The $30 i7-4790 in 2023, Best Value CPU for a $250 Gaming PC?

The i7 4770 and 4790 can currently be had for extremely cheap (even on ebay), and at these prices it can make for an exceptionally good budget gaming pc. Today we couple this CPU with the RTX 2060 Super 8GB and check it out in some games
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PC parts to build a similar PC
i7 4790 ebay.us/WmBE51
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(cooler on this setup is fine with the included intel cooler, though if you want to get an aftermarket solution then I suggest this). amzn.to/45IwkMx
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#PCGaming #GamingPC #Winning

[@MarcoGPUtuber]

If someone could squeeze blood from a rock, it'd be Tech YES.

[@FieryWings01]

Haha ikr! Can count on good old Bryan

[@emersonbiggens1502]

Especially when this DB says to return used CPUs and Video cards, if they don't overclock enough. What an ass clown.

[@techyescity]

That's my specialty :p.

[@AliceC993]

@@НААТ 5k would buy you pretty much the best hardware available that isn't workstation-grade. If you don't absolutely _need_ the best you can get, you can certainly build a very good system for less than that.

[@rathstar]

@@НААТ a 5k Euro budget will get you want ever you want with the most recent tech. You could get a decent modern PC for 1.5k Euros that would be better than the vast majority of gamers.

[@peepeepoopoo2973]

gotta love and appreciate the "smaller" tech channels for this exact reason, covering the most interesting and niche topics that are rarely talked about

[@brandonbagaskara4119]

I have been using a 4790k for 10+ years and i still love it.

[@ral8031]

👍

[@nyblenproductions5166]

im running the same configuration but with a 1080 instead. It is honestly insane how well it works with modern OS and recent games.

[@miz9856]

Im running with a 3060 and I came play some games at 1440p with no stutters 60fps. Love this little cpu

[@Doctor_Badass_]

I've got a similar setup. I thought I'd run into bottleneck or some other issues. Nothing so far. I wonder how many more years I can squeeze out of this cpu.

[@alexp.8415]

@@Doctor_Badass_ Yo, how's it going? have you tried any Xdefiant on it? The game is super well optimized for GPU, but i heard it can be pretty hard on CPUs

[@sweetasdude]

Still have my 4790k on an MSI Z97 gaming 5. Ran an AMD HD6990, 780ti, single then twin 980ti's and for a short period a 2080ti on it, from 720p to 1440p. Versatile chip for sure.

[@morcjul]

I have the same 4790K and Z97 Gaming 5 ♥️ Originally with GTX770, and for a couple years now the RTX2070

[@ProYamYamPC]

Great to see Haswell still performing so well in 2023, even with a GPU like the 2060 Super. I’ve had a Xeon E3 1241 V3(essentially a 4770 with no iGPU and ECC support) on test, and it’s an incredible CPU for £20!

[@sliptap]

The E3 Xeon's on the 1150 platform are unreal value. I've purchased a few for less than $20 shipped with motherboards less than $30. I'm flipping them with Rx 470/570/480/580s for approx $200 total build cost with 16GB ram. Crazy value.

[@user-lp5wb2rb3v]

The problem is the motherboard, and lack of OC with low clocks kinda sucks sometimes That said imo its either buy a haswell pc and 64gb+4tb, or get zen3 with 32gb+2tb (I think same price) Gpu wise a 20xx gpu for £150-250 would be good , or 6700xt for £200

[@jimscarlett]

Haswell i7s can be insane value for money now. I'm writing this from a 4770k system and I'm still amazed I get the performance I still get, even in newer games, from this thing. I've been "going to upgrade to AM4" for years now and at this point I've missed the entire life of that socket, haha. Still keeps up with the 5700XT just fine, and running on an M.2 SSD with SATA SSDs for bulk storage and 32gb of DDR3-1866 so it's still plenty snappy. For a ten year old platform, it's insane. Haswell is definitely the GOAT of the DDR3 era.

[@chase7974]

Yeah but In newer games like Cyberpunk, Jedi fallen order, Starfield, etc it's starting to show it's age. It's perfectly fine for older games though.

[@kuyache2]

4790k is still great if you own it or can get it for bargain prices for the complete procie+mobo+16gbram combo (99$ below). But if you are starting from scratch, just go for newer 6 core or better so that you can play without much stutter on latest games. For me the 5600G is the minimum I target to acquire nowadays

[@DaiAtlus79]

got mine this spring seated on an Dell XPS mobo, and i threw in my 1060 3gb and 16gb DDR3 (upgrade from an i7 2600 non-K). very impressed, ram was faster as was the video card in its working, and the cpu power boost itself was welcome. this cpu will be staying in my build for a bit, may pair it witha 1070 my buddy has layinng around

[@kuyache2]

@@DaiAtlus79 i ran 4th gen refresh i5 4590 with gtx1060 3gb and 2x8gb ddr3 1600 since 2016 until 2 weeks ago when the i5 bit the dust by throwing WHEA Uncorrectable blue screen errors. Luckily i stumbled upon a used PC sale i5 8400+h310+2x8gbddr4 2666mhz for 136$usd (converted from 7700php). And it was a massive upgrade like 12fps on ZeldaTotk now running 50-60fps and all the other games are much smoother (spiderman miles morales etc). even my laptop with 7700HQ with gtx1060 6gb and 16gb ram does not compare...

[@zaired]

I just upgraded my cpu after using a 4790k for almost 9 years 😢. I had to upgrade to run cities skylines 2, but it was still very competent CPU, even if it had trouble running some cad software like SolidWorks

[@josephdias5859]

they good for optiplex builds

[@TheMasterofComment]

​@@zairedcould have tried the i5 5775c

[@Willbme4EVA]

Crazy timing of this video, yesterday I was playing around with a 2700k, on a Asrock Z68 Extreme4 Mobo, Strix GTX 970's in SLI. Older Pc's really are more fun to tinker with than I had remembered. Totally forgot to ditch all those updates. !cheers and I am sure someone is going to enjoy that pc.

[@mattstone8878]

Eat bacon every day 🥓

[@Gh0stondc]

Sli ❤

[@mantisyt6945]

You really need to test more games with this, it looks like a great budget cpu.

[@ryanhines293]

Brian it has been a long time! Miss these used gaming pc price to performance builds. Glad to see them return. :)

[@ZaelleLexil]

I'm still using a 4670K OC'd to 4.4. Performs pretty well still. If I upgrade anytime soon, it'll probably be an entry level one on the newest platform but not sure if AMD or Intel yet. Using a 1660 Super GPU that I upgraded from a GTX 770 a few years ago.

[@menardsoliven2178]

I'm currently using the i7 4790 and it's running pretty good! I paired it with GTX 1660 Super Asus TUF. It can run Red Dead Redemption 2 in an ultra-high settings that provides 37 to 43 fps.

[@GeminionRay]

I'm still running this CPU to this date with a 1060 I bought in early 2017. It's been going really well and since I'm not interested in most of the AAA games, I've been happy with it. I'll probably keep holding back from upgrading until one of the components of my PC stops working.

[@patrickmediodia1952]

I have the same setup and acquired it a year late than you did, 2018. I'm also going to be using this until it breaks as I also do not play AAA games. Cheers!

[@shubham_chaudhary881]

Which cpu cooler u r using, it heat alot

[@GeminionRay]

@@shubham_chaudhary881 I use an ID-Cooling SE-214C. It rarely reaches 75C even at full load. As long as your case has decent airflow, it won't throttle (mine is Zalman H1).

[@GeminionRay]

@@shubham_chaudhary881 I use an ID-Cooling SE-214C, but these days any entry-level tower cooler is more than enough to keep it cool. Just make sure your case has decent airflow and it will be easy to keep it running at 40-45C idle or 70-75C under full load.

[@Gamevet]

I ran an i7-4790K in my main rig from 2014 to early 2019, when I finally got a 9900K. I ran the 4790K@4.7Ghz with 16GB of DDR3-2133 Mhz. It was a pretty solid gaming rig.

[@Fender178]

I also own and still have my i7 4790K and it is being used as a handbrake DVD ripping machine for movies and TV shows and it does an amazing job at it. I went from 4790k to a 3700x. Also from my understanding that the 4th gen intel core i series CPUs are NOT effected by the downfall vulnerability.

[@mehantitler3555]

Yeah, I just looked it up and it said 6th-11th gen, is 4th gen affected?

[@Fender178]

@@mehantitler3555 nope not the Main stream 4th Gen CPUs. the Haswell Xeons are effected though.

[@Mr1Tanker]

@@Fender178 So i guess i'll need it for my E3-1270 v3. 🤨

[@milescarter7803]

​@@Mr1TankerI think he meant socket 2011?

[@WayStedYou]

only haswell E @@mehantitler3555

[@arkofmemry]

I almost have the same cpu+gpu configuration about two months ago but wih 4790k instead. This CPU was probably THE BEST value I got in PC hardware for the last decade. (Bought it brand new back then too) I was pretty happy with its performance in 1440p and mix of high/medium settings. I mainly played single player titles so I only targeted 60fps. In some new titles like RE4R, I could still get 60+ fps with FSR2 set to Quality and some settings adjusted. The Last of Us Part 1 absolutely wrecked my CPU though and had to settle an average of about 55 fps with frame dips to 25+ 😅

[@middle_pickup]

Glad you tested CS2. It's good to see the game run well on the old hardware. Would rather have seen how many FPS you could coax from it though. Most players set everything to low just to max it out for speed in an esport title.

[@wirdanrafi8448]

too bad it still bottlenecked RTX 2060S in CS2

[@MaxIronsThird]

@@wirdanrafi8448no it isn't, the 2060S can do 200fps on CS2.

[@deegSZ]

i had this cpu since up until covid, paired with a 1080ti, it held up well for the time being, beast of a cpu

[@Zaegen]

Thank you for the honest talk about spectre/meltdown/downfall. In addition I just bought an xeon e3-1231 v3 for 15 € including postage which is a solid deal, I think. You just gotta love these budget builds using used parts, I know I do! Very interesting video as a whole. Thumbs up, mate from northern europe!

[@simplestsimp5537]

Good content! Still have a systen runnoing the same specs. One note though, the i7-4790's all core boost is limited to 3.8ghz but older bioses have all core boost hack to 4.0 ghz.

[@kesamek8537]

Good job discussing Meltdown/Spectre and Downfall. The majority of Unboxed and Nexus style channels somehow dodge showing us any before/after figures on Intel cpu performance for the issues, even when Intel says the difference can be massive.

[@НААТ]

thats cause you really shouldnt turn them off unless you dont value ur information

[@techyescity]

I don't value my information, but I do value my performance@@НААТ

[@kesamek8537]

@@НААТ 14th gen should have hardware mitigations for Downfall but does it or not? this is not mentioned on those channels, very strange, like some wall of silence. Intel says the performance difference can be ~50% with Downfall you would think a gap that big would be worth the most influential channels doing a deep dive ... instead, radio silence.

[@НААТ]

@@techyescityit might just be something i picked up with from my years of study as software engineer and having done pentesting as freelance but yeah i just rather prevent then recover

[@terrymike7053]

@@techyescity how actually likely would you run into any security problems with those updates disabled? I might need a bit more performance on my 6850k, but not sure how actually important spectre/meltdown is. Reading online, forums, reddit, it's a mixed bag, nothing concrete. Some people say normal use, it won't matter, others make it seem the moment you turn it off your computer will instantly compromised. Would be good to really know what it actually protects against, and the actual likelihood of it happening.

[@RealTechGeek]

Finally Yes is back too his ROOTS! We need this more in this high interest environment!😊

[@lifedroid]

went from i7 4790K to Ryzen 5500 quite a substantial difference as Windows 11 was barely chugging on that CPU tho it served me for so long it was hard to put down

[@brokeandtired]

Well i7 4790K is still great to test if a child wants to try PC gaming for the first time, without wasting a fortune. Plus as a school homework PC it would be awesome. Can always flog it later for minimal losses when they get him or her a new better one.

[@techyescity]

It's a great CPU with all those security patches disabled.

[@kesamek8537]

5500 or 5600 good moves, a 4790/k still fine for 1080p undemanding titles (esports, MoBAs, MMOs, loads of non-AAA 'console games').

[@Cpt_Wolf]

5500 as a budget CPU for motherboards from A320, B350, X370, B450, X470 up to A520. 5600 for B550 and X570 motherboards to gain PCIe 4.0, if your GPU supports it.

[@YogiBhoy78]

@@brokeandtired Who are you talking about, what child?

[@PetroIv20]

I am still using it with 1070 Ti, and you know what, it's still really fine at 1080P. I've played all recent titles with max-med settings. I think I would use it for 2 years more.

[@canyn8405]

U would be surprised how good performance these old components can get, but all of the new updates and lack of compatible drivers will force you to upgrade to new stuff.

[@8bitDNA]

I still run i7 4790 + GTX970 for Steam-only games. Satisfied to this day!

[@GrandmasterBBC]

I bought a Lenovo desktop for my daughter about 10 years ago that came with a 4th Gen i3. I installed an HD4670 which was great for her at the time as she was quite young. I eventually swapped out to an i5 and upgraded the PSU with a 650W Corsair and the GPU to an RX 480. About a year ago I found great deals on an i7-4790 and an RTX 2060 Super (so same setup as this video) and that old platform continues be a wonderful 1080p gaming machine. Haswell FTW!

[@mr.arocenastech]

This reminds me that I need to test a few Maximus Hero VII boards I picked up with some 4th gen i7s recently. Looks like those old 4th gens are still relevant for budget gaming builds!

[@teknoadikt]

i still own i7 4790k paired with an rtx 3090 on 4k still runs amazing

[@W3RN3R318]

Great video thanx, love your content. Currently have the same cpu paired with a 6700 xt and h97 motherboard, really impressed how this old cpu is performing. I max out all my games without issues (1080p), it's only shadow of the tomb raider and ROTT that cpu usage goes over 90% so there is some lag in the open areas. Gonna be upgrading soon to something like a i5-12400 or i5-13500

[@akafede4351]

Those cpu are really good options. I have a 3060 and went from a similar cpu to a 5700x and it did wonders, can't imagine with a 6700x, but if I were you I would get an am5 with a 7600 tbh, bc if you would like to upgrade your cpu afterwards, amd cpus are hot on discounts, new and used, with intel's it's another story

[@MkwRa]

hi, i built a PC for my girlfriend using the xeon equivalent of this cpu, which was even cheaper. she's very happy with it! the build was 120 euro in total and it has a gtx 960 i should also mention : it started out as an old dell optiplex, lol

[@micahottaway8455]

Yeah, those security flaws came up often when Intel was stuck on 14nm for so many generations. It does seem suspicious that those security updates were pushed on regular end-users when it probably only affects servers as they are far more likely to be targeted.

[@MaxIronsThird]

14nm

[@acuteaura]

your webbrowser can run code that exploits meltdown.... so no, not really

[@certs743]

Cool video. I am running an even older X79 Xeon in a T3600 workstation from Dell. And my E5-2665 runs very well with my RX5600XT. And so far I have yet to run into a situation where AVX 2 is required to boot a game.

[@GinoBuilds]

Just recently bought an Optiplex 7020 with a 4790. Shoved an RX 480 8gb in it with 16gb DDR3 RAM and a cheap Antec 380W PSU. It's a shockingly competent machine, with some exceptions. But I wonder if disabling the security updates would remedy those exceptions.

[@fob911]

It's very cool to see Devil's Canyon still holding its own after all this time. While you can scrounge up a really cheap setup like you did, for budget builds you'd probably get more mileage searching for older Ryzen boards that can be updated to support up to Ryzen 5000. I was able to score an A320-M series motherboard locally for $20. After a quick BIOS upgrade, you have a whole host of CPU options, not to mention NVME SSD support that the DDR3 platforms would lack.

[@MJPilote]

That is true but some of us still have a 1150 board in use and this was amazing news. I can breathe new life to my old i5 machine. Just bought two 4790k chips. Just need to find a nice used GPU to finish it off.

[@samallamby-thompson]

100% agree I've done some great builds here in the UK with a320 boards that I picked up for £25-£30 paired with an R5 2600 and a GTX 1070-1660TI people love them for the future upgradability. On the other hand if you're flipping PC's people do just love the i7 branding

[@h0stile420]

@@MJPiloteYeah I gave my 4460 and h81m with 16gb ddr3 1600mhz to a friend of mine 3 years ago. He got a second hand 580 and still uses that pc. I still stick with ryzen 3600 b450 tomahawk and rtx 2060 The prices nowadays suck.

[@dragosthule]

i still rock a 4790k/1080. best value cpu i have gotten to date, besting now the OG dual core amd 4400. nice video and i totally agree! you cant run windows 11 with it, but who cares! Win processor!

[@SKHYJINX]

Loved my 4790K over 7 years or so with multiple GPUs, ending with GTX1070 to 2080Ti then I switched to 10900K at the time.

[@bumbaclot813]

Humble brag with that 2080ti. What a sexy card that this is. I would of punched my grandmother in the mouth to have one when they came out.

[@celtshaun1427]

You have gotta love these old i5's & i7's, I am in the process of upgrading my system from a 4670k paired with a 1060 6GB GPU, I run triple 1080p monitors and I purchased a 3060 so far and although it runs great on the triples the cpu bottlenecks on single 1080 even at Ultra settings, So I have just purchased a 4790 cpu for only £45 to drop into the Asus Z97-k Motherboard to pair with the 3060 I am expecting to get the headroom to run single 1080p when the need arises, in most of the games I play for instance on the triples at present it's the likes of Valheim, Way of the Hunter, Subnautica at high settings I am seeing 70 to 80 fps, In Rocket League which is at max settings on the triples even with the 4670k I am getting 170 - 180 fps and runs smooth as butter, Hopefully when I drop the 4790 I will see a 10 to 20 fps gain compared to the 4670k. I will eventually probably go for a Ryzen 5600x or newer 7600 system price dependant with the 3060 but mabe not this year lol.

[@bluestonedust]

and this just happens to come out as i bought the youger brother of this i7, the 4770, for my cheap testbench built from an old hp office pc. What a coincidence

[@wengky9228]

of course this cpu still rocks! one of my rig has a i7 4790 and installed a 3060 when I upgraded my other rig. Suprisingly it is smooth. Not in to much AAA games but Im using it as one of my editing rig and cant complain about its porformance.

[@machinimaaquinix3178]

Oh thank you for this video. I was not expecting the InSpectre bit and not had even thought about the whole fiasco since it surfaced. Using InSpectre, I can definitely feel my aging i7-6700k has got more wind in its sails. Windows 10 feels a bit snappier now. Esp in firefox with like 30 tabs! Thank you!

[@HaisteComputerRepair]

Awesome timing, I will be uploading a video ad testing out an i7-4790 & EVGA GTX 1060 6GB combo built into a budget ThinkCentre PC. Thanks for verifying my budget choices! i7-4770 combos will also be tested and sold by me.

[@ajosepi1976]

I got a PC in 2015 with a i7 4790 8GB RAM, and a GTX 760 ti. Later put in 16 GB RAM and a GTX1060 6GB and still have it as a back up. I used it in college as a CAD PC and now my current work PC will blow it out of the water, but it is still a solid little performer. I am surprised how well it has held up all things considered. It still clocks to 4 GHZ from time to time, but usually around 3.8 GHZ to 3.9 GHZ. Back when new it hit 4.2 GHZ under a bench mark once, but that was just momentary. I also saw no real slow down from updates.

[@krazyolie]

I swapped out a 970 for for 6600 in my 4790k system.. Bit of a bottleneck but the way gpu prices happened to be it wasn't worth going with anything cheaper. Works fine, haven't tried anything super new but have enough older games I haven't played

[@yaboid1441]

Still flipping 4th gen i7s and occasionally i5s. Still pretty good for thier prices! This is some quality YES content.

[@ana-xw4zr]

Currently Running of 4790 + 16gb 1600mhz ram + RX 6800 on a 650W PSU. Starfield is on 30fps 4k gaming. I sniped a Maximus Gene VII on used market for $35.

[@GLDragon93]

Btw I've noticed that used Xeon E3 1230 v6 (or 1240) goes for around 50-60€ (at least here in Europe), which are slightly downclocked i7 7700 (about 200mhz less max turbo boost). Definitely a great alternative for a slightly more "modern" system, with DDR4 and maybe NMVE slot if you can find a deal on the 1151 motherboards. Also on Aliexpress the v5 (i7 6700) goes for around 40$, which are also great alternatives (unfortunately v6 are still expensive, much more than a used i7 7700k)

[@WayStedYou]

Why spend 60 euros on that when you can build a 12100 build and have the option of a much more powerful cpu drop in later.

[@GLDragon93]

@@WayStedYou Apart from the fact that you are missing the whole "gaming on a budget" mentality in a channel dedicated to used deals, what powerful CPU? Sure the 12100F is around 100€ (non f cost 120€) but with anemic entry level motherboards (h610 at 100€) having no vram heatsink and Intel CPUs with E-cores being powerhog, you'd need to spend 150€+ on a mid b660 or b760 that won't handle anything more than an i5 13600k. Not to mention that average ddr5 mobos (that's what you'd want to aim with 12th and 13th gen if you want do "drop much more powerful cpu") start at 165-170€. Cpu at 100€, mobo at 170€ and ddr5 cl40 5600mt at 75€ you are at 345€ with no gpu, storage, psu and no case. You can score a whole 7th gen i3 8gb ram system for 100€ by SI like Bluechip or Terra on used market. a 16gb ddr4 kit cost 50€ new, around 35-40€ used. A 650w decent new psu for 70€ (at 95€ you can get a gold for a peace of mind), ssd are dirt cheap (1tb for 50€ new), and used rx 5700xt for 140€. Add in 60€ for the i7 7700-like xeon and for around 460€ (100€ more than your "option") you'd actually be gaming, probably even cheaper if you score real deals, those are just average prices. Not to mention for those who already use a 6th-7th gen i5 system, a simple drop in upgrade for the cpu will help them hold out for a year or two (just enough to aim for a Zen 5 or Arrow Lake new rig), depending on what they play as well as aim for something like a 2060Super or 5700xt used without too much of a bottleneck.

[@shawnd567]

1270 v3 can be had for $20-$25 and are faster

[@GLDragon93]

@@shawnd567 sure i7 4770 (1270 v3) are now faster than i7 7700 (1240v6)

[@half_r_mk5]

I converted my HP EliteDesk 800 G1 SFF, transferred all the parts to a bigger case, upgraded everything including the CPU to an i7-4790, and the GPU to an RTX 4080, added 32GB of RAM and upgraded the PSU to an 850W, added a 500GB SATA and a 2TB NVMe m.2 and it runs perfectly well, at 250+ FPS at 1080p, and 100+ at 4K on most games. I'd say it's worth the upgrade.

[@oceania68]

Nissan Skyline is nice, however, I miss my Pintara 😁moreover, on the tech front, I've come into a dual monitor acquisition recently that requires a 2x hdmi, a good excuse to buy an rx7600 I think 😆.

[@francoisleveille409]

Well well ! Wadaya know! This is exactly the same MoBo I have in my newly rebuilt gaming PC. I used a GTX 1660 Super instead of the RTX 2060.

[@Zimbertica]

I have a 4790k overclocked to 4.6GHz with an RTX 2060 and I regularly play Ghost Recon Wildlands and Breakpoint or Witcher 3 on ultra settings at 1440 and maintain 60+ fps. I am able to play Dirt Rally 1 and 2, Project Cars 2, Automobilista 2, Project Wingman, as well as a few other games (DCS World and Il-2) in VR with decent frame rates on high settings. The only times it really stutters and I have to turn settings down is when I am recording with OBS with the same machine that I am gaming on.

[@ashryver3605]

i was using a 4790k with a 2070super until a few months ago when i upgraded to a 13900ks build, and it's really good to this day, but it suffers from microstutters a lot and even at 1440p the 2070super was seriously bottlenecked. It would play whatever game I threw at it, and would generally reach 60+fps in everything besides stuff like Cyberpunk on high+ settings. But, then again, I had the spectre and meltdown patches in. Dont know about the other one though. The 4790k & 2070super combo could actually stream too. 720p48fps, whatever game you were playing, was what settings I used. It would encourage more stutters though, so not good for competitive gaming.

[@emmetthorath4542]

Great video. Thought about doing an optiplex with a 4790 and a rx 580.

[@mapesdhs597]

I have the low-power 4790S version in my HTPC, use it to watch YT vids and general stuff, works very well for that sort of thing, and it was crazy cheap (GPU is a 750 Ti). In the UK the 4790 is 30 UKP from CEX, which isn't too bad I suppose, but compared to other options it's not that great, eg. the 6c/12t 4930K or 5930K is half as much (then hunt for an X79/X99 Ali board), though as one moves upwards with all these options it'll eventually cross over into early Ryzen territory, 2600, 2700X, etc., for which relevant mbd options may be better/cheaper, especially via bundle deals. I used a 5GHz 2700K on Z68 for many years (which is about the same as a stock 6700K), hence similar to an oc'd 4790K as Intel's viable ocs dropped each gen. Eventually switched to a 5600X/B450 which, for CPU-bound gaming scenarios (usually the physics engine) typically doubled the fps (this with a 1080 Ti), but it depends on the game, some games didn't gain that much from the newer CPU, or at least not in a manner that mattered since the display is only a 60Hz 1080p TV. Depends entirely on the scenario. Many in comments will doubtless point out the 'lost' performance vs. newer options, but if the fps is high enough anyway compared to the monitor refresh and desired frame rate (many are still happy with 60Hz) then it really doesn't matter, and it's hard to argue against good bargains given the horrid 'current' low end GPU products and other elevated pricing issues (anyone noticed storage is going back up?). Some will cite the lack of upgrade path, but then the whole point of this sort of bargain hunting is to essentially flip the entire platform every few years anyway.

[@phoneyry]

just built my son a 4770- 2060 system. close to this just a step down. used some parts I had around, and was able to build nice little system for about $170 US

[@Vitalii_Atamanchuk]

Would be interesting to see the difference in performance between Specter/ Downfall enabled and disabled states.

[@techyescity]

I will do a before and after test on a few different CPUs, with all of these disabled vs enabled, I have done it in the past and found quite a difference, I woudl only imagine the difference has gotten even bigger since then.

[@Vitalii_Atamanchuk]

@@techyescity Thank you. I will check previous your videos. Thank you for your great work!

[@brianwalker7771]

Great to see budget friendly options. I am currently running an old Xeon I have been running on xeon for the last 10years or so and for the most part I can play most games reasonably well. of course some newer stuff may require instruction sets I don't have or some other issues but when your broke your broke you use what you got. Due to such a low budget I usually pair my hardware with things like humble monthly for "NEW" games. So far I can run everything I have tried to play so good enough for now.

[@XiaOmegaX]

As a 10+ year cybersec pentester, etc: I'd say disable mitigations for the home. It was only ever a risk to cloud services and data centers. Even when you can proof-of-concept exploit yourself via browser attack, it can't retrieve data or plant backdoors because the data rate of the exploit is too slow.

[@AdamsWorlds]

i rocked a 4790 for about 6 years. Awesome CP during the time i had it. I moved over to a 3800x when i got a good deal. Waiting for next gen AMD boards to come out and going to upgrade to that. Might even ditch that tbh and go another gen after that and get a used 5800x3d and slap in current system. I see nothing wrong with using the 4790 today its an alright cpu still. I agree with you and disabling the "protections" also, i think all of those vulnerability's require someone physically accessing your machine. But if they can do that the security patch is least of your worries lol.

[@JM-kn9dh]

I think youd see the biggest benefit to the 5800x3D since youre getting top of class performance while not having to change your entire platform

[@jon-eg6be]

Still on a 4790k :D since about 2014, looking to upgrade to arrowlake or zen 5

[@SmithBeatZ1]

I scored 13 brand new X5570s for dirt cheap, along with some ASUS P6x58d-e mobos. Cleaned up some Sapphire R9-280x I've had laying around and built some great bang for the buck entry level builds. They look great it some new cases with a little flash. I've learned all my budget build stuff from you. Tuning, to deal hunting, and everything else.

[@jrv1326]

This is exactly what I have for gaming and have no complaints so far

[@sannyassi73]

Still got a 4790k @ 4.8 paired with a 5700xt in my primary rig, I'm still happy with it- GPUbusy gives perfect sync so I've even got a bit of GPU headroom, though it's new build time next time I spend Money on PC parts. I also have a regular 4790 paired with a Fury Nano in my second PC that I mainly use with my laser engraver- it still runs great, thought the Nano is getting a bit dated, but it's not really a gaming PC- I just need 3 Monitors and it gets that done well.

[@veeli1106]

What’s the voltage on the 4790k?

[@MasoMathiou]

The best bang for buck in the GPU category would be the RX5600XT. It's underrated so it's cheap while offering more or less the same performance of the RTX2060s. I have that combined to an i7-4770K and it works great! The only thing I'd say about these old i7 is that the average frametate doesn't tell the whole story. The 1% low is the issue in many games and you would never get a solid 60FPS in modern games like Starfield especially in the more busy areas. Then again, it's a 10 years old CPU at this point, the value is great if you lower your expectations a bit.

[@Creamypie626]

I have an i7 3770 coupled with a Sapphire RX570 4GB GPU and it can play games decently even today. You just have to manage your expectation. It's not butter smooth 1080P gaming but unless you're willing to shell a crap ton of money on the most modern stuff it's good enough.

[@n8spL8]

got a HP elitedesk 800 g1 SFF w/ a 4790 for $20. swapped out 16G of cl9 RAM, an SSD and threw in a 1650SFF (it was that or a case swap or a2000 for $600 in 2022). It plays Esports great, does AAA low-mid setting at 1080p NP. Windows 11 works great w/ one registry edit. System draw is under 150W. So for $300 im happy. Yes, i disabled Memory integrity and use inspectre. Certainly not ideal, but it got me back into gaming after a 12 year layoff from back when i ran an fx-60 ($1000) and quad SLI ($1200), RAID 0, etc. I found tweaking my setup to be as fun as dumping $$$$$ into it and being a beta tester for hi end.

[@D.Feenstra]

I just made a cheap e sports pc using the 4770, thats cheaper here in the Netherlands. With a gtx 1070 it did 100-120 fps in Fortnite on high 1080p. When i capped the fr at 120 it ran great, the cap made the cpu load a lot less without loosing performance

[@canny8228]

I built an i7-4790 system for my nephews to play Fortnite. I paired it with a GTX 1070 and they routinely get 100 fps. Didn't know about the method for disabling the "security updates" so I'll have to look into that.

[@EvilEng9]

With my Asus H97M-E motherboard, it would OC my i7-4790 (non-k) to 4Ghz all cores. I don't know what other motherboards could do that. I only knew it OC'd because my stock cooler couldn't keep the CPU under 100c. lol If I could sell this combo on this market today, I would.

[@myleghurts7419]

I just built a 4790k+1080 for an emulation PC and its been rock solid

[@shaneneyome]

I got an i7-4790k a motherboard and a hyper 212 Evo for $40 usd from one of my local computer shop. Put it in my wife's pc with an rx 6600xt and it seems to be a great combo.

[@patpatpat3]

An initial d wallpaper? YES!

[@unitybeing777]

Thank you for takedown fix, really helpful with my 9900k. Much appreacited my favourite tech utuber.

[@ArizonaVideo99]

The problem with a CPU and a GPU both being kind of low end is both make loading a frame slightly slower. It does help to have a slightly faster CPU to fill the frame buffer of the GPU faster and you can load the GPU better. Its a good place to spend a few dollars. I would like to see how that GpU would do with a 6 core CPU.

[@x8jason8x]

I had a 4790/1050ti rig in my office I'd game on when I had downtime. I played CP77 on it with no problems at all, medium settings. The same rig is now in my guest room with a 2060 😂

[@MarcoGPUtuber]

Gotta get the Haswell Xeons!

[@vincentvega3093]

Still have a 4790k & 1080 Ti combo running.

[@johntipeti4597]

the i7 4790 was a beautiful chip. gold standard with a well earned reputation historically. love that chip stable as f too

[@SurgemanX]

I run a 4790 and a 1060 6gb for 2 years,and it didn't blink once at anything I slung at it!It was decent for it's time that's for sure!

[@user-ev4ov6wr1d]

decent for its time... but not anymore today.

[@cheetahkid]

4790 is my long time uses ever, like 8 years with it. I still have it, CPU think I got 3 of them the other 3 is the i7 2600k if I could find them.

[@forzaflyracer3473]

A revisit to this video with FSR3 mod would be outstanding. I imagine CPU usage up 10%, and frames up 60-80%.

[@ANGEL_642]

I bought an office PC for work and it came with a 1T hard drive, 8Gb ram and the i7-4790

[@DaiAtlus79]

im always a few generations behind, and i got mine last year and it's been a great time. i have it paired with a 1060 3gb and 16gb ddr3, and its not a bad time. im probably gonna look for a decent rx580 to replace my 1060 3gb (vram is a killer these days). its a great CPU, and im playing Starfield on it fine (im using the Steamdeck mods, was a similar mod when fallout 4 came out to lower mod rez to 512px from 2k, helped on my dual core overclocked athlon II X2 220 and 2gb DDR3 model 630 GT and 4gb ram lol (was still on Win7 then).

[@frankdegan8972]

Do yourself a favor and get a gtx 1070/1080 or rx 5600/5700/6600. Rx580 is not a worthwhile upgrade from a gtx1060 3gb

[@DaiAtlus79]

@@frankdegan8972 i maaaaay have a free-ish 1070 8gb founders edition lined up from a buddy

[@IslandaBoi]

Running this CPU with 1070 ti 8GB and runs games amazing

[@acuteaura]

The Problem with Spectre/Meltdown is that it can be exploited by anything that can run any sort of code on the CPU, including websites running Javascript. And in the case of Meltdown, the exploit is super fast too. And now you might say "gee does it matter it just runs my games" - your device is connected to your local home network, right? That makes chaining exploits much easier, especially if you happen to have some IoT devices.

[@Northman_Roams]

Still rocking an i7 4790 here with an RX580 8GB 16GB DDR3 1600mhz and it doesn't struggle with anything at 1080p low/med.

[@user-ev4ov6wr1d]

SLoooooowwwwwwwmoooootiiiion.

[@amehu]

Just sold away 4790 paired with gtx1650 - I seriously played Warzone and Cyberpunk smoothly (16gb 1600mhz and FSR2.1 Quality)

[@RhinoXpress]

it's crazy how good the Core i7 4790 is for budget gaming with modern titles still on a 9 year old cpu. I mean try playing, what were considered modern gaming titles in 2014 on a 2005 Pentium D back in 2014 when this cpu came out and it would have ran like complete dog poo.

[@dianaalyssa8726]

Old school price performance baby!

[@ShampooTime]

with the usual windows updates does the spectra and meltdown disables get reset everytime?

[@ghosttheoremproductions5469]

The biggest issue with 4th gen is the difficulty selling. - As far as personal use, pretty solid value if you don't need a ton of performance. My daily driver (light programming, web browsing, office type work, etc) is an i5 4590, Radeon WX4100, and 16gb of DDR3. Runs great in an old Dell SFF with extra fans modded in. Feeds a pair of 1080p monitors and isn't loud. Though, to be fair, I don't have to deal with Windows and its BS.

[@chadbrick67]

I've got a i74790k delided and a gtx1060 6gb as a cheap emulation machine it also runs new games at 60fps resident evil 4 remake forza etc etc. Cost me 350 pounds to put together. Full switch emulation. Xbox 360. Cemu. Unbelievable performance.

[@FellTheSky]

I don't think it had anything to do with performance, It's just that intel as a public traded company can't have a CPU with public security flaws. The reason is very simple, if someone actually gets hacked. Even if it's only a couple hundred dollars, they reputation would plummet.

[@Tw33zD]

Upgraded from 4790k to a i3 10105f do say i7 4790 still pulls its weight so many years later

[@outtheredude]

Still using a 4790K at a modest 4.4GHz all core boost as of 2023, with a Gigabyte Z97X-UD3H-BK (v1.0) motherboard. Higher base clock of 4.0GHz than the 4790, great boost capability, and still good for AVX2 demanding stuff for marginally more than the 4790.

[@user-ev4ov6wr1d]

slow like hell.

[@glancevincent]

old tech lovin! good to see these chips being used :)

[@wusaint]

The haswell i5 and i7 still work fine for most 1080p scenarios lower settings paired with the right GPU. My son is still using an old Opti build.

[@gopeto61]

COOL..! THANK YOU for all end HAPPY NEW YEAR 2024..!✌✌🍀🍀👍👍🎄🎄🥰🥰

[@catriona_drummond]

I ran a solid 1440p system with a 4790K and a 2080 Super.

[@toontownlegomaster]

How come with modern computer platforms you can have higher RAM frequencies yet you can go with this build Bryan recommends with lower ram frequency and ddr3 of all ram and it runs fine