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Replacing a failing i7-4790k 4GHz... Intel or AMD?

Loony BoB said:
Razor: I wish PC down time was something I could manage! However, if I do manage to get either of them replaced I figure I can sell them off and get a little cash back. No idea how best to do that mind you but I figure I can ask here at the time it happens ;)

Thanks again everyone! Looks like Ryzen is the way to go at the moment.
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I sold my 4790K for the same price I paid for it, I got most of my money back on ram and I sold my motherboard as faulty. I did all of this on the bay. Very simple to do and I did it all with a £1 max selling fee deal which normally happens every month, keep an eye out on hotukdeals for when it happens.
 
Holy crap :o That is niiiice. Okay I'm definitely upgrading now. xD Time to figure out a bundle and I guess this means I can afford a wee bit more than I thought.
 
It looks like you have done all the relevant tests you can OP - silly question have you tried replacing the power lead with another one,or putting a new fuse in it??

I would also agree with your £500 budget the Ryzen 5 1600 looks a good bet too.
 
CAT: Yep, tried powering from a different room with a different power cable. No dice.

Any general feeling on 1600X vs. 1700 for single core speed vs. multi core speed?

My most commonly played games are FFXIV (multicore), Rocket League (no idea) and Minecraft (single core), with other games dotted about but I can't imagine any of them will be more demanding on single core use than Minecraft with a massive modpack.
 
If you can stretch to the 1700 I would definitely recommend it - especially for streaming. Also they both overclock within 0.1Ghz of each other (depending on the silicon lottery) so single thread performance will be the same.
 
Loony BoB said:
CAT: Yep, tried powering from a different room with a different power cable. No dice.

Any general feeling on 1600X vs. 1700 for single core speed vs. multi core speed?

My most commonly played games are FFXIV (multicore), Rocket League (no idea) and Minecraft (single core), with other games dotted about but I can't imagine any of them will be more demanding on single core use than Minecraft with a massive modpack.
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Hard to say as you want to stream and I think a mildly overclocked Ryzen 7 1700 would look a better choice.

I suspect Intel will be better for the last two games,but if you are streaming,its another kettle of fish though.

I tried looking on YT but many of the MC timeruns are a bit old and before the latest BIOS updates which improved compatibility with faster RAM.

This one looks relatively recent though and tests different shader mods:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UcCb6bZqjOE

Edit!!

An older video testing Rocket League:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OMxIvq0AesI

Both are with a GTX1070.
 
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It looks like Ryzen is pushing Intel hard :D

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Hearing that if you don't OC (I don't at this point, haven't felt the need generally) then 1600X is better, and it also allows me for marginally cheaper RAM too. So that's a plus.

I'm thinking...
Asus Prime B350-Plus AMD B350 (Socket AM4) DDR4 ATX Motherboard - Stock Code MB-69G-AS
Kingston Fury Black 16GB (2x8GB) DDR4 PC4-21300C15 2666MHz Dual Channel Kit (HX426C15FBK2/16) - Stock Code MY-230-KS

Putting me at £250 out of pocket. And then it's the 1600X vs. 1700. So much conundrum. 3.7GHz enough? I dunno. Do I need eight cores over six cores when I've been doing fine up until recently with 4GHz @ 4 cores? Such decision making. Exciting to spend a little again in some weird way though.

EDIT: After much looking around, think I'll go for the 1600X and just use my existing direct contact cooler as it's still good as far as I can tell. The fact I'm not so interested in overclocking is what's making me think 1600x is the better choice for me.
 
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Sounds like it's the board. Have you not considered trying to buy a new one that's identical then overclocking? Your chip is still decent for most things once clocked. Be very surprised if it is the CPU having been ran stock.
 
Known issue with Gigabyte boards, even Gigabyte themselves couldn't fix mine. They said it worked fine on their test bed and sent it me back. I ended up binning it and getting a H97 board. I cant OC the i7 4790k anymore but tbh I've hardly noticed any difference in gaming. OP get a cheap Gigabyte Z97 for £80 (there's loads if you google). IMO it's not worth the massive overhaul of going Ryzen, its too much money and effort as a side grade.
 
Just go for it mate 1600x will do you proud. One thing I would say is the possibility of going for faster ram, something closer to 3200mhz. Ryzen likes faster ram and it isn't that much more expensive than the 2666mhz that your looking at.

Do it once and do it properly :).
 
Just don't want to risk replacing the board with another 1150 just to find out it won't resolve the problem. It's a gut call and I've already done that with the PSU to no effect and it's not a great feeling to spend that money for nought. Thankfully having a spare 8 year old PSU won't hurt as I do run two PCs and PSUs don't have such compatibility issues! At this point I figure I can get an upgrade, fresh gear with fresh warranty and sell some of my old stuff to cut back the costs notably, so may as well upgrade and avoid any further potential redundant replacements of old parts.

I'm not really keen on overclocking mostly because I'm a fan of stability and warranty. Will it really make that much of a difference with the faster RAM? I mean, everything else is pretty good already. Also, if I buy 3200 RAM and just don't overclock the board for now (leaving myself the potential to overclock later when I grow some balls or something), will it still function okay, allowing me the option down the line?
 
Loony BoB said:
Just don't want to risk replacing the board with another 1150 just to find out it won't resolve the problem. It's a gut call and I've already done that with the PSU to no effect and it's not a great feeling to spend that money for nought. Thankfully having a spare 8 year old PSU won't hurt as I do run two PCs and PSUs don't have such compatibility issues! At this point I figure I can get an upgrade, fresh gear with fresh warranty and sell some of my old stuff to cut back the costs notably, so may as well upgrade and avoid any further potential redundant replacements of old parts.
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When you put it that way then yes go for the Ryzen build. You should get ar least £200 for your old CPU, Mobo and RAM.
 
Aye. Thankfully all this went down with three months left on the Intel warranty. If it had happened three months later I'd have been rather ****** off. xD

Any thoughts on the RAM question (end of my last post)?
 
Loony BoB said:
I'm not really keen on overclocking mostly because I'm a fan of stability and warranty. Will it really make that much of a difference with the faster RAM? I mean, everything else is pretty good already. Also, if I buy 3200 RAM and just don't overclock the board for now (leaving myself the potential to overclock later when I grow some balls or something), will it still function okay, allowing me the option down the line?
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You can leave the cpu alone and just let it do it's thing, but because of the way that the Ryzen architecture is designed, it uses something called infinity fabric which connects the 2 ccx modules together. This infinity fabric runs at half the ram speed, which means the faster the ram is running the faster the interconnect (infinity fabric)runs. It can make quite a bit of difference in games so imo you'll be better off running as close to 3200mhz as you can.

Someone like Gavin would be able to fill you in more than I can and will be able to help you set it up as best as you can. Personally I wouldnt be concerned about reliability as you won't actually be overclocking the cpu, your just running the ram at higher speeds and most of the stability issues have been largely sorted now.

If it was me I'd buy the 3200mhz at least then you have the scope to increase if you decide to, also should serve you well if you decide to upgrade to zen 2 or 3 in the future.
 
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Loony BoB said:
Roger that. Is the board good for what I need in that case? It says max 2666 but again this whole running at higher speeds stuff is new to me.
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No the max is what the cpu "officially" supports, it's the same for Intel yet they can actually run speeds far higher than the official rated speeds.

Perhaps it's best to have a look through the Ryzen owners threads to familiarise yourself with the platform.
 
Loony BoB said:
Roger that. Is the board good for what I need in that case? It says max 2666 but again this whole running at higher speeds stuff is new to me.
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Worth an extra few quid to get the Asus Strix B350, seems to get good reviews.
 
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