HiSilicon Kirin 990 4G vs Intel Core i7-4790K

Last updated: 2023-12-03

CPU comparison with benchmarks


HiSilicon Kirin 990 4G		Intel Core i7-4790K
CPU comparison HiSilicon Kirin 990 4G or Intel Core i7-4790K - which processor is faster? In this comparison we look at the differences and analyze which of these two CPUs is better. We compare the technical data and benchmark results. The HiSilicon Kirin 990 4G has 8 cores with 8 threads and clocks with a maximum frequency of 2.86 GHz. Up to 8 GB of memory is supported in 4 memory channels. The HiSilicon Kirin 990 4G was released in Q3/2019. The Intel Core i7-4790K has 4 cores with 8 threads and clocks with a maximum frequency of 4.40 GHz. The CPU supports up to 32 GB of memory in 2 memory channels. The Intel Core i7-4790K was released in Q2/2014.

HiSilicon Kirin (29)	Family	Intel Core i7 (298)
HiSilicon Kirin 990 (3)	CPU group	Intel Core i 4000 (DC) (2)
8	Generation	4
Cortex-A76 / Cortex-A55	Architecture	Devils Canyon S
Mobile	Segment	Desktop / Server
--	Predecessor	--
--	Successor	--

CPU Cores and Base Frequency The HiSilicon Kirin 990 4G has 8 CPU cores and can calculate 8 threads in parallel. The clock frequency of the HiSilicon Kirin 990 4G is 2.86 GHz while the Intel Core i7-4790K has 4 CPU cores and 8 threads can calculate simultaneously. The clock frequency of the Intel Core i7-4790K is at 4.00 GHz (4.40 GHz).
HiSilicon Kirin 990 4G	Characteristic	Intel Core i7-4790K
8	Cores	4
8	Threads	8
hybrid (Prime / big.LITTLE)	Core architecture	normal
No	Hyperthreading	Yes
No	Overclocking ?	Yes
2.86 GHz 2x Cortex-A76	A-Core	4.00 GHz (4.40 GHz)
2.09 GHz 2x Cortex-A76	B-Core	--
1.86 GHz 4x Cortex-A55	C-Core	--
Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning Processors with the support of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) can process many calculations, especially audio, image and video processing, much faster than classic processors. Algorithms for ML improve their performance the more data they have collected via software. ML tasks can be processed up to 10,000 times faster than with a classic processor.
HiSilicon Kirin 990 4G	Characteristic	Intel Core i7-4790K
HUAWEI HiAI 2.0	AI hardware	--
Da Vinci Architecture. 1x Ascend Lite + 1x Ascend Tiny	AI specifications	--

Internal Graphics The HiSilicon Kirin 990 4G or Intel Core i7-4790K has integrated graphics, called iGPU for short. The iGPU uses the system's main memory as graphics memory and sits on the processor's die.
ARM Mali-G76 MP16	GPU	Intel HD Graphics 4600
0.60 GHz	GPU frequency	0.35 GHz
--	GPU (Turbo)	1.25 GHz
Bifrost 3	GPU Generation	7.5
7 nm	Technology	22 nm
2	Max. displays	3
16	Compute units	20
256	Shader	160
No	Hardware Raytracing	No
No	Frame Generation	No
4 GB	Max. GPU Memory	2 GB
12	DirectX Version	11.1

Hardware codec support A photo or video codec that is accelerated in hardware can greatly accelerate the working speed of a processor and extend the battery life of notebooks or smartphones when playing videos.
ARM Mali-G76 MP16	GPU	Intel HD Graphics 4600
Decode / Encode	Codec h265 / HEVC (8 bit)	No
Decode / Encode	Codec h265 / HEVC (10 bit)	No
Decode / Encode	Codec h264	Decode / Encode
Decode / Encode	Codec VP9	No
Decode / Encode	Codec VP8	No
No	Codec AV1	No
Decode / Encode	Codec AVC	Decode / Encode
Decode / Encode	Codec VC-1	Decode
Decode / Encode	Codec JPEG	Decode

Memory & PCIe The HiSilicon Kirin 990 4G can use up to 8 GB of memory in 4 memory channels. The maximum memory bandwidth is --. The Intel Core i7-4790K supports up to 32 GB of memory in 2 memory channels and achieves a memory bandwidth of up to 25.6 GB/s.
HiSilicon Kirin 990 4G	Characteristic	Intel Core i7-4790K
LPDDR4X-2133	Memory	DDR3-1600, DDR3L-1600
8 GB	Max. Memory	32 GB
4 (Quad Channel)	Memory channels	2 (Dual Channel)
--	Max. Bandwidth	25.6 GB/s
No	ECC	No
--	L2 Cache	--
2.00 MB	L3 Cache	8.00 MB
--	PCIe version	3.0
--	PCIe lanes	16
--	PCIe Bandwidth	15.8 GB/s
Thermal Management The thermal design power (TDP for short) of the HiSilicon Kirin 990 4G is 6 W, while the Intel Core i7-4790K has a TDP of 88 W. The TDP specifies the necessary cooling solution that is required to cool the processor sufficiently.
HiSilicon Kirin 990 4G	Characteristic	Intel Core i7-4790K
6 W	TDP (PL1 / PBP)	88 W
--	TDP (PL2)	--
--	TDP up	--
--	TDP down	--
--	Tjunction max.	--
Technical details The HiSilicon Kirin 990 4G is manufactured in 7 nm and has 2.00 MB cache. The Intel Core i7-4790K is manufactured in 22 nm and has a 8.00 MB cache.
HiSilicon Kirin 990 4G	Characteristic	Intel Core i7-4790K
7 nm	Technology	22 nm
Chiplet	Chip design	Monolithic
Armv8-A (64 bit)	Instruction set (ISA)	x86-64 (64 bit)
--	ISA extensions	SSE4.1, SSE4.2, AVX2
--	Socket	LGA 1150
None	Virtualization	VT-x, VT-x EPT, VT-d
No	AES-NI	Yes
Android	Operating systems	Windows 10, Linux
Q3/2019	Release date	Q2/2014
--	Release price	310 $

show more data		show more data

HiSilicon Kirin 990 4G 8C 8T @ 2.86 GHz buy now on Amazon and save! Intel Core i7-4790K 4C 8T @ 4.00 GHz (4.40 GHz) buy now on Amazon and save!

Rate these processors

Average performance in benchmarks

⌀ Single core performance in 2 CPU benchmarks

HiSilicon Kirin 990 4G (72%)

Intel Core i7-4790K (100%)

⌀ Multi core performance in 2 CPU benchmarks

HiSilicon Kirin 990 4G (70%)

Intel Core i7-4790K (100%)

Geekbench 5, 64bit (Single-Core)

Geekbench 5 is a cross plattform benchmark that heavily uses the systems memory. A fast memory will push the result a lot. The single-core test only uses one CPU core, the amount of cores or hyperthreading ability doesn't count.


	HiSilicon Kirin 990 4G 8C 8T @ 2.86 GHz	757 (71%)
	Intel Core i7-4790K 4C 8T @ 4.40 GHz	1073 (100%)

Geekbench 5, 64bit (Multi-Core)

Geekbench 5 is a cross plattform benchmark that heavily uses the systems memory. A fast memory will push the result a lot. The multi-core test involves all CPU cores and taks a big advantage of hyperthreading.


	HiSilicon Kirin 990 4G 8C 8T @ 2.86 GHz	2855 (71%)
	Intel Core i7-4790K 4C 8T @ 4.20 GHz	4001 (100%)

Geekbench 6 (Single-Core)

Geekbench 6 is a benchmark for modern computers, notebooks and smartphones. What is new is an optimized utilization of newer CPU architectures, e.g. based on the big.LITTLE concept and combining CPU cores of different sizes. The single-core benchmark only evaluates the performance of the fastest CPU core, the number of CPU cores in a processor is irrelevant here.


	HiSilicon Kirin 990 4G 8C 8T @ 2.86 GHz	996 (72%)
	Intel Core i7-4790K 4C 8T @ 4.40 GHz	1387 (100%)

Geekbench 6 (Multi-Core)

Geekbench 6 is a benchmark for modern computers, notebooks and smartphones. What is new is an optimized utilization of newer CPU architectures, e.g. based on the big.LITTLE concept and combining CPU cores of different sizes. The multi-core benchmark evaluates the performance of all of the processor's CPU cores. Virtual thread improvements such as AMD SMT or Intel's Hyper-Threading have a positive impact on the benchmark result.


	HiSilicon Kirin 990 4G 8C 8T @ 2.86 GHz	3244 (69%)
	Intel Core i7-4790K 4C 8T @ 4.20 GHz	4674 (100%)

iGPU - FP32 Performance (Single-precision GFLOPS)

The theoretical computing performance of the internal graphics unit of the processor with simple accuracy (32 bit) in GFLOPS. GFLOPS indicates how many billion floating point operations the iGPU can perform per second.


	HiSilicon Kirin 990 4G ARM Mali-G76 MP16 @ 0.60 GHz	737 (100%)
	Intel Core i7-4790K Intel HD Graphics 4600 @ 1.25 GHz	400 (54%)

Cinebench 2024 (Single-Core)

The Cinebench 2024 benchmark is based on the Redshift rendering engine, which is also used in Maxon's 3D program Cinema 4D. The benchmark runs are each 10 minutes long to test whether the processor is limited by its heat generation.


	HiSilicon Kirin 990 4G 8C 8T @ 2.86 GHz	0 (0%)
	Intel Core i7-4790K 4C 8T @ 4.40 GHz	64 (100%)

Cinebench 2024 (Multi-Core)

The Multi-Core test of the Cinebench 2024 benchmark uses all cpu cores to render using the Redshift rendering engine, which is also used in Maxons Cinema 4D. The benchmark run is 10 minutes long to test whether the processor is limited by its heat generation.


	HiSilicon Kirin 990 4G 8C 8T @ 2.86 GHz	0 (0%)
	Intel Core i7-4790K 4C 8T @ 4.40 GHz	262 (100%)

Cinebench R23 (Single-Core)

Cinebench R23 is the successor of Cinebench R20 and is also based on the Cinema 4 Suite. Cinema 4 is a worldwide used software to create 3D forms. The single-core test only uses one CPU core, the amount of cores or hyperthreading ability doesn't count.


	HiSilicon Kirin 990 4G 8C 8T @ 2.86 GHz	0 (0%)
	Intel Core i7-4790K 4C 8T @ 4.40 GHz	1069 (100%)

Cinebench R23 (Multi-Core)

Cinebench R23 is the successor of Cinebench R20 and is also based on the Cinema 4 Suite. Cinema 4 is a worldwide used software to create 3D forms. The multi-core test involves all CPU cores and taks a big advantage of hyperthreading.


	HiSilicon Kirin 990 4G 8C 8T @ 2.86 GHz	0 (0%)
	Intel Core i7-4790K 4C 8T @ 4.20 GHz	4936 (100%)

Cinebench R20 (Single-Core)

Cinebench R20 is the successor of Cinebench R15 and is also based on the Cinema 4 Suite. Cinema 4 is a worldwide used software to create 3D forms. The single-core test only uses one CPU core, the amount of cores or hyperthreading ability doesn't count.


	HiSilicon Kirin 990 4G 8C 8T @ 2.86 GHz	0 (0%)
	Intel Core i7-4790K 4C 8T @ 4.40 GHz	411 (100%)

Cinebench R20 (Multi-Core)

Cinebench R20 is the successor of Cinebench R15 and is also based on the Cinema 4 Suite. Cinema 4 is a worldwide used software to create 3D forms. The multi-core test involves all CPU cores and taks a big advantage of hyperthreading.


	HiSilicon Kirin 990 4G 8C 8T @ 2.86 GHz	0 (0%)
	Intel Core i7-4790K 4C 8T @ 4.20 GHz	1982 (100%)

Blender 3.1 Benchmark

In the Blender Benchmark 3.1, the scenes "monster", "junkshop" and "classroom" are rendered and the time required by the system is measured. In our benchmark we test the CPU and not the graphics card. Blender 3.1 was presented as a standalone version in March 2022.


	HiSilicon Kirin 990 4G 8C 8T @ 2.86 GHz	0 (0%)
	Intel Core i7-4790K 4C 8T @ 4.20 GHz	84 (100%)

Estimated results for PassMark CPU Mark

Some of the CPUs listed below have been benchmarked by CPU-monkey. However the majority of CPUs have not been tested and the results have been estimated by a CPU-monkey’s secret proprietary formula. As such they do not accurately reflect the actual Passmark CPU mark values and are not endorsed by PassMark Software Pty Ltd.


	HiSilicon Kirin 990 4G 8C 8T @ 2.86 GHz	0 (0%)
	Intel Core i7-4790K 4C 8T @ 4.20 GHz	8058 (100%)

Blender 2.81 (bmw27)

Blender is a free 3D graphics software for rendering (creating) 3D bodies, which can also be textured and animated in the software. The Blender benchmark creates predefined scenes and measures the time (s) required for the entire scene. The shorter the time required, the better. We selected bmw27 as the benchmark scene.


	HiSilicon Kirin 990 4G 8C 8T @ 2.86 GHz	0 (0%)
	Intel Core i7-4790K 4C 8T @ 4.20 GHz	407 (100%)

CPU-Z Benchmark 17 (Single-Core)

The CPU-Z benchmark measures a processor's performance by measuring the time it takes the system to complete all benchmark calculations. The faster the benchmark is completed, the higher the score.


	HiSilicon Kirin 990 4G 8C 8T @ 2.86 GHz	0 (0%)
	Intel Core i7-4790K 4C 8T @ 4.20 GHz	456 (100%)

CPU-Z Benchmark 17 (Multi-Core)

The CPU-Z benchmark measures a processor's performance by measuring the time it takes the system to complete all benchmark calculations. The faster the benchmark is completed, the higher the score.


	HiSilicon Kirin 990 4G 8C 8T @ 2.86 GHz	0 (0%)
	Intel Core i7-4790K 4C 8T @ 4.00 GHz	2311 (100%)

Cinebench R15 (Single-Core)

Cinebench R15 is the successor of Cinebench 11.5 and is also based on the Cinema 4 Suite. Cinema 4 is a worldwide used software to create 3D forms. The single-core test only uses one CPU core, the amount of cores or hyperthreading ability doesn't count.


	HiSilicon Kirin 990 4G 8C 8T @ 2.86 GHz	0 (0%)
	Intel Core i7-4790K 4C 8T @ 4.40 GHz	169 (100%)

Cinebench R15 (Multi-Core)

Cinebench R15 is the successor of Cinebench 11.5 and is also based on the Cinema 4 Suite. Cinema 4 is a worldwide used software to create 3D forms. The multi-core test involves all CPU cores and taks a big advantage of hyperthreading.


	HiSilicon Kirin 990 4G 8C 8T @ 2.86 GHz	0 (0%)
	Intel Core i7-4790K 4C 8T @ 4.20 GHz	854 (100%)

Devices using this processor
HiSilicon Kirin 990 4G	Intel Core i7-4790K
Huawei Mate 30 Pro	Unknown

Popular comparisons containing this CPUs


1.		Intel Core i7-4790K vs Intel Core i7-6700K
2.		Intel Core i7-4790 vs Intel Core i7-4790K
3.		Intel Core i7-5775C vs Intel Core i7-4790K
4.		Intel Core i7-4790K vs Intel Core i7-8700K
5.		Intel Core i7-4790K vs Intel Xeon E3-1231 v3
6.		Intel Core i7-6700 vs Intel Core i7-4790K
7.		Intel Core i7-4790K vs Intel Core i7-5820K
8.		Intel Core i7-4790K vs Intel Core i5-4690K
9.		AMD Ryzen 5 3600 vs Intel Core i7-4790K
10.		Intel Core i7-4790K vs AMD FX-8350