• Competitor rules

    Please remember that any mention of competitors, hinting at competitors or offering to provide details of competitors will result in an account suspension. The full rules can be found under the 'Terms and Rules' link in the bottom right corner of your screen. Just don't mention competitors in any way, shape or form and you'll be OK.

***Intel i7 4790K Owners thread***

noob overclocker here after a bit of advice, ive got a 4790k and use the turbo overclock in the bios with an air cooler, the only game i play is arma that is a cpu hog so i want to push the cpu a bit further if possible, i was looking at a corsair h110i or h55 aio cooler, would i be able to hit 4.8 with this fan or do i need a full watercooled setup?

cheers lads
Just going to play devils advocate here... Since buying and using this CPU - God knows how many year ago - I've never see it significantly pushed by any application/game?

And I bought my system and cooler with the notion of allowing it to be overclocked, but in truth with it seemingly just needing that overclock, I'm more than happy to let it run at stock generally with the fans basically idling nice and quiet, and the CPU still running in the 50s...

My fans only ramp up high 50s and then into the 60s... So most of the time the CPU/case fans are idling.

eg: Here's an old example, but I rarely see my usage (& temps) much higher than this. It's the GPU that seems to get the "hit":-
Xjlbyc9.jpg
 
That CPU usage is not surprising at all when you consider my i5 4690K is completely and utterly useless in BF5, making the game unplayable, even with 16GB of RAM and an RTX 2080.

Only 70-80% GPU usage but frame rates are in the 35-50 range, whether in non ray trace DX11 or full on Ray tracing DX12 mode.
 
That CPU usage is not surprising at all when you consider my i5 4690K is completely and utterly useless in BF5, making the game unplayable, even with 16GB of RAM and an RTX 2080.

Only 70-80% GPU usage but frame rates are in the 35-50 range, whether in non ray trace DX11 or full on Ray tracing DX12 mode.

I'll have to check [email protected], sure i'm getting mostly over 60/70FPS with my 2080 but then I have HT which I seem to recall works well with the BF games.
 
Just going to play devils advocate here... Since buying and using this CPU - God knows how many year ago - I've never see it significantly pushed by any application/game?

Try running Arma on a full server, i get 25-30 FPS with a gtx 1080, the overclock to 4.4 has added an extra 10fps so want to push it further, thats why im looking at the aio coolers
 
My 4770K @ 4.5Ghz is quite often pushed now. Strategy games like Universim, Planet Coaster and the AC games often push it to 100%. Not far away from an upgrade. That said, there isn't much to upgrade for on the PC currently.
 
there isn't much to upgrade for on the PC currently.

Tell me about it, I'd like to move to a new CPU with more cores but I'm currently playing through my gaming backlog, mostly games released between 2016-2018, where a high clocked quad core like my 4690K is more than enough to do the job. Recently completed Dishonored 2, Prey & Wolfensteinn II....and had absolutely no CPU bottleneck issues and was able to play at ultra settings 1440p with rock solid 60fps performance.

Only once I know what sort of CPU requirements that Cyberpunk 2077 requires, will I decide on a new CPU upgrade.
 
noob overclocker here after a bit of advice, ive got a 4790k and use the turbo overclock in the bios with an air cooler, the only game i play is arma that is a cpu hog so i want to push the cpu a bit further if possible, i was looking at a corsair h110i or h55 aio cooler, would i be able to hit 4.8 with this fan or do i need a full watercooled setup?

cheers lads

Ive ordered teh H110i AIO cooler so going to try for a decent overclock when it arrives today, anyone have any advice on how far i should push it or a guide?

cheers

Neil
 
My 4770K @ 4.5Ghz is quite often pushed now. Strategy games like Universim, Planet Coaster and the AC games often push it to 100%. Not far away from an upgrade. That said, there isn't much to upgrade for on the PC currently.

I'm waiting for Zen 2 and then upgrading my 4770k. At 4.5GHz it's not normally a bottle neck on the titles I play but it's getting close.
 
Ive ordered teh H110i AIO cooler so going to try for a decent overclock when it arrives today, anyone have any advice on how far i should push it or a guide?

cheers

Neil
I put a 150i on mine but found I was still limited by the terrible job Intel did with the cpu die TIM and IHS. Ended up delidding mine and it allowed me to get 4.8ghz without melting the chip.
 
All of these "my CPU is at XX%" etc - it'll depend hugely on what res you're running at.
If you're at high res/high detail - the GPU has more to do so CPU won't be as busy.
At lower res, the GPU is able to smash through the (vastly easier) work quicker so the CPU is having to work harder/faster to keep it fed with instructions/work to do..

If you find CPU is getting battered when you have a big card, you need to run a higher res.
Anything around a 1080 or higher @ 1080p is probably a waste of graphics card (BF5 seems to give a big card enough to do at 1080p, precious little else will, in most cases a 1070 is plenty for 1080p). It'll have the CPU pegged at high usage/100% and the GPU will have idle time as the CPU just can't give enough 1080p frames to render.
 
HOLY THREAD NECRO, BATMAN! (etc) :D

I recently (well, 6 months ago) "upgraded" from my trusty old i5 4690K to my i7 4790K, that I purchased from the MM. The 'i7' in my forum username is with reference to the 1st Gen Intel i7 processors, which I really wanted, but ended up getting an i5, followed by another. I now feel complete!

My stress temps weren't great. Hitting the high 90s within seconds of launching P95 or IBT. But as photo editing and flight sim are the most taxing things my machine does, I wasn't overly concerned as normal use took the temps nowhere near that. The seller in the MM said the chip was good for 4.6GHz. I set the chip up at 4.5GHz with a vCore of 1.24v and it seemed stable.

A month or two ago, I became involved in a thread discussing 4790Ks and temps. After some public and private dialogue with another member, that member offered to de-lid my CPU for me FoC. I eventually accepted his generous offer after contemplating doing it myself, but chickened out. The factory fitted TIM between the die and IHS had turned to dust. Everything was nicely cleaned and the PCB was coated in a chemical to prevent shorting from the new TIM I was to apply.

My i7 arrived back within a few days. Having watched a couple of YT videos on how to do it, I applied CoolLaboratories Liquid Metal to the CPU die and the inside of the IHS, before reinstalling the i7 back into the motherboard. I used some AS5 between IHS and CPU cooler (a forget the model, but a Corsair 120mm AIO with fans in push/pull).

After stress testing with P95 and IBT, was I able to drop vCore to 1.14v to remain stable at 4.5GHz. 1.12v would crash IBT/P95 intermittently, so I bumped it back up to 1.14 and it's been fine since. Here's my temps:

MLn8oMO.jpg.png

Fashionably (8+ years :D) late to the party, but I'm really happy with the results and have hopefully earned myself some retro CPU cred :cool: My 4690k needed 1.3v (IIRC) for the same speed. No crashes/BSODs yet (touches wood) and I look forward to searching for 4.6GHz and beyond.

Thanks for reading,

Stu
 
Last edited:
I'm still amazed that my PC (using this CPU running at standard) is still perfectly OK with games and the like. I will upgrade the graphics card at some point, but don't believe I'll need to upgrade the CPU.

Amazing...
 
Last edited:
i7 4790k love here.
I no longer have my 4790k but it lasted years at 4.7Ghz. Fantastic CPU

Warzone was what pushed it over the edge, anywhere in downtown fps would tank even with a 2080 Ti on lowest graphics settings.

Upgraded to a 5800X and fps went through the roof.
 
Now stable at 4.6GHz, vCore 1.18v.

P95 peak temps: 65/66/66/60
IBT peak temps: 62/66/66/59

Well chuffed :D
Nice, but since my CPU never seems to reach 100% utilisation with what I do, I've just left my at standard along with the lower temps/less cooling etc.
 
Back
Top Bottom