Intel Core i5-4430 Conclusion

Enthusiasts prefer the fastest hardware they can afford, but not all the dollars you spend on your rig have the same proportional effect. If you are a professional video producer, or perhaps just spend a lot of time ripping DVDs and transcoding video, then the extra money for a top-end CPU like the 4770K makes sense.

But the 4430 doesn’t give up as much as you’d expect in that category, especially if you’re using a QuickSync-aware program like Arcsoft’s Media Converter, where the performance of the Core i5 CPU was a full 91% of the performance of the Core i7. Now, it’s certainly true that the 4770K can be overclocked while the 4430 cannot, but as our overclocking tests have shown, there’s not as much headroom in the Haswell architecture as you might expect, where aggressive overclocking achieved only a 13% or so performance increase.

For gamers, the video card is the “gating factor” for performance, as long as your CPU is fast enough– and the Core i5-4430 is plenty fast enough. At $185.99 (ATD Computers), it’s much less expensive than the Core i7-4770K, and that’s money you can put into a higher performance video card or more memory.

For most people, even avid gamers, there’s simply no need to spend more money on a CPU that’s faster than this.

Pros:

+ Excellent price/performance ratio
+ Same HD4600 iGPU as the top-end Haswell CPUs

Cons:

– Can’t be overclocked
– Significantly slower than top-end Haswells on heavily threaded workloads

Ratings:

• Performance: 9.50
• Overclock: N/A
• Construction: 9.00
• Functionality: 9.25
• Value: 9.75

Final Score: 9.375 out of 10.

Excellence Achievement: Benchmark Reviews Golden Tachometer Award.

COMMENT QUESTION: Do you prefer Intel or AMD desktop processors?