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

[Jared Sim]

shall wait on article pitching overclocked Sandy vs Ivy vs Haswell. My 2600k does 4.5GHz easily 24/7 I don't see the point upgrading to Haswell that seems to not OC as well

 

[Grandmastersexsay]

shall wait on article pitching overclocked Sandy vs Ivy vs Haswell. My 2600k does 4.5GHz easily 24/7 I don't see the point upgrading to Haswell that seems to not OC as well

I don't know why so many people feel the need to say this. Most people don't see a point in upgrading every year or two no matter the performance gains.

 

[InvalidError]

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 majority of people out there just want something that is "good enough", fits their budget and their lifestyle. People who seek performance at any cost and power envelope (enthusiasts, high-end gamers, etc.) represent only ~5% of the end-user market.

An i5 may cost $100 more up-front than an equivalent AMD CPU but you end up saving more than $100 on power over the system's useful life so the TCOs end up being pretty similar.

 

[gradetsk]

Okay obviously its an architecture improvement, Core 2 Duo was a respectable improvement as well, but that is not what made core2 so great in longevity it is the quads. Sure you can improve architecture, but there obviously is a limit. Sure you can add other things on like a graphic card weaker then AMD APU's. I think its time for the upgrade people are waiting for. Ivy Bride E, no reason why it needs to be Extreme, but honestly its time for the 6-8 cores and its time to make them mainstream for enthusiasts, its been 5 years now and intel just has to understand quad cores will only make it so far, sure its impressive that haswell is 200% stronger than Core2quad, but not after 5 years. At this rate they will fall behind ever other component in your computer.

 

[Lord Fartinghard of Eton-beens]

Tom's and other review sites seem to have forgotten the 'Temperatures' section of a CPU review... which leaves me feeling suspicious. Some sites like PcPer report that Haswell runs significantly hotter than Ivy Bridge.

 

[JonnyDough]

For a system with a discrete card, I really don't care about a tiny bump in CPU performance. Nor do I desire stronger graphics. The bit of energy I save isn't even worth the hassel of an upgrade over my current systems let alone the money, so Haswell has absolutely nothing for me.

 

[dozerman]

[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]

Too obvious. Troll harder next time.

 

[de5_Roy]

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.

just in case, this rumor has been going on for a while, but surfaced again recently:
http://vr-zone.com/articles/long-live-haswell-with-broadwell-only-in-2015-a-midterm-refresh-is-on-the-cards/33920.html
haswell might get a haswell 1.01 before broadwell comes out. (+NaCl)

according to nearly every benchmark out there, piledriver was very competitive against ivy bridge i5.

piledriver wasn't just competitive with i5, it was better than ivy bridge i7 cpus in certain cases. i'd even claim fx8350 might keep up or beat haswell i7 in some cases. didn't help sales at all though. got cannibalized by amd's own apus first. :lol: benchmark victory in specific scenarios don't make an overall better cpu. that's before you take intel's marketing and brand presence into account.

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.

desktops market shrinking.
curbing power consumption and increasing efficiency are important for cpu/soc performance progress, regardless of platform or form factor.
enthusiasts don't drive revenue. they're very small part of the overall market. might even be considered negligible.
haswell's focus is more strongly on mobile than sandy or ivy bridge before. i am underwhelmed by dt performance but mostly disappointed by the stupid sku-ing and pricing. as a standalone, haswell is quite decent. meanwhile, amd's 28nm performance cpu exists only on promo slides and as of now, is a year late.

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.

hype... remember bulldozer? even amd admits it was a job-killing failure.
kaveri was due last year. it's been delayed already, and steamroller cpus are practically vaporware atm. what we get is empty promises and frustration for amd users and amd-faithfuls.

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.

amd will get attention alright. instead of steamroller, jaguar is the center of the attention now. brazos (not bd or pd) was the success for amd. and jaguar is significantly better than brazos.

 

[natoco]

Sandy bridge owners rejoice, no need to update for such a small increase in performance and you can overclock a lot higher.... I thought this update was all about power consumption? 11watts less?? what the hell, that's such a small amount of power its not worth worrying about. This current trend sucks the big one!

 

[DragonChase]

I have been waiting for a month for this and was telling people to wait for this....whatever, i feel ashamed now, getting i7-3770k i had it with these games..... checking AMD right now because it dissapointed this much.

 

[stepik]

If you don't know how to do video encoding benchmarks - then don't do it. If there is any advantage in using hardware accelerated AVC encoding it is not so great as you describe.

 

[ojas]

[citation][nom]Sakkura[/nom]We get Broadwell next year, so I don't see why they'd bother with a high-end Haswell SKU in 2014.[/citation]
Was on their roadmap, didn't pull that out of my arse, i assure you 😛[citation]

[nom]Sakkura[/nom]Broadwell will include LGA 1150 SKUs as well as BGA SKUs. Try not to listen to link-bait articles that say the sky is falling (literally, even).http://www.techpowerup.com/177817/ [...] ailed.html[/citation]
What their roadmap said was that there'll be a Haswell Refresh, that won't be broadwell. it was one of VR Zone leaks, which have been pretty accurate (had a photograph and all).

[citation][nom]Grandmastersexsay[/nom]This is what Asus is saying about Haswell overclocking. [citation]70% of CPUs can clock to 4.5GHz30% of CPUs can clock to 4.6GHz20% of CPUs can clock to 4.7GHz10% of CPUs can to 4.8GHzOverall you will find most CPUs capable of reaching 44x to 45x with varying levels of voltage.http://www.hardocp.com/article/201 [...] auJhNgeoxa[/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.[/citation]
AT says most chips should hit 4.3 to 4.7 as well.

[citation][nom]envolva[/nom]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.[/citation]
This should help:
http://www.anandtech.com/show/7003/the-haswell-review-intel-core-i74770k-i54560k-tested/6

 

[Steveymoo]

Yawn indeed.

While I respect Intel's motives for increasing efficiency, I think they're really bending the rules for Moore's law tbh. Sure, more grunt is being piled into the iGPU, but actually, who is seriously going to use a chip that can barely break 30fps average on minimum settings? I get it, this is very useful for mobile solutions, but for everybody else in the desktop market, we would prefer the extra silicon space being used for more CPU cores.

INTEL, Y U DO DIS?!?! Provide more solutions ffs.

 

[Wisecracker]

Good for Intel on the OpenCL and HD Graphics ... otherwise, maybe Haswell is prep for the Broadwell shrink? That could answer some ???s

In the test setups it's DDR3-1600 in each system. Being that the AMD APUs scale with memory speed increases, I'd be interested in seeing how the HD Graphics on Intel scale in comparison to AMD Trinity/Richland with DDR3-1866 and up.

Or, not. It may not scale at all like the APUs and may be unique to AMD.

 

[whitey_rolls]

I don't know why everyone is so disappointed that this chip isn't vastly superior than the intel 2600k or close variant. I've owned a 2600k for over two years now and I'm quite happy the new chips aren't much better.

This way I can sit back for another year or two without knowing there is a worthy upgrade out there, saves me money. Hell if my 2600K is as strong or stronger for gaming than the upcoming consoles I'll hopefully not have to upgrade for another 2-3 years.

 

[BSim500]

Can someone please confirm if only the "K" chips have an unlocked BCLK? Toms & Anandtech say no:-

"However, the company instead chooses to restrict the ratios to the Core i7-4770K and i5-4670K—the same ones you can already overclock in 100 MHz increments. Anyone buying one of the 11 other SKUs in Intel’s new Core i7 and i5 line-up is out of luck."

"The BCLK adjustment gives you a little more flexibility when overclocking, but you still need a K-SKU to take advantage of the options".

... and yet Hexus says yes...

"What this means is that, like Sandy Bridge Extreme, Haswell processors will run at a choice of three base clocks: 100MHz, 125MHz and 166MHz, with a bit of extra wiggle room thrown in. And yes, this applies to all desktop Haswell parts, be it multiplier unlocked or not." - Hexus Review: Intel Core i7-4770K (22nm Haswell), page 16 - Overclocking

Which one is true? Have anyone actually confirmed this for real with a non-K chip? Thanks.

 

[Novuake]

Can someone please confirm if only the "K" chips have an unlocked BCLK? Toms & Anandtech say no:-

"However, the company instead chooses to restrict the ratios to the Core i7-4770K and i5-4670K—the same ones you can already overclock in 100 MHz increments. Anyone buying one of the 11 other SKUs in Intel’s new Core i7 and i5 line-up is out of luck."

"The BCLK adjustment gives you a little more flexibility when overclocking, but you still need a K-SKU to take advantage of the options".

... and yet Hexus says yes...

"What this means is that, like Sandy Bridge Extreme, Haswell processors will run at a choice of three base clocks: 100MHz, 125MHz and 166MHz, with a bit of extra wiggle room thrown in. And yes, this applies to all desktop Haswell parts, be it multiplier unlocked or not." - Hexus Review: Intel Core i7-4770K (22nm Haswell), page 16 - Overclocking

Which one is true? Have anyone actually confirmed this for real with a non-K chip? Thanks.

Only K SKUs have unlocked multipliers on Ivy, Sandy and Haswell. However the Haswel is more forgiving on BCLK overclocking from what I have heard than the first two.

 

[Memnarchon]

[citation][nom]Lord Fartinghard of Eton-beens[/nom]Tom's and other review sites seem to have forgotten the 'Temperatures' section of a CPU review... which leaves me feeling suspicious. Some sites like PcPer report that Haswell runs significantly hotter than Ivy Bridge.[/citation]
After reading over 10 sites of reviews I found that the temps are sometimes good like TPU. But as soon as you reach around 4,5GHz you will need a lot of cooling 😛

BUT! Guru3D start reviewing also mobos and it seems that there might be mobo's probs that the o/c varies a lot. They manage to go the i7 4770k to a very nice 4,9GHZ with MSI MPOWER (but they reached 100Co), while with Asus Sabertooth and Gigabyte G1 sniper 5 manage to do up to 4,7GHZ.
Best thing to do is to wait if intel wants to answer about this...

 

[RealPjotr]

Question: For WoW, is a Core i3-3220 with GTX 660 2GB a good balanced setup for playing 1650x1050, possibly 1920x1200 later? Is there a noticable frame rate gain by upping the i3 to an i5 or will it be limited by GTX 660 anyway?

 

[RealPjotr]

Question: For WoW, is a Core i3-3220 with GTX 660 2GB a good balanced setup for playing 1650x1050, possibly 1920x1200 later? Is there a noticable frame rate gain by upping the i3 to an i5 or will it be limited by GTX 660 anyway?

 

[swordrage]

[citation][nom]Lord Fartinghard of Eton-beens[/nom]Tom's and other review sites seem to have forgotten the 'Temperatures' section of a CPU review... which leaves me feeling suspicious. Some sites like PcPer report that Haswell runs significantly hotter than Ivy Bridge.[/citation]

I was thinking the same thing. I thought I somehow missed it, but no.. and how about cooling with water or blood?

I'm interested in performance of a high end closed loop cooler like H100i (if they are compatible) or the likes. Any sources?

 

[TheMadFapper]

How is this disappointing? You people act like IB/SB is slow. Did we really need a significantly faster processor? No. It's absolutely the way Intel should be going as they expand into the mobile area. I wouldn't have even released the Haswell desktop processors, but oh well.

 

[sarinaide]

Good for Intel on the OpenCL and HD Graphics ... otherwise, maybe Haswell is prep for the Broadwell shrink? That could answer some ???s

In the test setups it's DDR3-1600 in each system. Being that the AMD APUs scale with memory speed increases, I'd be interested in seeing how the HD Graphics on Intel scale in comparison to AMD Trinity/Richland with DDR3-1866 and up.

Or, not. It may not scale at all like the APUs and may be unique to AMD.

Anandtech did that before and it was found that DDR1333-2400 on intel systems amounted to maybe 10% gains in iGPU performance, on the APU since it is my domain going from DDR3 1333 to DDR3 2400 you will basically double your performance.

That said Iris shows us the value of unlocked bandwidth and AMD need to release a FM2+ platform with at least 512MB of GDDR5 embeds which should unleash a lot of performance in the Kaveri parts but also its fine having a improved iGPU to the point of entry level gaming but you also need the x86 performance to drive it and thats where SR needs it the most.

 

[w3k3m]

This is what happens when monopoly rules. It wouldn't be a surprise if this chip is internally crippled on purpose. This guarantees maximum profits, further good sales of both old stock and new chips.

 

[mikitd]

That power consumption graphs don't seem to be right... if I do Wh / AWP for 4700K it is more than 2, for 2700K it is less.. does it mean that 2700K was faster? I don't see it in other graphs...