Intel's Core i7-4770K CPU No Longer the Fastest

Reviews can be really enlightening things, and the one that TweakTown posted not long ago did us the nice favor of showing that the strongest unlocked CPU in Intel's lineup is not the strongest of all CPUs anymore.

You would think that it would take a bit longer for this to happen. After all, Intel hasn't released the fourth generation "refresh" unlocked CPUs. That range, known as Devil's Canyon, will only come out during the summer. That didn't stop the newest Haswell fourth-generation processor from outdoing the Core i7-4770K though. Sure, the Core i7-4770K can be overclocked like nobody's business, but in its base form, it loses to the Core i7-4790. Granted, the name of the latter kind of spoils that, but there was enough room to wonder about the performance difference.

In the end, the review has confirmed that the newcomer is incrementally faster than the Core i7-4770K, as the 100 MHz extra clock speed implied. For those who want a reminder as to what the specs of the chips sound like, here they are: the Core i7-4770K runs at 3.5 GHz most of the time, but can reach 3.9 GHz in a pinch. Meanwhile, the Core i7-4790 has a base clock of 3.6 GHz, but can attain 4 GHz when the Turbo Boost Technology comes into play. It makes it seem odd that there could be any doubt as to whether the 4790 is any faster than the 4770K, but the latter is a top-tier chip, and could have had an advantage over the other in spite of refraining from overclocking. That's not the case, so if you're the sort of person that wants a very strong computer to play games on, but don't plan to tweak the clocks any, you can go ahead and get the Core i7-4790 without any worries.

The K chips often only get bought by people seeking to set new records, or to just go wild with liquid nitrogen cooling and the like. Well, there are also those folks who prefer unlocked multipliers because it ensures that they can steadily push performance higher as years pass, postponing the necessity of purchasing a new CPU for longer than two or three years. Indeed, the Core i7-4770K (and whatever Devil's Canyon equivalent is on the way) should be good for five to ten years. Especially if you eventually invest in a water cooling system, of the all-in-one, closed-loop variety or otherwise.

Intel Core i7 flagship CPU proven second fastest
Image credits to Intel

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