Devil’s Canyon Review: Intel Core i7-4790K and i5-4690K

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• ZeDestructor - Friday, July 11, 2014 - link

  Non-overclockable LGA-115x CPUs have VT-d (assuming your chipset + mobo allows it) as does the LGA-2011 platform as a whole nowadays, when intel added it to the platform on unlocked CPUs in a later revision (i7-3930K C2 and newer, available on all i7-3820) while keeping overclocking.
  
  That's reason number 3 for me getting Haswell-E later this year, since I do a fair bit of VM-related work on my desktop.

• DiDaDaDi - Saturday, July 12, 2014 - link

  We don't care what you want. I was just wondering why Intel hasn't pushed an update to the MB BIOS to "unlock" VT-d/TSX

• ZeDestructor - Saturday, July 12, 2014 - link

  No idea... Most likely it's written in the CPU itself, but then again, we can get microcode updates to the CPU as well... so really, who knows?
  
  Also, iirc the 4670K/4770K never had VT-d to begin with, like all previous LGA115x K-series cores...

• wintermute000 - Saturday, July 12, 2014 - link

  I thought 4790k has vt-d? (unlike 4770k). Stupid intel segmentation

• Roland00Address - Friday, July 11, 2014 - link

  I would buy the 4790k and just keep it at stock. Why get the K model? It is clocked 400 mhz higher and some people say that is worth $40 more dollars which is a 13% increase of cpu price, and even less when you figure in the cost of all the other computer components.
  
  I understand these chips are not marketed to me, but why would you deal with all the hassle of overclocking for less than a 10% difference in most tests? We are talking like 28 to 40 degrees celsius hotter cpu even though you are using an $100 cpu cooler, 40 watts more power draw and thus a hotter room, a louder computer, and worse a chance of data corruption and all the potential hassles overclocking brings in some instances.
  
  I understand if we were getting 30 to 50% performance increases like we used too, and still do with the new unlocked pentium g3258, but for less than 10% in most tests...why bother?
  
  (If you answer why bother? With its fun! That is okay and I understand. But to me overclocking is just work. I rather spend the 2 hours overclocking playing a game or watching a movie, and you will spend at least 2 hours tweaking and testing, etc.)

• ZeDestructor - Saturday, July 12, 2014 - link

  Overclocking is easy if all you want id a 10-15% boost: took me all of 15minutes worth of reboots on my 3570K to settle on 4.4GHz capped and +0.03V. Sub-80°C with my cheap-ass $30 cooler, until such time I build an awesome Novec-cooled (Novec is a line of non-conductive cooling fluids by 3M) liquid-cooling loop.

• Communism - Friday, July 11, 2014 - link

  Intel Math Library Optimized Linpack or no balls :D
  
  But seriously. My Ivy Bridge can do Intel Match Library Optimized Linpack @ 4.6ghz without throttling.
  
  Haswell and/or Haswell refresh are not upgrades for me if they cannot do the same.
  
  Stability must mean no errors of any sort ever. Period. This includes any and all throttling.
  
  Hopefully Haswell-E delivers.

• willis936 - Friday, July 11, 2014 - link

  I don't think it's possible to have no errors ever.

• JimmiG - Saturday, July 12, 2014 - link

  The Ivy Bridge only supports AVX. It's AVX2 that absolutely kills Haswell overclocks. We're talking a 10C increase over AVX (v1) easily.

• wurizen - Friday, July 11, 2014 - link

  not tempted by the 4790k at all. i have a i7-3770k oc'd to 4.1. i thought i was safe at 4.2 until sony movie studio crashed and i realized it was the oc so i downclocked it to 4.1. i have it offset too to -.065. not really an OC maestro but i am happy with it and i think i have one of those underperforming cpu batches. i also have a push-pull tpc 812 cpu cooler on there which is a high-end air cooler from cooler master. whatev.
  
  any news from AMD upgrading the FX series? and a new chipset? why is amd just focusing on the F2 series and A10 APU's?