Question / Help Difference between 4930K and 4960X

[scarface12]

Hey guys,

I'm about to upgrade my PC and streaming setup and don't know if there would be any noticeable difference between a 4930K and 4960X when used in a secondary encoding/streaming PC.

I plan on gaming on my oc-ed 2500K on a 4K monitor with the gameplay captured by the second PC's capture card and rendered there (streamed at 1080p and 60f). I would stream Crysis 3 and TitanFall.

So would there be a noticeable improvement if I paid the extra money for a 4960X over a 4930K? Money is not a huge concern, I just want to best stream possible with a dedicated stream PC which only uses one processor. I already searched for "4960X" in the forum and only 6 posts came up that did not help.

ty

I am only playing at 1080p on the 4K monitor until the gtx 800 line comes out

 

[Jack0r]

You have a capture card that can input 4K resolution or plan on getting one after the 800 series?
Then you dont have to worry about money I would assume, just get the most expensive CPU you can get and then find out that the slowest preset just looks slightly better than veryfast.
I am not really sure what we should tell you. A CPU with roughly 1000 points more in a benchmark, will probably run slightly better as a CPU that as a worse benchmark result.
http://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=Intel+Core+i7-4960X+@+3.60GHz

 

[alpinlol]

if you plan to go with a dedicated streaming machine which should encode 1080p60 then you should probably look at xeons instead of the i7 extreme versions imo

 

[Videophile]

Go for the 4930k and overclock it with a decent cooler. The +$400 is not worth it for the 4960X, or, even better wait for the upcoming X99 8 core(16 thread) 5930K. That will be a encoding beast.

-Shrimp

 

[dodgepong]

I'm curious as to what 4K capture card you intend to use...

 

[scarface12]

Hello and thank you for the responses.

Right now I'm using a regular u3 extremecap external to currently get 1080p/60fps (I mirror with the HDMI output going to it). I was planning on buying a displayport capable cap card whenever they are released. I'm currently only playing with a GTX 680 on this $700 samsung 4k screen while I wait for the new maxwell cards to come out when I will SLI them (already have the money set aside).

The reason why I was not looking for Xeons is because I want the machine to double as a gaming PC (for in-house lan parties) while I'm not streaming. Sq footage is expensive in my area so I don't have too much space to build a second gaming PC in addition to a stream box.

With all those in consideration, would the 4960X have better/noticeable performance than the 4930K in a dedicated stream machine? I can get them for only a $100 price difference due to Retail Edge.

thnx

 

[Boildown]

For $100 more I'd get the 4960X. But the real best option is to wait for the Haswell-Es, as already mentioned (screw the Xeons IMO, too many sacrifices, as you said). There's diminishing returns in additional cores and threads, but clockspeed scales in a known manner.

By the way, you said "noticeable improvement". You're past the point of "noticeable improvement" no matter which one you get, more than likely, until you start streaming at higher than 1080p at least (which isn't a good idea unless you can also afford better bitrates).

As for displayport capture cards, the only ones worth a damn that I know of are these: http://www.unigraf.fi/products/video-capture-and-streaming . If you get one, I'd be very curious at how they work. By the way, whatever you get, make sure it does at least DisplayPort 1.2 or its no better than HDMI.

Your other options for 4k capture are the Datapath and Blackmagic, at least among the ones I'm even vaguely familiar with. But the best option is probably to not use a capture card: https://obsproject.com/forum/threads/guide-two-pc-configuration-without-capturecard.6757 .

Finally, why do you want to game at 4K? Do you not give a damn about framerate? Personally I'd rather game at 120Hz, or 144Hz, at a more normal resolution, than do 4K at shitty framerates or with graphics options turned down. Even the best GTX800 series when it comes out isn't going to enable 4K gaming with all the eye candy at non-suck framerates, unless you're playing an old game, in which case 4K doesn't matter in the first place. All this hype about 4K is nonsense to sell more TVs and computer monitors but won't result in improved gaming experiences, probably the opposite.

 

[vbdkv]

Nothing an FX-8350 cant handle for much cheaper.

 

[Jack0r]

Do I really have to link all the threads with people using such AMD processor and having problems with it because of the lack of power when it comes to doing more than one job at a time? And with quite lower settings than the OP is asking for?

It is not a bad processor, but really, you are comparing a benchmark wise 9000 points CPU to a 14000 points CPU. The FX is more comparable to a standard i7 but definitely worse when it comes to streaming.

 

[scarface12]

Hello does that extra 3MB of L3 cache in the 4960X (15MB) have any benefit over the 4930K (12MB) in a dedicated stream PC? This is also assuming I would overclock them to the exact same speed.

Thank you for all the suggestions on the capture card.

 

[Videophile]

Yes, the 3MB would make a difference, but not noticeably. That is more for video creators who want to shave 10-15 seconds off a render.

-Shrimp