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

[emad_ramlawi]

Clearly they forgot about us the "Desktop People" and embraced the dummy mobile trend users that will purchase anything, like your mom, dad, sister, and stupid cousin

 

[emad_ramlawi]

[citation][nom]Danny N[/nom]Biggest question is if its worth upgrading my cpu i5 750 4.0ghz to Haswell or my gfx card ati 5870 to nvidia 7xx, my main pc use is for Maya, After FX and some fps gaming. Any input would be appriciated cause I'm leaning towards a cpu upgrade atm.[/citation]

I dont know really, intel prices tend to never go down even after time, sandy bridge i5-2310 is 185 $ on newegg:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115089

So you cant purchase older stuff for cheap.

I reckon your better of purchasing AMD just to make a point and stick it to intel, i remember reading a comment here stating "I am not an AMD fan, but i purchase AMD to keep the healthy competition" i shrugged and laughed at that time, and now i have an a8-3850 CPU

 

[ish416]

Looks like Sandy and Ivy owners have no real reason to upgrade. What happened to the 5Ghz overclock on less than 1 volt? That was promising, the truth however, has shown that Haswell has failed to deliver, espicially in power consumption.

http://www.fudzilla.com/home/item/31351-intel-core-i7-4770k-haswell-oced-to-5ghz-at-09v


Is it safe to call this Hasfail on the desktop yet?

 

[JohnUSA]

Very disappointing. I will pass up on this new Intel CPU with the anemic power increase.
The wattage increase is bad news too, more heat.
No thanks Intel, this is not what I would like to upgrade.
I am very sad after waiting so long. Yuck.
Why should I go through the whole trouble and expenses to upgrade to this CPU for minimal speed increase and get more heat and wattage increase.
It does not make any sense.
Intel.... you should go back to the drawing board.
VERY, VERY DISAPPOINTING.

 

[bison88]

Over two years they talked up Haswell, since Sandy Bridge was released. What a really disappointment. Not much is really changing since Sandy Bridge came out that an OC can't do. They've only been focusing on the iGPU since SB and at least for the next 3 years in their roadmap with IB, Haswell, Broadwell is SoC with its biggest feature being a redesigned iGPU.

Skylake who knows at this point. Who knows, maybe they're giving AMD time to catch up because these never dropping prices and weak performance increases are not living up to the Intel Hype.

 

[JAYDEEJOHN]

Chris, could you please draw the distinction between reference designed vs what youre liable to buy somewhere, and its up to OEMs on those choices?

 

[sarinaide]

Haswell was about;

1) CPU gains and
2) IGPU performance

x86 wise better but you not really feeling inclined to sell your IB to get modest gains that are not really telling. So we turn over to the big talking point that is iGPU and its a mixed bag here, never really besting the aging trinity's and either far off or just about on par in respects to FPS but frame latencies are woeful enough to say that being a veteran of Trinity's graphics prowess if you want an iGPU then AMD is still the way to go, albeit I would go with Richland.

 

[rmpumper]

Looks like I'll be waiting for Steamroller after all.

 

[Sakkura]

I thought moving voltage regulation on-die was supposed to reduce overall power draw, even if CPU TDP would go up a bit. But these numbers show the Haswell platform using more power than the Ivy Bridge platform. What gives? And is this going to be different in mobile systems? For Intel's sake it better.

 

[sarinaide]

I forgot to add the HD4600 is running at 1250mhz underload compared to the A10 5800K's HD7660D at 800mhz, It would be interesting to see what either can do at either 800mhz or 1250mhz respectively, that way its not frequency based difference.

 

[chesteracorgi]

With the 4770K being so hard to OC, the 2500K, 2600K, 2700K, 3570K and 3770K all maintain their value. The SB chips may even be the best solution for OCing because of their design advantage over the IB.

Haswell's design looks like Intel is more concerned about competing in the mobile/tablet markets, and there is little wonder to that: that's where the growth lies.

I wonder how Intel will answer AMD's venture into unified RAM? If AMD is successful in that technology it may make Intel's 3D chip designs second tier. Unifying memory and disposing of multiple rewrite cycles has the potential to blow past 3D designs.

 

[dsigned]

Dang. A10 integrated graphics for $130. Granted, no one in their right mind would drop $330 on an i7 and not have a dedicated GPU if they wanted to game, but that's still a big gap. How does the A10 stack up as a CPU again?

 

[de5_Roy]

nice, detailed and not-boring-to-read review. but, like gtx770 before, core i7 4770k seems meh. i see that things with 770 making a trend out of being meh... the prices(msrp) are too high as well...
the funniest part for me was at the last page where i simply started reading the cyberpower promo without realizing that the review ended in the last line of the previous paragraph. i wonder if my eyes glazed over due to 4770k's performance or the review was too interesting or something else.....
didn't get enough info on the f.i.v.r. or overclocking or gt3/gt3e. i hope we get a detailed analysis on over/underclocking and if motherboard affects anything (since the vrm integrated).

 

[nforce4max]

I'll just stay with my i5 760 and be happy instead of shelling out the big bucks for only minor to moderate upgrades. Haswell is very underwhelming and incremental, I am starting to wonder if Intel is running out of steam to keep this one improving. I no longer have high hopes for Skywell even with 14nm it might not be what people are craving. This gives AMD at least another year to year and a half to improve their existing designs.

 

[Novuake]

Can this be called a tock??? This is PATHETIC!
Well there we go, stagnant Intel first, next, stagnant Nvidia.
CUrse you AMD for being so damn useless and also for buying ATI and biting of more than you can chew!

 

[nekromobo]

On a vanilla 7970 I got 2160k/sec samples in that LuxMark 2.0 Sala Scene.. on a 3.2ghz core2quad.

Titan suxors that much?

 

[CaptainTom]

While Ivy Bridge was far from a huge upgrade from Sandy, it added:
-23% less power use
-10% clock-for-clock gain in performance
-USB 3.0
-PCI 3.0
-Intel 4000

That was a great deal better feature wise, and with good cooling my IB i5 reaches 4.7 GHz which easily beats any SB i5 up to 5.2 GHz (Good luck getting their!).


However Haswell has:

-9% MORE power used
-10% greater clock-for-clock performance
-Even LOWER overclocking headroom

FAIL!

 

[JOSHSKORN]

I'll upgrade to Haswell, only because I'm coming from a Core 2 Duo. However, I have a feeling I'll be screwed over once the XBOX One and PS4 are released, as games will become more and more robust.

 

[Novuake]

I forgot to add the HD4600 is running at 1250mhz underload compared to the A10 5800K's HD7660D at 800mhz, It would be interesting to see what either can do at either 800mhz or 1250mhz respectively, that way its not frequency based difference.

Uhm are we trying to compare apples with coconuts now?

 

[ingtar33]

I'll upgrade to Haswell, only because I'm coming from a Core 2 Duo. However, I have a feeling I'll be screwed over once the XBOX One and PS4 are released, as games will become more and more robust.

i'd wait 'till steamroller

The rumors coming out of AMD is a 20%-40% increase in per core performance over Piledriver. I won't believe it till i see it, I mean we were all burned by the Bulldozer rumors (and it looks like some were burnt by the haswell rumors) but if they can deliver on those numbers, we'll be seeing the FX chips performing almost on par with the intel offerings per core, including more cores and lower prices, and a lot more fun overclocking.

we can hope perhaps they can finally put some pressure on intel.

 

[cangelini]

[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]
I asked some of the folks who helped provide software for our Bulldozer launch piece, and they didn't have anything ready for AVX2 yet. Sandra is the one title in the suite that had it. Otherwise, I think OpenCL was the more mature path to take. I'll definitely keep looking for relevant software to test, though!

 

[cangelini]

[citation][nom]JAYDEEJOHN[/nom]Chris, could you please draw the distinction between reference designed vs what youre liable to buy somewhere, and its up to OEMs on those choices?[/citation]
How do you mean?

 

[slomo4sho]

It seems I am sticking to Ivy for now...

 

[rrbronstein]

[citation][nom]thiemo56[/nom]Dissapointing, not worth it to upgrade over sandy or ivy bridge.[/citation]

no shit.

 

[dragonsqrrl]

Haswell on the desktop is a bit of a disappointment. While further integration of components that once occupied the motherboard, such as VRMs, and finer control over clock domains is sure to benefit the lower end of the TDP spectrum, the effects of these enhancements on desktop parts seems far less advantageous. It even seems to have a negative impact on overclocking potential.

Graphics performance is up, but again this has more relevance for lower TDP and mobile parts where you're more likely to be using integrated graphics. Anandtech did a comprehensive review of the BGA i7-4950HQ and GT3e Iris Pro 5200. The performance results are impressive considering the 47W TDP.

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