Geekbench 4 Benchmark Intel I7 4790k
6System Specs:
Processor/CPU: I7-4790k
Motherboard: Asus Z97 Pro
RAM: 16 gb PC12800 Gskill
GPU: PNY Geforce GTX 970 4 gbs
Hard Drives: Samsung 500 gb SSD + Seagate 3 TB hdd + Seagate 1 TB hdd
Case: Corsair C70
PSU: EVGA SuperNova 850 G3 80 Plus Gold
Cooling System: 2 front 120mm intake fans + 2 top 120mm exhaust fans + 1 rear 120mm exhaust fan
A I7-4790k was released in 2014 or about 4 years ago. I will compare it to more recent CPUs, like the I7-6700k and the Ryzen 1700.
I7-4790k 4 cores and 8 threads
Single-Core Score: 5374
Multi-Core Score: 18,138
I7-6700k 4 cores and 8 threads
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zPoTi_myUdU
Single-Core Score: 5315
Multi-Core Score: 17,619
I7-7700k 4 cores 8 threads
https://browser.geekbench.com/v4/cpu/search?q=i7-7700k
Single-Core Score: 6091
Multi-Core Score: 21,581
Ryzen 1700 8 core 16 threads
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EvsHOO7VZD4
Single-Core Score: 4159
Multi-Core Score: 19,852
The I7-4790k is 15.6% slower than the I7-7700k, the I7-4790k is 8.6% slower than the Ryzen 1700, and the I7-4790k is 2.8% faster than the I7-6700k. These results clearly show, the difference between the newest CPUs and a 4 year old CPU like the I7-4790k was about 8.6% to 15.9% slower. In actual frame rates on 3d applications, it would translate to 10 to 15 frames per second out of 130 frames/sec. CPU technology reached its peak back in 2010.
The way to make CPUs faster would be by making the core frequencies higher, and the higher the frequency the more heat that is generated. As a result, we had been seeing more and more cores being added to processors to counter this bottleneck. Adding more cores to a processor is equivalent to adding multiple processors, and that is called parallel computing. The application of parallel computing was used as early as the mid 1980s in the Cray 2 supercomputer. Most modern computers are more powerful than the Cray 2 supercomputer of the 1980s. A Cray 2 computer of 1985 had a processing power of 1.9 gigaflops, so compare that to a I7-4790k with 44.24 gigaflops of processing power. A I7-7700k has a processing power of 45.84 gigaflops. The Intel Paragon XP/S 140 in 1993 had a processing power of 143.40 gigaflops. A supercomputer of the early 1990s is still faster than a desktop modern computer, but it uses a lot less energy than a supercomputer. A Cray 2 supercomputer used about 150Kw(150,000 watts) to 200Kw(200,000 watts), and it was 23.23 times slower than a modern high end desktop processor. It used 214 to 285 times less energy than a Cray 2 supercomputer.
The biggest gains that were made in CPU performance was made from 1993 to 1999. Then, you made modest gains in CPU performance from 1999 to 2010. From 2010 to the present CPU performance gains has not been much due the bottlenecks of increasing the frequency of each cpu.
I was going to get a new computer to replace my I5-3570k based computer with a I7-7700k, but I just bought this computer for about $700. I don't have to spend $1900 on a new computer, and the performance between a isn't that much.