Intel · LGA1150 · Upgrade guide
Upgrading from a Core i7-4790K?
What you can drop into the same LGA1150 motherboard, and the graphics cards the Core i7-4790K can drive before it becomes the bottleneck.
See all upgrades for my board → Socket LGA1150
Gaming tier 40/100
TDP / base power 88 W
Released 2014
⬆️ Best drop-in upgrades (LGA1150)
The Core i7-4790K is already at the top of the LGA1150 platform for gaming — a faster CPU means a new motherboard (a platform upgrade), not a drop-in.
🎮 Graphics cards it can drive
The strongest GPU the Core i7-4790K can keep up with before it bottlenecks, by resolution:
1080p up to ~Radeon RX 6800 XT
1440p up to ~GeForce RTX 3090 Ti
4K up to ~GeForce RTX 5090
Higher resolutions lean on the GPU, so the same CPU pairs with stronger cards at 4K than at 1080p.