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Which combination would you buy?

  • i7 4790K + Maximus VII Hero + 750 Ti

    Votes: 1 4.3%
  • i5 4690K + Maximus VII Hero + 750 Ti

    Votes: 2 8.7%
  • i5 4690K + ASUS Z97-A + A Better GPU

    Votes: 20 87.0%

4690K > 4790K!

2K views 12 replies 12 participants last post by  mdocod 
#1 ·
I build PCs for people around my area who ask me to do so. I ask for their budget and try to put together a rig that suits their needs within said budget.

One of my clients and I agreed on putting together their rig tomorrow, but we are coming across some last minute disagreements.

This is the core of what I initially intended to build for him:

CPU: Intel i5 4690K
RAM: Kingston HyperX Fury Black 2x4GB
GPU: ASUS GTX 750 Ti
Motherboard: ASUS Z97-A

He suddenly approached me and said he wanted an i7 4790K processor because it's the best chip available.
After hours of trying to convince him otherwise, I couldn't change his mind.

Keep in mind, OCN Community, that my client intends to use this rig for Battlefield 4 gaming. He does not work with videos at all and the most likely situation in which he'd use video editting software is for a school project. I've told him many times that hyper threading will not benefit him at all. It'll only make his videos render a bit faster, but what's the point of going an entire $100 over budget if he's rarely going to edit videos.

I finally thought I had convinced him that the 4690K would be a better choice for him because not only can he very easily easily overclock it to 4.0 GHz like the 4790K, he wouldn't have the same bottleneck problems either. A 4790K is way too overpowering for a measly 750 Ti, but he is not listening to me what so ever.

After I finally gave up on him, I realized that if he really does just want to spend more money to deck out his rig, I told him that a MUCH better solution would be to drop the 4790K and get the Maximus VII Hero because it matches his colour theme, red/black, and just looks absolutely gorgeous:

He was heavily swayed by the stunning looks of the VII Hero and what he said next boggled my mind. He told me he'll get both the i7 and the VII Hero.

Why would you pair the Hero & 4790K with a 750 Ti?

This question could not be erased from my mind.
Please, Community, help me convince him that his best options in this situation are:
1) DROP THE 4790K, stick with the 4690K and get the RoG board
OR
2) Drop BOTH the RoG board AND the 4790K, stick with the 4690K and get a better GPU than the 750 Ti

If I can't change his mind by myself, maybe you all can help me.
 
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#4 ·
It's his money, let him do what he wants. You already tried to convince him for his own benefit, to which he did not listen. You have no responsibility to ensure that he gets the best experience possible, let him learn from his own mistakes. Best lessons in life are from mistakes.
 
#6 ·
If you're sizing the CPU to the GPU, or the GPU to the CPU, then you're approaching the problem from a fundamentally flawed and common amateur position anyway. Your client may have a misunderstanding about the effects of hyper-threading and GPU selection, but I'm seeing evidence of misunderstandings on the builders part as well here... Not quite blind leading blind but leaning in that direction...

The CPU workload in a game like BF4 is very nearly the same whether run at 720P, 1080P, or 1440P, but the GPU workload obviously changes ~4 fold across those resolutions. There is nothing wrong with pairing a GTX750Ti with an i3, or i5, or an i7 to play BF4, but there are some very good reasons not to use a GTX750Ti to play BF4 at 1440P regardless of the CPU chosen. If you are "sizing" the CPU selection based on the GPU (worried about reducing "bottlenecks") then you're approaching the problem from position that will never solve the problem. Size the GPU to the desired resolution, visual quality settings, and FPS, then size the CPU to the game and desired FPS. Don't try to "size" them to each-other.

Ask yourself the following question:
Will dropping from an i7 to an i5, in and of itself, solve a GPU related performance problem?

Convincing the client to buy into more GPU for a better experience in BF4 is probably as simple as pointing out that the GTX750Ti is only good for ~30FPS at 1080P with high/ultra quality settings regardless of whether it is paired with a haswell i3, i5, or i7, as none of these CPUs would choke this game to less than 30FPS regardless. (assuming the client has a 1080P monitor/TV).
 
#8 ·
Quote:
Originally Posted by Evanlet View Post

It's his money, let him do what he wants. You already tried to convince him for his own benefit, to which he did not listen. You have no responsibility to ensure that he gets the best experience possible, let him learn from his own mistakes. Best lessons in life are from mistakes.
That is spot on. OP knows what he is doing (I assume) and gave the options with the ups/dowsn, price/performance but in the end it is the buyers choice as it is his/hers money.
thumb.gif
 
#10 ·
Realistically he would get more performance out of a i5 4690K + ASUS Z97-A + A Better GPU than a i5 4690K + Maximus VII Hero + 750 Ti or the i7 4790K + Maximus VII Hero + 750 Ti.
The Hero is pretty overkill as said above, I'd go to the extent to say its totally unnecessary unless you want the features and or the looks, and that's coming from a VII Gene owner and I'm planning on pairing it with an i5 or an i7 K.

Presuming the pricing is similar to that of the UK, currently a VII Hero from Overclockers.co.uk can be had for £154.99, and the ASUS Z97-A can be had for £106.99, that's a £48 saving alone.
And then the I7 4790K is £259.99, meanwhile the i5 4690K is 169.99 saving £90, that saving of £138 can go straight on the GPU, the cheapest 750 Ti from overclockers.co.uk ignoring the £2 "THIS WEEK ONLY OFFER" would be £109.99 (MSI GeForce GTX 750Ti Gaming OC 2048MB), take that £109.99 and apply the savings from the motherboard and the CPU and your friend would be looking at a GTX 770 or a R9 280X at the most, that's a ton more GPU power than a 750 Ti, they would easily run most of the games out there at maxed settings at 1080p.

The only reason I could say to get the i7 4790K over the i5 4690K is if you want to try and justify it and call it "futureproofing" with 8 threads for when games a few months or years down the line start using those 4+ threads more, however there's not many currently and the i5 K is pretty much the best gaming processor there is, or if he's doing alot of rendering, but from the sound of it he's not.

The i5 alone packs alot of power, It's not worth losing the GPU power if your friend is looking to game, it's going to hurt the system's overall gaming performance, unless he wants to buy a GPU afterwards outside of the current budget? Otherwise the i5 4690K + ASUS Z97-A + A Better GPU is the best option in my eyes.
 
#11 ·
Another suggestion for neither the Maximus VII Hero or the i7-4790K for pure gaming. The 750Ti is a nice new and efficient card but it isn't the fastest by any means. If you want a Maxwell card for gaming performance you will have to wait, not too long though.
smile.gif


Personally I would probably get the Maximux VII Hero and the i7-4790K and a 780Ti but I tend to climb too far up the price/performance curve.
 
#12 ·
If he's not too concerned with triple A titles at high settings, then a 750 ti is acceptable. If he plans to upgrade gpu later down the road, even moreso. the i7 has only a very slight advantage in most games, but I'd personally appreciate the hyper threading even if I wasn't streaming. Call it superstition. Maybe one day someone should test perceived responsiveness of webbrowsing while watching a 720p/1080p webstream on a second monitor and listening to music, with and without hyper threading on.

Maybe when also stability testing the system on the side, then it might be useful c;

oh and thank intel for overly glorifying their quad (and some dual, lol 4600m) cores with enabled hyper threadding, by giving em a tier of their own in their naming scheme. Marketing at its best.

oh and I'll be sad if he doesn't at least try to OC with the setup, just give him a xeon quad (they got hyper threading tooo) and a cheaper board if he doesn't plan on doing so. Though I'd imagine you verified he at least intends to oc sometime down the road c;

On that note I was reminded that the 4790k comes clocked a fair bit higher (~14%), so if he does not want to OC right off the bat, it's gonna be a bit faster in anything. Which would also speak against the xeon, I guess!
 
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