What's the best bang for the buck @ Socket 1150?

MoBo is a Asus Q87M-E/CSM. I bought it after I managed to break my MSI H81M-E33 when I decided to get a bigger case.

4790k or bust. beast of a processor. For personal use, I'm biased for i7's. I'd rather have the power and not need it . . .

Non k to save about $100 bucks.

And if you look at non-k you might want to price Xeons. Some are better price/performance than the better known consumer cpu's. Like the E3-1270 v3 which is right under the non k performance wise and may shave off another $10-20.

I don't Overclock most of the time, so...

I guess I'll need a new HSF as well, correct?

Also, is this Xeon you recommended *under* the performance of a i7-4770?

The xeon sits in the middle of the two consumer processors. All of these are rated 80-85 watts tdp. Since you won't be overclocking you won't t need a monster cooler. If you want to upgrade from stock coolers a hyper 212 or similar from BeQuiet for ~$25-30 is plenty. I have one on a cheap $50 clc from Corsair just so the noise is minimized.

I'd get the 4790 and not look back.

I've owned the following 1150 CPUs at one time or another: i5-4670K, i7-4770, i7-4770K, Xeon E3-1231v3, Xeon E3-1240v3, and currently an i7-4790K. Of those, I liked the i7-4770K and the Xeon E3-1231v3 the best. Both performed great and were easy to cool. While the i7-4790K is a beast, I've had nothing but trouble trying to keep it cool (under full load, it would reach 82C for extended periods). Granted, I've got it in an ITX small form factor build, but the others were also in similar systems.

I tried undervolting the i7-4790K, and it would seem stable through hours of benchmarking... only to crash at random times later on. I finally decided to leave the voltage at auto and instead disable the turbo mode so it only runs at 4.0 GHz no matter how many cores are used. This has allowed me to keep the CPU at 71C under full load. Kind of defeated the benefit of having the i7-4790K over the i7-4770K. Of course, you mileage may vary.

I just picked up a used i5-4690k for $100 shipped. You can't beat that. They're usually $100 (or more) under the price of an i7-4790k and that's not trivial.

Jeffredo said:

I just picked up a used i5-4690k for $100 shipped. You can't beat that. They're usually $100 (or more) under the price of an i7-4790k and that's not trivial.

Click to expand...

Where?

cdr_74_premium said:

Where?

Click to expand...

Fleabay. There's a guy on EVGA's forums (marketplace) that has an i5-4670k for $80 plus shipping too. Seriously though, the K series Haswell i5 has come down in price quite a lot where the i7 hasn't. They're still well over $200 while the locked ones are $160. Getting an i5 K for $100-120 is easy and once OC'd they're still very capable for today's gaming.

eBay has even the i5's for insane prices.

What's your budget?

Around 200 CAD, or 150 USD.

168 CAD for a i5-4670K is a good price? Comes with HSF.

Today is my birthday, I guess I'll treat myself to some gear.

New or used?