# I4790k upgrade to what?



## pixel (Sep 22, 2018)

Hi. 
I feel that time has come to upgrade my old boy i4790k as I'm reaching 100% more often than before. What CPU (Intel) would give me significant improvement? Is it even possible to get 50% more power with newer CPU's or it's more like 10-20% max?
I really wonder how much of more processing power I can expect from newer CPU's than mine.

I need to mention that I'm not high profile or work for such company so I can't afford absolutely newest CPU's (these are overpriced anyway). But I do like to hear opinions how they compare to.

I'm using cpu hungry plugins for mixing and synths like Repro5. I can't squeeze any more juice from software side. CPU is overclocked to reasonable risk-free level.


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## R. Soul (Sep 22, 2018)

I guess the best value option these days is the i7-8700k cpu, but I'm not sure if it's that much of an upgrade. So to really feel an improvement you are probably looking at i9-7900x which is a lot more expensive.

Coming from a i5-3470 Dell machine to my custom i7-6700k, overclocked to 4.5 ghz, I find the upgrade has been underwhelming unfortunately.


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## jononotbono (Sep 22, 2018)

One of my computers has an i7 2600k and it's overclocked to 4.5ghz. I built it at least 7 - 8 years ago. Needless to say it's still keeping up (all be it a quad core) and is why I have bothered replacing it yet.

For my next PC build I think I'm going for a 9900k. 8 core and 5ghz clock?!? Sounds perfect for a DAW Master Computer. Then slaves I then build to accompany it can have slower clock and massive thread count. Dual 14 core Xeon server machines each etc. That's my plan anyway.


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## heisenberg (Sep 22, 2018)

Yes, the 9900k intel CPU has certainly got my attention.


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## chimuelo (Sep 22, 2018)

More Cores @ 4.0GHz.
Plenty of options.

Keep the i7 4790k as a VEPro Synth box.


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## pixel (Sep 22, 2018)

Quick research told me that it's not worth to upgrade to any new CPU in matter of price:improvement ratio.
That's unfortunate. I'm not willing to pay $1k for CPU, not in this life. 4790k for £300-400 gave me years of great performance so $1k doesn't calculate for me.


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## pixel (Sep 22, 2018)

chimuelo said:


> More Cores @ 4.0GHz.
> Plenty of options.
> 
> Keep the i7 4790k as a VEPro Synth box.



It seems that it's time to invest in VEPro + another PC. It seems more logical


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## Øivind (Sep 22, 2018)

pixel said:


> Quick research told me that it's not worth to upgrade to any new CPU in matter of price:improvement ratio.
> That's unfortunate. I'm not willing to pay $1k for CPU, not in this life. 4790k for £300-400 gave me years of great performance so $1k doesn't calculate for me.



the i9 9900k (8core 16thread with a most likely easy overclock to 5ghz) is speculated to be around $520.


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## heisenberg (Sep 22, 2018)

Any idea on release date for the 9900k?


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## Øivind (Sep 22, 2018)

Some sites say 1st or early October. Intel is being pretty tight lipped about the whole thing.


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## jamwerks (Sep 22, 2018)

I'm hoping a processor capable of hosting 128gb ram will soon follow!


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## chimuelo (Sep 22, 2018)

Buy AMD if you want a powerful sample playback machine with large RAM.
I’m going to get one early ‘19.
Guys I know love Intel for synths AMD or big ass Xeons for DAW/Sample work.


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## Andrew Aversa (Sep 22, 2018)

@jamwerks Any Skylake-X can support 128gb (i9 7900x, 7920x, etc), same with the Threadripper platform by AMD. However even for sample playback it appears as though AMD is behind the curve, according to ScanProAudio's benchmarks.


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## pixel (Sep 22, 2018)

oivind_rosvold said:


> the i9 9900k (8core 16thread with a most likely easy overclock to 5ghz) is speculated to be around $520.


I like that speculation


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## jamwerks (Sep 22, 2018)

zircon_st said:


> @jamwerks Any Skylake-X can support 128gb (i9 7900x, 7920x, etc)


All of these Skylake-X cpu's have the reported bugs hurting performance that their successors wouldn't. How much of a real issue is that?


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## Pictus (Sep 23, 2018)

Intel Core i9-9900K 8 Core Cinebench R15 Benchmark Leaks Out
Overclocked To 5 GHz Across All Cores, Massive Multi-Thread Performance
Check goo.gl/XTNnDD


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## JohnG (Sep 23, 2018)

Not to be a pest, but what buffer are you using? Could you live with a little softer buffer and extend the life of what you have?


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## Andrew Aversa (Sep 23, 2018)

Looks like the patches were extremely minor:

http://www.scanproaudio.info/2018/01/12/the-impact-of-meltdown-and-spectre-for-audio-workstations/

In any case, probably not a good idea to get Skylake-X either at this very moment - assuming their successor is coming soon, which it is rumored to be. Same with 8700k -> 9900k. I'm waiting on this myself!


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## JohnG (Sep 23, 2018)

zircon_st said:


> In any case, probably not a good idea to get Skylake-X either at this very moment



...this idea of waiting a bit seems to be prevalent, at least here. I'm not in the market for a new CPU so I'm not on top of it, but that's why I asked about the buffer setting. If you could eke out a little more time on what you have you might give yourself better options, or at least less expensive ones.


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## pixel (Sep 23, 2018)

JohnG said:


> Not to be a pest, but what buffer are you using? Could you live with a little softer buffer and extend the life of what you have?


For mixing I'm using 1024 - the highest setting available. I was extending life of my machine for a bit of time already in many different ways. This is why I came to the point that I can't do anything more than just upgrade machine. 
But VEPro seems to be the best (cheapest) solution


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## heisenberg (Sep 23, 2018)

zircon_st said:


> Looks like the patches were extremely minor:
> 
> http://www.scanproaudio.info/2018/01/12/the-impact-of-meltdown-and-spectre-for-audio-workstations/
> 
> In any case, probably not a good idea to get Skylake-X either at this very moment - assuming their successor is coming soon, which it is rumored to be. Same with 8700k -> 9900k. I'm waiting on this myself!



Thanks for the pointer. I should have checked, the 9900k is limited to 64GB of RAM. Coffee Lake processor and of course all the current processors have the Spectre & Meltdown issues in the processor itself.

Specs of the i9 9900k processor...

https://en.wikichip.org/wiki/intel/core_i9/i9-9900k


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## Pictus (Sep 23, 2018)

pixel said:


> For mixing I'm using 1024 - the highest setting available. I was extending life of my machine for a bit of time already in many different ways. This is why I came to the point that I can't do anything more than just upgrade machine.


If you got a decent cooler, some overclock will help...


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## pixel (Sep 23, 2018)

Pictus said:


> If you got a decent cooler, some overclock will help...



Already done


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## Pictus (Sep 23, 2018)

Well, then use Reaper...


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