Jimmiegin Posted January 23, 2015 Share Posted January 23, 2015 Hi. I am looking at buying the i7-4790k and although it is very impressive, at least to me with my little A10, I wonder if it is entirely what i am looking for/need. I am going to be installing discrete graphics so i am thinking maybe a comparable CPU without IGP and if there would actually be any benefits to doing this? like cost, socket type etc etc. If any of you guys are into processor porn maybe you could shed some light on the subject of whats really under the lid and help me decide on what CPU really deserves the money. Any help is really appreciated! Thanks. EDIT: i should add that i will be using circuit sim's and PCB designing software: Multisim and ultiboard. And three DAWs Logic Pro X, Ableton and Reason. I may sometimes need to run complex simulations for several hours and sometimes a day or so. I would very much like the use of my machine while the sim is doing its thing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MacUser2525 Posted January 23, 2015 Share Posted January 23, 2015 OSX remains responsive no matter the load placed on it most times. I routinely encode h264 video for hours at a time it takes just about 100% on all the cores/threads in the machine while doing this. Usually I have 5-10 programs open at all times doing this they all work without problems. Now I have plenty of ram (16gb) so it never really swaps it out to disk and if it does it is doing so to a SSD drive so that is a nice speed up right there. Processor wise unless you are overclocking it forget the stupid k on the chip that saves you cash for something you will never use and possibly go for one of the Xeon chips they have out now with 6 or 8 cores. The more real cores with the highest speed you can afford the better for getting your actual work done. So in short what you need to look for, plenty of ram in machine to cover your usage minimum 16gb or 32gb, SSD(s) for boot and scratch drive if applicable to those programs used and as many cores as you can get in your processor. Oh and unless those programs off load to a GPU for processing your wasting money there if all you need is the basic graphics the processor will provide. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jimmiegin Posted January 25, 2015 Author Share Posted January 25, 2015 Ok, thanks for the reply. I have a few SSDs knocking around and i will be installing 16 - 32 GB RAM as i want to make this machine good enough to last me for some time and do some amount of work. I already have a GT 610 2GB card for running Yosemite so i will probably just stick with that one. I have yet to find a Xeon that will measure up price to performance. As i said before i was going to go with a couple or E5620s that i have in my draw but the cost of the motherboard and put me off. I am going to go look into current Xeon CPUs. Thanks for the reply! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MacUser2525 Posted January 25, 2015 Share Posted January 25, 2015 Ok, thanks for the reply. I have a few SSDs knocking around and i will be installing 16 - 32 GB RAM as i want to make this machine good enough to last me for some time and do some amount of work. I already have a GT 610 2GB card for running Yosemite so i will probably just stick with that one. I have yet to find a Xeon that will measure up price to performance. As i said before i was going to go with a couple or E5620s that i have in my draw but the cost of the motherboard and put me off. I am going to go look into current Xeon CPUs. Thanks for the reply! Your welcome seems like you have a handle on the idea here. Those E5620s even though you have them laying around are probably not the best as you have already seen not only is the costs of the other parts needed high they will not out perform a 4790 single chip based machine. Way more power will be used at all times running a machine like that for no real world benefit (put 4790 in link below to see), good luck on the build. http://browser.primatelabs.com/geekbench2/search?q=E5620 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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