currently hooked up to my living room TV with Halo MCC, Destiny 2, and GTA 5 installed on it. It's a fake Xbox 360 and it is glorious.

[@Deathdemon65]

One thing I would like to mention is that if you wanna go with modern graphics card but have this CPU go for Radeon GPUs since they have less driver overhead hence less load on the CPU eg a Rx 6600 will outperform the rtx 3060 with the same CPU

[@galmud1508]

This. Hardware Unboxed investigated this a while back and in cpu-bound scenarios AMD gpus generally perform much better. They did a few tests with a 4790k and some times a RX 580 even beat a RTX 3080.

[@HappyBeezerStudios]

@@galmud1508Really interests me what AMD have done to fix their driver overhead. Or what nVidia did to mess up theirs. I remember tests where the AMD cards gained a huge bump in performance when running Vulkan instead of DX11/OGL, up 40% in some games. Would be nice to see it tested with drivers of different vintage.

[@MrBluePoochyena]

@@HappyBeezerStudios Nvidia messed up by switching the scheduling from the GPU to the CPU. AMD still has dedicated scheduler hardware built into their GPU dies

[@HappyBeezerStudios]

@@MrBluePoochyena so using an older card with oder drivers fixes that? from when they had the smaller overhead?

[@MrBluePoochyena]

@@HappyBeezerStudios Not really. You'd be using something like Nvidia 9800GT or older for that

[@mattgavioli6762]

my old and beloved 4770K is currently running in my gf's rig, delidded and overclocked to 4.7 GHz. She's still playing not very often so i capped everything at 60 fps to not exceed the monitor refresh rate, and it's going strong af. I refuse to decommission it lol, Haswell really rules

[@KingRocket]

I still have my 4790k + GTX 1080 combo, I was supposed to pull it apart during my last upgrade but it's been such a solid performer I left it running and did a fresh build instead.

[@johna527]

Just bought a very similar 4790 and h81 combo myself - no idea why really, I i just love the value of Haswell right now. Mine was £44 though, so I beat you by £2 and I'm off to spend that £2 on Curly Wurlys

[@MMKnight_1]

Got an i7 4790k @4,6Ghz (delided with liquid metal), which I've had for a bit over 2 years. It is still decent enough for my gtx 1080. It definitively bottlenecks it in some games however, but since I don't play that much nowadays anyway, that is fine for me.

[@RandomGaminginHD]

Nice. I always wanted to delid a cpu

[@MMKnight_1]

@@RandomGaminginHD It is definitively very scary when you first pop the IHS off, but once you've had some time to look at the silicon it is quite fun actually.

[@twanheijkoop6753]

​@@RandomGaminginHDlga 1156 is probably the easiest way to try delidding. The ihs isnt soldered to the sillicon yet but is using standard paste. So they're easy to delid and easy to see cooling gains from.

[@MMKnight_1]

@@twanheijkoop6753 Correct me if Im wrong, but Im pretty sure Intel used solder in the 1st gen core series (1156), not thermal paste. From the 4th-8th gen they did however use thermal paste (probably also in 2nd-3rd, but Im not sure). All intel cpus from 9th gen are soldered.

[@birdbirdbird8576]

I like how you film the parts in their natural habitat. They are minerals, after all.

[@tylerlogsdon8623]

xeon e3 1230 v3 has no igpu but is basically the same chip. and costs almost half as much at least here in the states.

[@tylerlogsdon8623]

i run mine with a rx 6400 in a sff dell. not a terrible experience. rx 580 or a rx 5700xt are good pairings too.

[@tylerlogsdon8623]

you should look into similarly aged amd sempron and opteron chips. they are a decent value too if you can find a motherboard.

[@Scottjp]

my lovely I7-4790 with its GPU counterpart... RTX 3070 😭😭 ive been through around 4 GPUs but stuck with my CPU. With games i play and modern games being more gpu intensive it does the job quite well considering its almost 10 YEARS OLD! Anyone else been binge playing Starfield?

[@johnlg91]

Would be interesting to see how the i5 holds up and see how much of a difference does hyper threading does

[@nicekeyboardalan6972]

The i5 is complete trash these days

[@peters.7428]

I can't give exact numbers, but 4c 4t specced CPUs perform terrible in gaming. My i5 2500, i3 6100 (2c 4t, even more terrible) and now my R3 3200G perform really bad in games. So bad in fact that at medium high settings in fortnite DX12 i am CPU bound at 1440p, in battlefield games I am CPU bound to, and mostly every game i play. It is paired with a half dead RX 570 4GB that cant even hit P7 base and boost clocks either bcs of severe bottleneck or it dying, and it still is not at 100% most of the time. That is how bad it is.

[@nix123ism]

​@@peters.7428yep, I own lots of cpus and the min I would go for nowdays would be 10100f,12100f, 4c/8t cpus, they will drive a mid spec cpu fine but anything older, fewer cores, you are going to run into problems, the only cpu that surprised me was the i5 8600k which performs fine on most titles with 6c/6t ... Overclocked it performs pretty much like a 10400f etc

[@Drumonymus]

​@@nicekeyboardalan6972lol no something like the 4690k can still handle modern games if it is overclocked. But hyperthreading really helps the i7 ofc.

[@gargolgaming8101]

i run a 4590 and i can say that it aint bad but it aint good either

[@RydexTheWolf]

Had an 4790k and 2 970s in SLI as my first build in 2015, upgraded to a 2080ti in 2018, used that pc until last September 2023 playing games at 1440p. Just built my new pc, 14700k and the trusty 2080ti still going strong lol, just waiting to see the 50 series cards.

[@tomvandongen8075]

Shout out to Rich Leadbetter who I assume just received a notionally instant notification

[@CosmicDancer87]

LOL

[@xBruceLee88x]

Just grabbed one off ebay for about $55 usd, picked up 2 8gb JEDEC timed 1600mhz ddr3 and a couple of Kingston 240gb sata ssds to put in a Raid-0. It's for an OEM gateway with a B85 chipset. Gpu is an RX 560D 4GB

[@frenchtoastenjoyer]

Lmao I still use this cpu paired with 1080 ti.

[@MMKnight_1]

Same, but with a moderately overclocked 1080 instead =)

[@RandomGaminginHD]

Awesome combo

[@kingzilant]

I got one because of this for a cousin, works great with my rx580 Nitro! Thanks, cost me $200 for a full build!!!

[@Spark-pv9js]

Im first again

[@SanneBerkhuizen]

Hello fist again

[@Sintrania]

I was using i7-4790K until about when this video was released, was using it with 1080ti. What a combo both are overclocked to the brim running 4.9Ghz for cpu and 2Ghz for the 1080ti, it was a beast tbh. I did upgrade due to needing pcie gen 4 for m.2, but still using i7-4790k in my working PC.

[@Tmanstomp100]

Hats off to the old legend, CPU has lasted 10 years of gaming and still getting 60 fps in most titles, seeming like it's even more legendary than the Q6600 at this point, I still have the xeon version of the chip paired with a 3070, but I'll be getting a new cpu soon

[@alteans]

Im running it right now i7-4790/32gig ram/rx570shappire/xpg500gig-nvme(adata sx6000lnp). I ran older titles on a Gigabyte Z97x Gaming3 board, no overclock and she still runs snappy enough, but you can feel she's an old girl ..she is in service nearly 10 years now 😌. kind of a faithful server with 7 drives

[@Boemel]

I remember paying little over €400 for the K variant and it lasted a very long time paired with my 1080ti. Now rocking the 9900k and hope for many more years.

[@user-og1nu5pb8c]

What a big coincidence!! From my various gigs, I'm writing this comment with the one that has this boy inside. Still paired with the old GTX 980 Titan, Asus Z97pro wifi mobo, Samsung 850pro 1T, 32gigs of Geil RAM. Up until now NO problems whatsoever. My newest setup with a i9-13700k, 64 gigs of RAM, Gigabyte RTX 3080Ti, ROG Strix Z790-A Wifi, 2T Samsung nvme SSD, 1000W Coolermaster PSU altogether didn't even cost half the money than that old one...

[@Trick-Framed]

This is my daughter's current rig. i7 4790, 16GB DDR3 1600 CL9, 120GB SSD and 1TB HDD, Zotac GTX 1060 6GB. It runs great. Going to upgrade her to an i5-12400/32GB system soon.

[@iamsoldats]

Those AVX2 instructions from Haswell on make a world of difference in modern gaming. The jump from Ivy Bridge to Haswell is now enormous compared to the jump a decade ago.

[@HappyBeezerStudios]

Now I wish the games where I need that CPU performance would use AVX2. Makes me really want to grab one of the Haswell i7 just to see how much (or how little) the difference is.

[@farazsworkshop]

I still use my i7 4770 as my second computer. It's still solid but might do with a upgraded cooler for more CPU intensive titles of today.

[@THU31]

I used to have a Haswell Xeon on a B85 motherboard. 4C/8T at 3.5 GHz. Very good and efficient CPU, but it often struggled with 60 FPS, because most games preferred higher clock speeds over hyper threading. But it served me well for 4.5 years before I moved to an 8700K in 2018, which was a huge upgrade for my GTX 1080.

[@princekells2]

Clock speed doesn't really matters most, game developers add sensors to the game files of a generation of CPUs they recommend to let the generation of the game goes higher, making people buy that generation CPUs for marketing strategy

[@oktc68]

I'd love to see you do a "Max performance for best possible price" video using parts realistically available using whatever GPU you think is best VF£ atm. Nice to see life in these golden not so oldies 👍🏻

[@tungstentaco495]

I'm actually watching this video with a 4790 and 1060 3gb card. I'm in the process of retiring them, but I've been generally happy with the system for quite a long time now.

[@jimscarlett]

I'm still running a 4770k overclocked to 4.7ghz with a 5700XT. This is the machine I've been "going to upgrade to AM4" for years, but it just hasn't let me down yet. I don't play anything competitive, and it's still pushing perfectly playable framerates in everything I've thrown at it in 1080p. We'll see if Starfield (waiting for patches and a sale, too much of a backlog now lol) or the end of WIndows 10 support makes me upgrade first. My three 4th gen machines (4770k, 4790k, 4690 non-K Linux media center) have been so solid for so long that I don't even own a desktop with DDR4 memory. At this rate, I may end up accidentally skipping it.

[@djukic921]

Im running 2600k oced to 4.5ghz @ 1.35v and Im planning to pair it with 5700xt. AM4 upgrade is tempting because R5 3600, decent motherboard and 32gb of ram costs around 300euros. But I think I will also upgrade when W10 reaches EOL. I just hope that something like 2600k or 4770/90k will appear in the meantime..

[@madcat4563]

This would have been great a few months ago. But I already ordered and received a Xeon E3 1270 V3. Which on paper is the same, but slightly better for less money. It also works in Dell prebuild motherboards. It's unfortunate that 4 cores and 8 threads is the best that Haswell has to offer. But for the games I play it will last me a while.

[@princekells2]

No worries this newer release CPUs currents are for competitors if you out of competition u will save money.

[@sherpafan033]

That’s weird. I literally just bought an i7-4790 that arrived today! I paired it with a GTX Titan X for use in a budget PC that cost me around £230 total. I’m able to near max out most games and get 60-80fps

[@ChickenWing575]

I still use an i7 4470k and it put in nearly 10 years of hard work. Im saving for a new build now, but this guy will still get a few years of gaming from my roomie

[@Chris_G_541]

I got my 4790k 2 years ago in a non working system for $100. All that was wrong was a bad drive and damaged case. It came with a premium cooler, mobo, and ram. It over clock to 5ghz. I have it paired with a 3060. I am just now starting to look at upgrading.

[@stanley3647]

I still keep i7 4790K in my spares. This CPU was overclockable (easy) without voltage change just by changing limits of "turbo frequency" So, 4.4GHz all cores (4.5 for 3, 4.6 for 2 and 4.7 for single) was perfect settings. My MB has option to set this separately. And keep CPU cool with aftermarket cooler. Just changing turbo frequency allows CPU to rest on lower speed and voltage when was not in 100% use. CPU was paired with R9 290 and later with GTX 1080 - a legendary combo :)

[@daatobler976]

I’m still using a i7 4790k with a rx580 4gb and still playing older games and some newer ones at 1080p with around 50fps. I’m happy with it while I slowly work up collecting parts for a newer build.

[@itpugil]

Upgraded to a Xeon E5-2690v1 2 years ago from the i7-4790 that I bought 2nd hand in 2017. Gave the i7 to my brother earlier this year and the stutters he experienced with his FX-8300 went away in AC Origins. Upgraded to a Ryzen 7 5700X just last month and we're both pretty happy with our builds.

[@T3hBeowulf]

This is timely. I just upgraded from a dual-core i3 to this i7-4790 on my server. I specifically opted for the non-K variant as that one is missing some virtualization features and only had ~100MHz higher stock boost clock. The CPU is paired with a GTX 1070 FTW card, which is passed through to a Windows VM running Parsec. This lets me play 2002-2010 era games on any PC in the house. Night and day performance difference coming up from the i3 (whose max boost clock is lower than the 4790's base clock) in addition to an extra two cores. Thank you for posting this comparison. It really puts things into perspective and confirmed that my $30 spent on the 4790 was a no-brainer upgrade.

[@cienaustrales]

My brother is still playing with my old 4790+980ti+16gb Kingston combo. Still doesn't have much problems with modern titles. Heck, even Elden Ring can look quite damn good.

[@TheOdsystem]

I had my Haswell build until mid-2023. Despite having upgraded to AM5, I still have a huge affection for this socket that gave me so much joy.

[@JimmyStrings]

I bought one of these last year and paired it with a 980. Absolute goat ancient cpu

[@KTSpeedruns]

Grab a bundle like this, stick it in a small case with decent airflow and a GPU with 4-6GB of VRam and it would be great for a kid's first gaming PC.

[@00waldo]

This video really helped me believe i have made the right choice. I just ordered a rtx3060 to replace my 1050ti. And i spent days beforehand debating with myself and trying to look up answers to whether or not to upgrade graphics card or cpu. This really drives it home that gpu was the right thing to upgrade and then upgrade cpu as the next thing 😁

[@IlhamParamartha]

Thank you for this video! I ran the exact same chip paired with a GTX 1080 and a 32gb ram. I am able to run most AAA game from 2022, and Cyberpunk ran like a dream with mixed settings! Thank you for always giving old tech some love m8! Really enjoy your videos, keep it up!

[@ecojom8104]

running an i7 4820k at 4.7ghz overclock. no issues with games paired with a 1660ti. 60 fps on escape from tarkov’s streets after heavy optimising so it’s playable in modern gsmes

[@PetroIv20]

I still have this CPU with 1070Ti and 16GB RAM. And it runs really well. I played all the recent AAA games with max or max-mid settings. I can say that I have never had one CPU for such a long period of time. I use it from 2015 and it still fine in FullHD gaming. I think I will change it in 2015. 10 years on one CPU, it will be my record.

[@AnubisWithCoffee]

My GF was still on this CPU till last week and she was very happy with it and was playing games fine on it, that said she is happy with her new CPU (Ryzen 7 3800X) but honestly some decent life left in that CPU still

[@DavidW27]

Still running a i5 4690K overclocked from 3.5 to 4.1 ghz paired with an RTX1660. The single core performance of these chips is solid, its only the last couple of years as games have become more tuned to take advantage of multicores/threads that new releases have started to crawl a bit. The processor/mb combination is so far away from Windows 11 requirements I decided to switch to Linux (Mint) about 6 months ago. So far really impressed compared to the nightmare Linux used to be, and the gaming experience is nowhere near as bad as some would have you believe.

[@Sintrania]

I also forced to upgrade due to need m.2 for work😢 also modern game aren’t exactly optimized for these gpu but the cpu probably working fine for something like 60fps 4k.

[@MrAlan1828]

I have 8x of these Dell Optiplex 9020 / XE2 Desktops paired i7-4790 16GB Ram , GTX1060 6G 480GB SSD Boot / 1TB NVME 4x , LG 27" monitors for my Gaming cafe and it has been fun to work with, it may not have the best FPS but very still playable. My main events are for Gundam Extreme VS 2 Xboost up to 2 groups of 4x4 can fight together and still can handle it smoothly at 60fps!

[@PlaystationTalks]

I bought this PC with the Alienware R2 X51 i bought it 2 weeks ago for 100$ with this cpu 16gigs ram and rx 580 8gig and its amazing PC i have a high end build i bought this cuz this was one of my 1st gaming PCs that a gamestop manager sold to me for CHEAP back in the day . I LOVE IT!!!!

[@patrykwaszczuk1859]

i just 2 week ago upgrade to this cpu my upgrade is: i3-4170 to i7-4790 gtx 750 ti to gtx 1070 ti 8gb ram 1600mhz to 16 gb ram 1600mhz and buy spartan 5 with PC power supply msi 550w and new case

[@MyWasteOfTime]

I still daily drive a 4790K and works perfectly for me 10 years strong!

[@chuongkhonggio9423]

Send this comment from my Xeon E3-1231v3 (same i7-4770) with GTX 1060 3GB. This is enough playing around for me :D

[@alldayimlit]

Had an i5 4570 for years. Upgraded to the i7 4790k and overclocked it to 4.5ghz and 1.3v. This chip is a monster, even compared to the modern chips. Obviously its not going to out perform anything modern, but its amazing that a 4th gen chip with a slight overclock can keep up with chips 10 generations younger. Thatd be like a 70 year old challenging a 25 year old to a race. Its a huge difference

[@m8x425]

Mostly skipped over the Wells, except I had to upgrade a system with a 2600k to a 6800k when the motherboard died. It died the Sunday before Black Friday and the sales convinced me to pull the trigger on an upgrade, instead of waiting a week for a replacement motherboard. On the 2nd hand market, I have come across a handful of Haswell processors and even the i7-5775c. I was amazed at how the 4790k takes to 32GB of DDR3-2400 cl11 RAM and it will still overclock decently well. The secret sauce is overclocking the cache. The most amazing CPU I've come across from the Wells is the J-Batch versions of the i7-5960x. I got one that I was able to overclock to 4.7GHz and it could hang with the RTX 3080..... but thermals are quite high.

[@ardaomeryavas3600]

bro posted this like this even a challange. im happy with 3570k with paired 1660s and eveything works great

[@jamiehav0k62]

pit this up against your 5820k, as its the same architecture Be interesting to see how well that aged compared to this.

[@lukeoliver651]

lga 2011, quad channel too

[@onlypvpcaterina-6669]

I've been on i7 3820 quadcore 3.6ghz for years with various cards and i've ran the witcher 3 on ultra settings no problem, Even with 4k texture pack enabled, Nice and smooth until this year where i finally upgraded to ryzen 5 5700x setup, Work with what you get, Long as your graphics card is a high end, Then the 4790 would have alot of games no problem at all. Long as the graphics card is below 3070 rtx then you good.

[@Chill_Mode_JD]

I still have a special place in my heart for the i7-970, paired with a cheap 1060 3gb it got my kid gaming on her first pc, it was an excellent performer for a budget build, the time we spent slapping it together was priceless!