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Core i7-4790K Review: Devil's Canyon Tantalizes Enthusiasts

Core i7-4790K Review: Devil's Canyon Tantalizes Enthusiasts
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Despite a clear performance advantage, Intel just doesn't seem like an enthusiast-friendly company. Certain elements in the organization want to change that perception, though. Devil's Canyon is meant to allay power users with more speed.

Man. I just realized almost one year has passed since I last wrote about Intel as a desktop processing company. And even then, the piece was Intel Core i7-4960X Review: Ivy Bridge-E, Benchmarked, about a slight evolution to a platform that launched nearly three years ago (X79 Express, in case your memory is rusty). That’s a pretty good indication of the extent that Intel was overlooking our enthusiast segment.

Actually, I’m not being entirely fair. Intel is running short on competition, after all. AMD's processor wing is really what's struggling to stay relevant amongst performance-hungry power users. As a result of the disappointing stagnation, I end up writing stories like The Core i7-4770K Review: Haswell Is Faster; Desktop Enthusiasts Yawn. In that piece, I was hard on the Core i7-4770K. The same went for my coverage of Core i7-3770K. Neither mainstream flagship gave you a compelling reason to upgrade. And it didn’t help that the shift from Z77 to Z87 to Z97 Express was pretty boring, too.

The good news is that Intel is listening.

Now I’m sitting here, in the lab, with the Core i7-4790K in front of me. As the CPU’s name suggests, this is still Haswell on an LGA 1150 interface. It’ll even drop into existing Z87-based motherboards, if your vendor of choice is being diligent about updating firmware. What’d Intel do to make the -4790K more enthusiast friendly, though?

Meet The Core i7-4790K

To begin, it addressed the one complaint that drove some power users and certain system builders to de-lid their CPUs: modest thermal transfer between the processor die and integrated heat spreader. We don’t know much about the “Next-Generation Polymer Thermal Interface Material” Intel is now using on its Devil’s Canyon parts. But we do know Intel worked uncharacteristically fast to implement it. In fact, the speed at which the company moved is cited as one of the reasons it couldn’t switch back to the solder that figured so prominently in Sandy Bridge overclocking successes.

The bottom of Core i7-4790K also features additional capacitors that Intel says help smooth power delivery to the processor die.

Those modifications come together, enabling a replacement for Core i7-4770K that drops into the same LGA 1150 interface. Vital specifications are very much similar; you get four physical cores able to address eight threads through HT technology, 8 MB of shared L3 cache, DDR3 memory support that officially tops out at 1600 MT/s, the same old HD Graphics 4600 engine, and a 16-lane PCI Express 3.0 controller.

Core i7-4790K operates at a base 4 GHz, though, and, in stock form, accelerates up to 4.4 GHz through Turbo Boost technology. This pushes the processor’s thermal ceiling up to 88 W (from 84).

You can expect the Devil’s Canyon parts to work in 9-series motherboards. However, Intel says board vendors may also update the firmware on their 8-series platforms.


Core i7-4790K
Core i7-4770K
Cores
4
4
Threads
8
8
Base Clock Rate
4.0 GHz
3.5 GHz
Maximum Turbo Boost Clock Rate
4.4 GHz
3.9 GHz
Lithography
22 nm
22 nm
Maximum TDP
88 W
84 W
Memory Support
32 GB, DDR3-1600
32 GB, DDR3-1600
Processor Graphics
HD Graphics 4600
HD Graphics 4600
Price (Box)
$350
$350
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  • 0 Hide
    cats_Paw , 10 June 2014 08:36
    While this is certainly nice, nowdays most games still run fairly well on my Q6600.
    Its been a good amount of years since that CPU came out, yet it seems that it can still survive well enought.
    Id like to see what we could actually do with a game that uses 8 core CPUs, but we have been waiting for that quite some time, and what we mostly get are Call of duty re-runs or lower quality retail games than the original trailers like dark souls 2.
  • 0 Hide
    wh3resmycar , 11 June 2014 00:37
    i disposed my q6600 3 years ago. games like skyrim and f1 2013 and other racing games tend to favor the bridges and haswell
  • 0 Hide
    LePhuronn , 11 June 2014 13:12
    Either Devil's Canyon isn't going to be as good a clocker as people hoped, or Intel are binning their press-release Engineering samples to be lower-end clockers giving retail chips a nice surprise when you get the good ones.

    Lower expectations so nobody's disappointed when DC doesn't go above 4.6GHz easily.

    Still, as somebody about to build a brand new Haswell system, getting the 4790K is a no-brainer - 4GHz stock than *could* jump up another 15-20%?
  • 0 Hide
    Robin Young , 14 June 2014 22:13
    I'm still happy with my Lynnfield i7 860. OC'd to 3.5Ghz with HT on, I just don't run any software that demands more. I guess the only reason to upgrade would be for reduced power draw.
  • 0 Hide
    mapesdhs , 16 June 2014 11:56

    Robin, at such a low oc level with an 860, you could probably set up your system
    with C-States turned on using offset vcore mode, in which case I doubt you'd notice
    that much of an improved power draw with a newer system, especially since P55
    was pretty frugal anyway (I have numerous P55 systems). A lot of false assumptions
    were made about P55, especially wrt its reduced PCIe provision vs. X58; amusing
    how all those back then who criticised P55 are now the same people who are happy
    to buy chipsets from P67 onwards which do exactly the same thing (P67, Z68, Z77,
    Z87 and Z97 all only have 16 lanes from the CPU, though of course compatible CPUs
    do at least make these PCIe v3). Few games really benefit from max possible PCIe
    speeds (FSX is an exception, because it's poorly coded), so P55 is still pretty decent.
    I was using an i7-870/4.3 with two 580s for a long time as my main gaming system;
    only upgraded after I messed up the mbd (oc meddling, my goof) and so took the
    opportunity to switch to P67 in order to have proper SATA3; performance wise though,
    the speedup for gaming with the newer setup (2700K @ 5.0) was minimal.

    If you haven't done so already Robin, you'd see a much more noticeable speedup
    for everyday tasks by switching to an SSD. As a mature product, reliable used units
    offer significant cost savings (I won an OEM Samsung 840 Pro 256GB in May for
    just 80 UKP, and more recently a 512GB Vector for only 167 UKP), while new items
    are often sold as normal auctions aswell.

    Although P55 is SATA2, the speedup is still considerable (I did many tests). Or for
    an original warranty, a new Crucal MX100 256GB is quite well priced atm, though
    I keep hunting for used OCZ Vertex4/Vector and all Samsung models from the 830
    onwards (I won another 840 250GB yesterday, item 161329316718).

    Ian.

    PS. Don't bother with SATA3 PCIe option cards for P55, they're usually
    just single-lane based on Marvell controllers; performance is woeful, slower
    than Intel SATA2. See my results (the 2nd URLs shows how bad the Marvell
    SATA3 controller is):

    http://www.sgidepot.co.uk/misc/ssd_tests.txt
    http://www.sgidepot.co.uk/misc/sata_vector_tests.txt



  • 1 Hide
    cats_Paw , 16 June 2014 15:18
    The problem is that since i5-2500K, next generations didnt improve much (if at all) in the gaming department. Video Games were always the one thing pushing hardware forward and people to upgrade.

    Since nowdays games are mostly ports from the console versions, the CPUs are too powerfull for them, and due to that we have seen a slow down in innovation and in hardware buys.

    In fact, in Poland, on online stores, the i5-2500k, the 3470K and the 4670K is priced almost exactly the same.
  • 0 Hide
    mapesdhs , 17 June 2014 11:07
    Indeed, it's very sad. Reading multiple GPU reviews, it's really only
    at high-detail and/or multi-screen with the latest titles where CPU
    bottlenecks begin to occur (except for specific games which do need a
    strong CPU, eg. for online multiplayer), which is why virtually every
    top-end GPU review these days is done with a system that has an oc'd
    CPU. Given the way game complexity tends to evolve, I reckon by the
    end of this year we'll see midrange systems experiencing CPU
    bottlenecks at stock clocks (maybe that's one reason why Intel
    released the 4790K, help move things up a bit). I understand why Intel
    has focused so much on power consumption, but they're leaving a large
    market behind and the gap is only getting worse. It's not just home
    consumers; there are loads of solo professionals who bemoan the lack
    of a good upgrade option. I read a bunch of 4790K reviews this week,
    the comments for every one of them are littered with people saying,
    "Still running with CPU <whatever>, can't see a reason to upgrade
    yet." Typically they have a SB or good X58 setup, but even P55 can be
    competitive (I was surprised to discover my old i7 870 setup at 4.3
    was quicker than an oc'd 3570K for 3DMark physics tests).

    If one has an older setup (eg. S775) and wishes to upgrade, it's hard to
    beat a used 2700K and a good used Z68 board (ie. a model that has a PLEX
    or equivalent chip included so as to support x16/x16 SLI/CF or better),
    unless one really has a need for a lot more native SATA3 or USB3, or some
    other factor is more important such as power consumption or CPU feature.
    For example, I bought an Asrock Z68 Extreme7 for only 80 UKP total (this
    has an NF200 to support x16/x16 CF/SLI), and a 2700K for 125 UKP total.
    By contrast, I'll be building a miniITX media server and small gaming box
    in a couple of months, so noise and power do matter aswell as
    performance, hence the ASUS Z97I-Plus looks good, maybe a 4690K, etc.)
    But for gaming on its own in a conventional build, the latest tech isn't
    that much better than what was current 2 or 3 years ago. IMO we need a
    new X58; back then, X58 didn't feel like a high-end niche, the range of
    boards and CPU options gave it a wider features/performance spread. By
    contrast, X79 feels like it's been pushed upwards, not for mainstream
    users at all, while the continued follow-on updates from P67 (Z68, Z77,
    Z87 and Z97) feel below the way X58 used to be, ie. X58 had a lot more
    PCIe lanes, 6-core CPU option, etc.

    I hope X99 isn't made to be so 'high-end', but with little sign Intel
    will add more PCIe lanes to the 4-core midrange, I doubt it. If Intel
    wants X99 to be high-end, fine, then do it properly, give it 80 PCIe
    lanes or somesuch so that native 4-way x16 SLI/CF/cGPU is possible
    while still leaving 16 lanes for I/O, etc. That is something which
    would attract the traditional enthusiast with money to burn, I'm sure.
    Then move up the midrange to 32 or 40 lanes, get rid of all this
    nonsense re shared lanes for M.2/mSATA/etc.

    Ian.


  • 0 Hide
    Robin Young , 7 July 2014 14:05
    Cheers for the info mapesdhs! Nice to see others still approving of the P55. I couldn't get to 4.0ghz without turning HT off, putting kinda high voltage on it and then heat started to become an issue. I'm at a happy balance of performance/efficiency I think. C-States is turned on to so it underclocks when it's not doing anything. I have a SSD, the Samsung 840 EVO 256gb. My P55 board was one of the last built I think, so it has SATA3 on board. The Asus P7P55D-E Deluxe. Has USB 3.0 too! Good board. Just need to upgrade my 6950 (unlocked to 6970) to a R9 280X or R9 290 and I'll have gotten as far as i can go with this system I think.
  • 0 Hide
    mapesdhs , 7 July 2014 17:09

    Robin Young writes:
    > Cheers for the info mapesdhs! Nice to see others still approving of the P55. ...

    It's an interesting system to oc, certainly more of a challenge than SB or later. I have
    quite a few setups, most recently an ASUS P7P55 WS Supercomputer, which I fitted
    with a stock i7 870 and four GTX 580s. It completed the Blender/BMW test in 12.51s,
    which is faster than two Titan Blacks. :D 


    > ... I couldn't get to 4.0ghz without turning HT off, putting kinda high voltage on it and
    > then heat started to become an issue. ...

    This varies greatly by the choice of mbd, heatsink setup and luck of the draw with the CPU.
    Also, it's very easy with P55 to have far too much VTT or vcore, whereas infact a small
    PLL or PCH change can have a much greater effect on stability. I bought an 860 originally,
    but the 870 is definiely easier to work with for oc'ing. Anything less than 4.3 with HT on for
    an 870 (assuming sensible cooling) would be unusual, unless the mbd can't handle it, or
    the RAM controller is stressed by all 4 slots being used. OTOH, I fitted my brother's P55
    system with an 870 which was just too hot at 4GHz with HT on. Luck of the draw.


    > ... C-States is turned on to so it underclocks when it's not doing anything. ...

    Note that it's much harder to have an oc'd P55 system with power saving stuff
    turned on. Much like X58, it works better with all that sort of thing turned off.
    SandyBridge is very different. The ASUS ROG site has a good guide on dynamic
    vcore oc'ing.

    > I have a SSD, the Samsung 840 EVO 256gb. ...

    Good choice.


    > My P55 board was one of the last built I think, so it has SATA3 on board. The
    > Asus P7P55D-E Deluxe. ...

    Alas that's a Marvell controller. You might be shocked how much better in some
    cases a SATA3 SSD will run on one of the Intel SATA2 ports instead.


    > ... Has USB 3.0 too! Good board. Just need to upgrade my 6950 (unlocked to
    > 6970) to a R9 280X or R9 290 and I'll have gotten as far as i can go with this system I think.

    Hmm, depends on what you're doing. GPU-bound games like Call of Juarez will
    run fine on a P55 even with two modern GPUs SLI/CF, because the CPU is less of an issue.
    Even then, a decently clocked 860/870 is no slouch. People forget it has lower latency which
    helps in some cases.

    It'll lose of course for CPU-intensive tasks like movie conversion, but for gaming, it's not so bad.
    What is your CPU cooling setup? Hmm, don't want to sidetrack this thread, feel free to PM me.

    Ian.

  • 0 Hide
    hannibal , 22 July 2014 12:17
    Now there is a test about the quality of thermal transfer material.
    It seems to be as good as MX-4 but much worse than liquid metal.
    http://muropaketti.com/artikkelit/prosessorit/intel-devils-canyonin-lammonlevittajan-irrottaminen-ja-vakiotahnan-vaihto,1