The Core i7-4770K Review: Haswell Is Faster; Desktop Enthusiasts Yawn

[ojas]

About the higher power consumption, does your PSU/mobo support the C6/C7 states?

 

[daglesj]

Intel Product Development Meeting -

"Okay we can just refine our products slightly because quite frankly they meet the needs for 99% of our customer base.

"What about the other 1%?"

"Oh you mean the gamers? Nah not worth the R&D anymore! We'll just put out a CPU with 'Extreme' or similar on it and that will do!"

 

[hrmes]

[citation][nom]ojas[/nom]Your processor will place about the same on the charts as the 5800K.[/citation]

In AIDA64 benchmarks my system is faster than the 5800K in 3 out of 5 CPU tests and in all FPU tests (25-70%).

 

[cangelini]

[citation][nom]ojas[/nom]About the higher power consumption, does your PSU/mobo support the C6/C7 states?[/citation]
PSU was picked specifically for Haswell and used across all platforms. Motherboard: all C-states enabled in firmware.

 

[Sean Hoskins]

I remember when I bought my 3930k my friends talked mad shit about how I spent $600 bucks on something that'll be absolute in less than a year. Funny how things have a way of working themselves out.

 

[gsxrme]

and... im keeping my 2600k running at 5.1GHz with 2200Mhz ram setup until MAYBE the 5770k FFS!

 

[gsxrme]

I blame AMD for Intel being lazy and not releasing better upgrades!

 

[Sakkura]

There are 7 pages devoted to the integrated graphics that no one cares about, but only a few paragraphs talk about overclocking the 4770k? Something smells fishy here.

Did you only try overclocking with the single tower cooler from Noctua? Why didn't you try with an NH-D14? It does fit the 1150 socket and is more representative of what will be run for overclocking. I don't know how you can be so down on the overclocking. I doubt you tried any delidding with loaned out chips. All these things might need is some better thermal paste like Ivy Bridge.


Haswell will be a great upgrade over a 775. The $330 I7 4770K and $230 I5 4670K will be the fastest single threaded processor available, and at around half the cost of the $590 I7 3930K Sandy Bridge-E. As hyper threading really doesn't help with games, the $230 I5 4670K will be the top processor for gaming for at least a year. After that, Broadwell is reportedly using the same 1150 socket.

Now is a great time to upgrade, except for the people who upgraded last year. Sorry your last years news. It seems to be bothering you a lot, as every not worth upgrading comment seems to be coming from one of you. I get the distinct impression you were never planning on upgrading this cycle.

Delidding might help, but that's really beyond most people. Even most enthusiasts. And it's very disappointing if Intel cheaped out on that twice in a row.

A 4770K or 4670K is a great upgrade for people on 775. But so was a 3770K or 3570K. And so was a 2600K or 2500K.

 

[mafisometal]

[citation][nom]mayankleoboy1[/nom]1.4770K sucks harder than the preview showed it to be.2. Another thing i noticed, the FX8350 was a big total energy hog. That is one point AMD fanbois dont talk. 3. Chris , no specialized AVX2 softwares ? No AVX enabled Handbrake in tests ? 4. Would have liked to see some -/AVX2 compiled software in here. Maybe left for another "compiler tuning on Haswell piece" ?[/citation]

1. Intel wants money, kinda expected it to be more hype than reality.

2. Well, that is true about AMD, but the power consumption isn't drastic enough to dramatically raise the power bill. I've had a 2500k and im currently using an 8350. Maybe i pay an extra $5 on my power bill since i got the AMD chip. It's not drastic enough to say that's a deal breaker. Sure it doesn't perform as great as ivy bridge, but the difference is so little that it's pretty forgiving.

 

[Oscarcharliezulu]

I can't believe I waited another year for this CPU. I knew performance wouldn't be a leap but I was hoping for a lot better power consumption, not worse than ivy bridge.

 

[youcanDUit]

i have a i7-920 and i want/would like to upgrade. i'm better off waiting, huh?

 

[JAYDEEJOHN]

@ Chris
I was referring to your disappointment part this past week.

Also, when the mobiles come out, can you do a delayed game review, or, let the rigs heat up before testing, This will get you some attention for Toms, guaranteed

 

[lostmyclan]

lol 4770 need more power, better powersupply for 3% better? someone in intel smoking something good... We ed.... I prefer stay with mine 3770k 4.6ghz under air cooler geting less tha 80ºc

 

[Grandmastersexsay]

[citation][nom]mafisometal[/nom]1. Intel wants money, kinda expected it to be more hype than reality.2. Well, that is true about AMD, but the power consumption isn't drastic enough to dramatically raise the power bill. I've had a 2500k and im currently using an 8350. Maybe i pay an extra $5 on my power bill since i got the AMD chip. It's not drastic enough to say that's a deal breaker. Sure it doesn't perform as great as ivy bridge, but the difference is so little that it's pretty forgiving.[/citation]

Delidding really isn't beyond the average enthusiast. I would argue anyone not able to delid is not an enthusiast.

I was really just using that as an example to show how little this reviewer did to test the overclockability of these chips. It doesn't seem like he did enough to make such blanket statements. he certainly didn't provide enough information for people to be blasting haswell's overclockability.

What the reviewer is claiming might be true, but it flies against everything else we have heard. If he went into more detail, he might have more credibility.

 

[d3seeker]

And the "better" chips will be BGA!? Appalling if true Intel. What exactly are the advantages to BGA for us system builders and hopefuls is what I want to know?

 

[InvalidError]

Intel's actually taking a 2-fold strategy with this. on one hand they're pushing hard for low power mobile x86 plateforms, on the other-hand they're pushing 4K content really hard, trying to give people a reason to get back into desktops etc

I see no relation between 4k and the need for desktops: whatever hardware acceleration Intel puts into desktop CPUs to help with 4k they will certainly put into SoC/mobile CPU variants as well.

Also, even HD2500 is capable of decoding 4k/h264 streams so people with Ivy Bridge CPUs are already covered in the 4k decode department - for the very few people who can afford or be bothered with the expense of a 4k display in the first place.

 

[ismaeljrp]

If AMD ever catches up, they will just get one-up'd by Intel bringing 6 or even 8 core chips down towards the mainstream level where the 4670k/4770k are currently at, and boom there is your huge performance leap all of a sudden, since Quad-Cores will become the next Dual-Cores in a few years.

 

[Augray37]

This isn't surprising to me at all. Clearly Intel is pushing mobile processing power, which is more lucrative at the moment. The desktop variant didn't have to be a huge leap forward for Haswell to be a success overall. They didn't fail at taking a step forward, they took a step in a different direction.

 

[GIJoeMyGoodness]

[citation][nom]redeemer[/nom]10% increase over Sandy Bridge is a myth, too much heat too little gains Sandy Bridge is still superior i5 and i7 hitting 5.0 Ghz with air cooling something that is impossible on Ivy Bridge.[/citation]

Myth? Every bench shows higher performance per clock when comparing Sandy vs. Ivy bridge. What kind of myth are you talking about? It has native USB 3 and better power consumption and you complain about maximum overclocks? Ivy get's more done with a lower frequency and my i7-3770K is running 4.5Ghz on air. It idles at 32 and hits low 60s with all 4 running 4.5.

 

[John Pombrio]

Why did Intel even bother to release a socket desktop chip? Clearly Haswell was designed for laptops and smaller devices. It just does not scale up to higher frequencies well.

 

[aonor]

I feel like intel's new processors are more made for laptops than desktops.

 

[InvalidError]

I feel like intel's new processors are more made for laptops than desktops.

Haswell's main claim to fame is its Fully-Integrated Voltage Regulator which enables ~10X faster power state changes than Ivy Bridge and a similarly lower low/idle power use so you are correct: the most groundbreaking new feature in Haswell is clearly intended for mobile and embedded applications.

 

[falchard]

The 8350 looks a bit better.

 

[somebodyspecial]

Are the Adobe tests with Titan in there running CUDA? I mean why would you pay $1000 for a Titan and turn off Cuda in adobe ps, premiere or after effects?? You should always test CUDA vs. OpenCL etc. That would have showed why you buy a CUDA enabled card for adobe stuff vs. anything else.

I'd like to see the same ripping test with Sony (exact vid used) vs. Cuda on Titan or any NV card in Adobe premiere. Why you keep forcing opencl is beyond me.

@Danny & Refillable - BUY a CUDA card for Adobe apps until the next version when AMD actually has some decent support. CUDA is best in Adobe which is why toms ignores it while preaching how important OpenCL is (which it is not in the real world)

For MAYA, you can use the physx plugin:
http://mayastation.typepad.com/maya-station/2012/06/physx-plug-in-for-maya-2013-is-available.html

Or any render plugin using cuda. For example OCTANE from Render Toy:
http://render.otoy.com/
They have a plugin for just about every app including maya 2013. There are other plugins this is just an example. NV owns 90% of the professional market for a reason. Everything works with Cuda after 7yrs of spending on it. OpenCL has no money behind it yet. Adobe's next rev (CS7 or whatever) may finally bring at least that app up to being useful but we'll have to wait and see. Of course Cuda path is still in there too as they've already said so.

I wish this chip came without a gpu. My cpu speedup went o die space for a crap gpu I'll never touch. BUMMER. Not impressed with the price hike either. What happened to $329 or $319 for the 4770k? The 4670K got a hike to 242 also. Welcome to the milking session. AMD better get their act together or broadwell will be $500+ for i7 and $350+ for i5's.

 

[bigpoppastuke]

Looks like I'll stick with my i7 920. Best processor ever!