i7 4790K vs i5 6600K

[Mayh3M]

I am building a new system for my younger bro and we're going for a mini ITX build. The main purpose of this system is to play games at 1080p and there will also be a little rendering here and there. But gaming performance takes precedence over all else. The GPU will be a GTX 970.

I was set on going for the 4790K but I checked out a few 6600K reviews and videos and saw that when it's overclocked, it can beat the 4790k by a whopping 10-15 FPS in games like the Witcher 3 and GTA V. The particular video I had in mind was this one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JWxncqbe1H8

My understanding also is that it's much easier to overclock the 6600k compared to the already highly clocked 4790K? The case will be a Phanteks Evolv ITX which has pretty decent airflow for a small case according to reviews, so overclocking the 6600K seems like it would be simple.

The cost of going the Z170 route ends up being only £10 more than the 4790K route and brings the benefits of USB 3.1 etc. but it's unlikely he'll use those features especially in the short term. Still, it is nicer to get the latest architecture if you can.

Let me know what you guys think.

 

[Mayh3M]

In my opinion just go for the newer platform, there are loads of good reasons, cheaper cost for an i5 6600k and than an i7 4970k, will probably run cooler and less power.
performance is more or less the same or better on the cheap i5 6600k and in the eventuality that your brother upgrades in the future he'll already have ddr4 to do so (DDR refreshes are what once every 7+ years?) another reason to go skylake is as from my understanding the z170 boards have an extra 20 pcie lanes supplied by the chipset? compared to the 8 lanes of z97 without the use of a plx chip. Meaning you can run xfire/sli and then also 2 m.2 gen3 x4 drives (if the board supports it) then theres also usb 3.1, type c and so forth, what if he got a phone in the future that needed type c? who knows.

In short, in my opinion skylake is a no brainer for people building new systems now. Much more future proofing than going haswell and general peace of mind + cost difference is negligible aswell.

I myself am going to upgrade to a 6600k and a gigabyte gaming 7 in a few weeks, this is from an i5 4440 system i put together this september reason being i hadn't been in the pc scene for atleast 2-3 years so just went with what i thought was good and didn't do my research and i can now afford something abit nicer.

DDR4 is a good point, but remember this is a Mini ITX build meaning there's no possibility of SLI (nor does he want/need to).

I'm most interested in how cool the 6600K runs. I am getting the impression it can be overclocked easily which is what's proving most attractive. Core for Core Skylake is faster so if I were to get it to 4.4Ghz there could be a significant improvement in frame rates over the 4790K (5-15 FPS in some games according to that video).

 

[Mayh3M]

Why not consider a 4690k if gaming is top priority? How much would it save you? As much as I know we like to have the latest and greatest chipset, if we are talking a decent wedge of notes, then that money put towards a better GPU is almost defiantly going give you more FPS in 95% of games.

Or, if that boost to rendering is worth the extra outlay, then why not consider a 5820k for the same kind of money?

I did consider the 4690K route but saving £50/60 (factoring in cheaper slightly cheaper mobo/RAM) is insignificant when the complete system is going to cost over £900. The GTX 980 is on average £100 more than the 970 too.

USB 3.1 and M.2 Socket 3 are really big improvements as well, especially in a mini ITX build where adding such components in the future is not an option.