Is 4790k worth upgrade over 3570k?

Next month im getting a 4k monitor and a GTX 980. I plan on having two HDD's; 1 set up for my current 1080 monitor for 1080 gaming and 1 for my new 4k monitor for 4k gaming.

My question is while I have a few extra bucks, is it worth $700 to go from my 3570k @ 4.3ghz, 32gb ram @ 1600mhz, and asrock z77 extreme4 to a 4790k, 16gb 2133mhz, asus maximus vii hero? I would also get the popular zalman cooler and overclock as much as possible.

Not if you're gaming, no.

Here is the 3770k vs the 4790k.

Now, here is the 3570k vs the 3770k,

In other words, at the resolutions you'll be gaming on with that 980.. you won't see a difference. That $700 is way better spent on something else.

The performance you'd gain from such an upgrade is definitely not worth $700. If you start feeling the need for HT, simply get a second-hand i7 3770K.

It'd make the most sense if you were upgrading at all to just get a 3770k, but I'd only even get that if you were doing any kind of rendering or encoding with your pc. If you are, then a used 3770k would totally be worth it.

kniaugaudiskis said:

The performance you'd gain from such an upgrade is definitely not worth $700. If you start feeling the need for HT, simply get a second-hand i7 3770K.

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The cost would be much less if the OP sold the previous system to buy the new.

I mainly update for the new feature set with the Motherboard.
cpu upgrades nowadays are like meh.

drescherjm said:

The cost would be much less if the OP sold the previous system to buy the new.

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Still not really worth it for pure gaming purposes. For 4k gaming, a GPU upgrade (in this case a second 980) would make much more sense.

Save the money on the CPU/Motherboard/RAM and consider getting a second video card for SLI. That will have a greater impact at 4k than the minor bump in CPU performance.

Tsumi said:

Still not really worth it for pure gaming purposes. For 4k gaming, a GPU upgrade (in this case a second 980) would make much more sense.

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MrCaffeineX said:

Save the money on the CPU/Motherboard/RAM and consider getting a second video card for SLI. That will have a greater impact at 4k than the minor bump in CPU performance.

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This. Get a second GTX 980. A menial CPU upgrade would give close to zero performance increases with GPU-bound 4K gaming.

systemvipers said:

What monitor have you chosen?

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Im looking at the $600 Samsung U28D590D from Best Buy. That way if for some reason there is a problem, easy returns. My goal for the monitor is to get into 4k gaming and also view my digital pictures in a higher res monitor.

drescherjm said:

The cost would be much less if the OP sold the previous system to buy the new.

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I would love to do that, but the only way I can seem to do that is through ebay, and I really dont want to use ebay anymore. Last month I tried to sell two items and had fraudulent buyers both times. Even though they were caught before I shipped, the one cost me $50 and the other $11 through ebay/paypal fees even though no sale was made.


Thanks for the info everyone. I think i'll just get the video card and monitor for now and see how it goes. I just wasnt sure if there was any reasonable worthwhile cpu upgrade over my 3570k.