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

[envolva]

Wish there was a Bloomfield processor around. An older Intel processor with a clear performance loss would be very informative to me. Drawing a line on how old a system you can buy and not lose much. The performance upgrade doesn't seems to justify another platform change from each processor reviewed.

So I'm inclined to say the first "i" generation should be here somewhere.

 

[InvalidError]

Yet it seems even the best cpu coolers have a harder time keeping it cool then a fx8350... remember, TDP isn't power draw. TDP is how much heat energy the cooling system needs to dissipate. People associate them as one and the same, yet by moving the power regulators onto the chip, i think they broke the formula.

Moving (part of) the voltage regulation on-chip does not change anything to TDP's relation with power aside from adding the VRM losses to the CPU's own - electrical power is still the only heat source inside the CPU regardless of which internal components converts electrical power to heat or why/how.

What makes a given chip easier or harder to cool is:
1- thermal density (how many watts per square millimeter)
2- thermal resistance from junction to heatsink and from heatsink to air
3- maximum allowable temperature (heat moves quicker across larger temperature gradients)

Since Haswell is a larger chip than Ivy with somewhat higher power, it should have similar power density and be similarly easy/difficult to cool. If Intel is still using a paste-based TIM between the die and IHS (which they probably do) then everyone who complained about how IB was "difficult" to cool due to "lousy" thermal paste will inevitably complain about Haswell too.

 

[ingtar33]

As you already mentioned, HD4600 is not Intel's highest-end Haswell GPU. Iris Pro is on the order of 2x faster than HD4000, and it accomplishes this in a 47W mobile package. In terms of performance it's in a completely different league than AMD's current gen mobile APU's. In fact, it even outperforms the HD7660D in the 100W A10-5800K.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/6993/intel-iris-pro-5200-graphics-review-core-i74950hq-tested

It's in these sorts of low TDP and mobile SKU's that Haswell is really going to shine. It's already been mentioned many times, but this is where Intel has devoted the vast majority of its efforts this generation. Higher performance, lower power mobile solutions.

They crippled the desktop a10 in that review. don't know why but they crippled it pretty badly. I'm sure there was some justification for it, i'm just not sure what it was.

Personally i didn't really mind much, the BGA Iris Pro is a $680 laptop part. Comparing it to an A10 at any level (laptop or otherwise) to a part x6 more expensive is sorta silly; i'd be extremely upset with intel if there wasn't some sort of revolutionary breakthrough in mobile systems for that type of premium.

there is, the igpu is very nice, and the power sipping features of that high wend cpu is also impressive. the Iris Pro, at that price range is an ideal Mac Book Pro part. Which i suspect is the only place we'll ever see them.

 

[Azn Cracker]

so it looks like im sticking with my 2500k until next year or two...

nice review though!

 

[InvalidError]

so it looks like im sticking with my 2500k until next year or two...

Next year is probably-BGA-only Broadwell year. Enthusiasts will likely skip it en masse unless it comes embedded in their shiny new must-have gadgets, appliances, etc.

 

[Sakkura]

They crippled the desktop a10 in that review. don't know why but they crippled it pretty badly. I'm sure there was some justification for it, i'm just not sure what it was.

Personally i didn't really mind much, the BGA Iris Pro is a $680 laptop part. Comparing it to an A10 at any level (laptop or otherwise) to a part x6 more expensive is sorta silly; i'd be extremely upset with intel if there wasn't some sort of revolutionary breakthrough in mobile systems for that type of premium.

there is, the igpu is very nice, and the power sipping features of that high wend cpu is also impressive. the Iris Pro, at that price range is an ideal Mac Book Pro part. Which i suspect is the only place we'll ever see them.

How exactly did they cripple the desktop A10?

 

[Sakkura]

so it looks like im sticking with my 2500k until next year or two...

Next year is probably-BGA-only Broadwell year. Enthusiasts will likely skip it en masse unless it comes embedded in their shiny new must-have gadgets, appliances, etc.

Not this again. Broadwell will include LGA 1150 SKUs as well as the BGA ones.

 

[dragonsqrrl]

[citation][nom]ingtar33[/nom]They crippled the desktop a10 in that review. don't know why but they crippled it pretty badly. I'm sure there was some justification for it, i'm just not sure what it was. [/citation]
[citation][nom]Sakkura[/nom]How exactly did they cripple the desktop A10?[/citation]
I was just about to ask the same question. If anything the desktop SKU's had an advantage since they were using faster memory (DDR3 2133 compared to DDR3 1600). And the positive performance impact faster memory can have on the iGPU in Trinity has been well documented.

 

[ingtar33]

They crippled the desktop a10 in that review. don't know why but they crippled it pretty badly. I'm sure there was some justification for it, i'm just not sure what it was.

Personally i didn't really mind much, the BGA Iris Pro is a $680 laptop part. Comparing it to an A10 at any level (laptop or otherwise) to a part x6 more expensive is sorta silly; i'd be extremely upset with intel if there wasn't some sort of revolutionary breakthrough in mobile systems for that type of premium.

there is, the igpu is very nice, and the power sipping features of that high wend cpu is also impressive. the Iris Pro, at that price range is an ideal Mac Book Pro part. Which i suspect is the only place we'll ever see them.

How exactly did they cripple the desktop A10?

[citation][nom]ingtar33[/nom]They crippled the desktop a10 in that review. don't know why but they crippled it pretty badly. I'm sure there was some justification for it, i'm just not sure what it was. [/citation]
[citation][nom]Sakkura[/nom]How exactly did they cripple the desktop A10?[/citation]
I was just about to ask the same question. If anything the desktop SKU's had an advantage since they where using faster memory (DDR3 2133 compared to DDR3 1600). And the positive performance impact faster memory can have on the iGPU in Trinity has been well documented.

my apologies, i was shooting from the hip. i remember reading that article yesterday and thinking "the A10 isn't set up right to stretch it's legs"... I'm right and wrong.

The reviewers used excellent ram, which is good. however he kept the A10 at stock speeds. which is unfortunate... as anyone who's played with one can attest, if you don't overclock the a10 you're sorta hurting yourself, as you can get some pretty significant gains from an overclocked a10.

that said overclocking the a10 wouldn't have mattered. That i7-4950HQ is a seriously high performing piece of equipment.

 

[Kevin Alvarado]

Would buying this (I have no money but i'm asking) for a new build be worth the buy? Including having to buy a new PSU & Mobo for this because you can't really salvage your old parts aside from a SSD, HDD, SSD, CASE, etc...

 

[cathode]

I guess people were expecting more out of Haswell. kind of surprise Intel pull out a meh of a CPU.

 

[InvalidError]

The reviewers used excellent ram, which is good. however he kept the A10 at stock speeds. which is unfortunate...

So you wanted to compare an overclocked 100+W AMD desktop part against a stock 55W Intel mobile part? That does not sound exactly fair either.

 

[Sakkura]

Would buying this (I have no money but i'm asking) for a new build be worth the buy? Including having to buy a new PSU & Mobo for this because you can't really salvage your old parts aside from a SSD, HDD, SSD, CASE, etc...

Depends whether you'd have to get a new motherboard anyway. If yes, then it's worth it. You might consider waiting a little while to see if prices drop a bit. Most of the new CPUs seem to be a fair bit above Intel's MSRP at the moment.

 

[vmem]

This is what Asus is saying about Haswell overclocking.

[citation]
70% of CPUs can clock to 4.5GHz

30% of CPUs can clock to 4.6GHz

20% of CPUs can clock to 4.7GHz

10% of CPUs can to 4.8GHz

Overall you will find most CPUs capable of reaching 44x to 45x with varying levels of voltage.

http://www.hardocp.com/article/2013/06/01/intel_haswell_i74770k_ipc_overclocking_review/6#.UauJhNgeoxa
[/citation]


That is quite a bit more promising than what you are reporting. You say a few are stable at 4.5Ghz and Asus says 70% of the hundreds of chips they tested are stable at 4.5Ghz.

They did use a closed loop cooler while you seem to have used a cooler not much better than a factory cooler. That might have something to do with it.

I get the feeling custom water cooling is going to get a lot more popular.

personally I'm waiting a bit to see if these guys can be delided. if Intel's shitty paste is holding back Haswell, then between deliding and a custom water look, I should be able to go past 5Ghz easy

 

[Weegas]

I've been using a Nehalem processor for quite some time now (i5 760). Should I upgrade to a 4670K, or wait for AMD's Jaguar?

 

[Sakkura]

I've been using a Nehalem processor for quite some time now (i5 760). Should I upgrade to a 4670K, or wait for AMD's Jaguar?

Jaguar? That's a netbook/tablet CPU architecture. It would be a downgrade compared to your i5 760. Go for a 4670K if you need some more performance, or wait for AMDs Steamroller CPUs.

 

[jd_w98]

If Amd will improve per core performance by 20 - 30%, stay at the same prices, They will have a cpu almost as fast as ivy i5 in single core benches and almost as good as haswell i7 in heavily threaded workloads. If this happens, Amd will be golden except for thermals/power consumption.

 

[Dave Hartnell]

I don't get why the reviewer would spend 5 pages on looking at the graphics performance of the HD4600 in a 4770k in gaming using those titles. Why would anyone buy a 4770k and use its inbuilt Graphics. Seems to me 99% of people who get this CPU will pair it with a Discrete GPU.

 

[dkcomputer]

Could we get some benchmarks with games please? Using 700 series cards?

 

[vmem]

I don't get why the reviewer would spend 5 pages on looking at the graphics performance of the HD4600 in a 4770k in gaming using those titles. Why would anyone buy a 4770k and use its inbuilt Graphics. Seems to me 99% of people who get this CPU will pair it with a Discrete GPU.

because that is the big question with Haswell, whether or not Intel's iGPU can finally play games. and the answer is, as expected, no. but they still have to do it, I'm betting partially because Intel asked them to, partially because there's very little else the i7 4770K itself offer.

the mobos on the otherhand, are amazing

 

[x2ruff4u]

I like how AMD named their newest cpu "AMD A10-5800K" as a mockery!

 

[marraco]

Still running on i7 920, and I see no reason to upgrade. I would consider it if a new processor were cut from the crappy, and wasteful integrated GPU, AND I could plug it on my x58 mother.

 

[Mountainjoy]

Intel isn't innovating now because AMD can't compete lol. That is some bad AMD fanboy logic right there. Trying to give a reason why AMD is relevant. The reality is Intel is not pushing their Desktop performance because the mobile market is where the consumer shows up. Haswell is an amazing step forward for mobile. 50% longer battery life, 2x iGPU performance. That makes the next Retina MBP last as long as an iPad, and buttery smooth. That is innovation gets product off the shelves. Innovation the PC market desperately needed.

 

[bustapr]

intel is getting a little too confident. improving nodes is cool and all, but the people buying and upgrading their CPUs are rarely lookign for power consumption. they usually look for better performance. the really bad thing that intel is doing is also bringing in a new gen of chips and leaving the last gen chips at same price while new chips are an extra $10(or $5).

amd however makes chips with huge leaps in performance. they have a miniscule budget when compared to intel, but with that small budget they do big things. the jump from bulldozer to piledriver was impressive and put amp in competition with the ivy bridge i5. this next steamroller has been in dev for a long time and im guessing the performance will reach i7 territory.

judging by whats been said about broadwell next year, performance increase will be miniscule again for intel. amd is catching up fast and unless they up their game, pc enthusiasts will start looking toward amd for their performace/overclocking needs.

 

[bustapr]

[citation][nom]Mountainjoy[/nom]Intel isn't innovating now because AMD can't compete lol. That is some bad AMD fanboy logic right there. Trying to give a reason why AMD is relevant. The reality is Intel is not pushing their Desktop performance because the mobile market is where the consumer shows up. Haswell is an amazing step forward for mobile. 50% longer battery life, 2x iGPU performance. That makes the next Retina MBP last as long as an iPad, and buttery smooth. That is innovation gets product off the shelves. Innovation the PC market desperately needed.[/citation]
according to nearly every benchmark out there, piledriver was very competitive against ivy bridge i5. the power consumption isnt nearly as big an issue some people make it out to be in desktops. laptops and battery life are things very different from desktops. for desktops, the most important thing is performance and for enthusiasts, overclocking. this gen of haswell underwhelmed for pc enthusiasts. the upcoming steamroller promises alot. contrary to the change from phenom2 to bulldozer, the change from piledriver to steamroller is likely to live up to the hype since its just improving on the established design. right now the promised 15-20% increase promised by amd would put in competitive performance against haswell i7.


with all the attention AMD has been getting because of the consoles, its a given that they will see an increase in sales(effect of advertising). amd wont be beating out intel on sales, but it would get thir attention. intel will then focus on some performance increase. but to say amd hasnt been competitive is not true.