Intel Haswell i7-4770K IPC and Overclocking Review @ [H]

FrgMstr

FrgMstr

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Intel Haswell i7-4770K IPC and Overclocking Review - Intel's clock keeps ticking and today lands on a "tock" in the development cycle. The new desktop Haswell processor represents a new microarchitecture built on the tried and true 22nm process technology that we have come to know and love with Intel's current Ivy Bridge microarchitecture. But what does Haswell mean for the computer enthusiast?
 
Thanks for the review Kyle! My 2700k and 3570k are going to be sticking around for a while longer.
 
Please point out my typos, I think there only 86 left. ;) Happy reading!
 
"Obviously at identical clocks Haswell is a bit faster than Sandy Bridge, but given the way my personal system usage has changed in the last couple of years, does having 15% better encode times or zipping up a file folder 1 second faster really mean anything?"

Times, they are a-changin even here at the [H]

But of course, 1 second is faster is just that... FASTER... so bring it. Can't wait to add a watercool and open her up on the open roads :D
 
So...still retarded temperatures, and it looks like above 4.6ghz is gonna be difficult on many chips. Glad I didn't wait for this, definitely not worth it.
 
Terminus said:
"Obviously at identical clocks Haswell is a bit faster than Sandy Bridge, but given the way my personal system usage has changed in the last couple of years, does having 15% better encode times or zipping up a file folder 1 second faster really mean anything?"

Times, they are a-changin even here at the [H]

But of course, 1 second is faster is just that... FASTER... so bring it. Can't wait to add a watercool and open her up on the open roads :D
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I hear ya brother! Like I spelled out in the conclusion, I had a greatly fun time working with it. From a hobbyist perspective, it was worth all the effort. But the peformance gains you net at the end are somewhat underwhelming. For the guy that does it for gains, it comes up short, if you are doing it to just have fun and learn about new technology it was a great time. I would do it again. :)
 
Thanks for the review, Kyle! Not having to upgrade one's 3770K put a bit more cash towards that tempting GTX 780! :D
 
And the ASUS OC Guide linked in there at the end. Give that a read for sure. It is the best enthusiast document ASUS has ever produced.
 
CoreStoffer said:
Thanks for the review, Kyle! Not having to upgrade one's 3770K put a bit more cash towards that tempting GTX 780! :D
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I think there is going to be a lot of that going on very shortly in our [H] community.
 
I'll wait to see what Ivy-E has to offer and if that falls flat, I wait until Haswell-E and DDR4. That has to be good or we're in the dark ages of CPU gains.

Staying with Ivy.
 
Waiting for Ivy-E. I need me some PCI-E 3.0 x16 3 lanes! Hoping it comes out in Q3 (Sept).
 
And yet again I am left to wonder what will come along to make me want to replace my 3-year-old i7 970 hex core....
 
Didn't expect much more performance out of these. Hard decision to upgrade or stick with SB for another year
 
Nice review! My nephew has the original H100 so this will be a nice upgrade for him. I hope that cherry picking chips comes back into style personally. I used to love to try and get in on a good bin purchase. It made the hobby fun and exciting. Unless you were the guy that got the runt overclocker. FU Malaysian Q6600 that wouldn't OC worth a darn! ;)
 
BlackDragon24 said:
And yet again I am left to wonder what will come along to make me want to replace my 3-year-old i7 970 hex core....
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I wanted to throw a high OCed i7-920 into the mix, but just did not have the time. I have four of those CPUs here in the office that binned out very good and have never used them.
 
Excellent. Forgive me if I missed it, but you ascertain if the CPU is soldered, or glued to the heatspreader?
 
Interesting article.

I've my 3570k up @ 4.7GHz, that's probably enough for me. I'm just using a single GPU on a single 1920x1200 display.

I'm glad I bought my Samsung SSD rather than holding that cash back for another CPU. I love having an SSD.
 
Ruoh said:
Excellent. Forgive me if I missed it, but you ascertain if the CPU is soldered, or glued to the heatspreader?
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Quite honestly, I made the ASSUMPTION that those are glued. I could be wrong.
 
I'll have to see what the pricing is when I upgrade next year (hopefully). I'm sporting a Pentium E2160 that I've nursed up to 2.93GHz, so anything from Sandy Bridge on up will be a nice upgrade.
 
Thanks for the review.

Looks like my 2500k @ 4.8 is going to serve me for some time BUT those low power states are truly impressive.
 
Kudos for including higher resolution benchmarks in the Gaming section. Gives a more complete picture IMO.

I thought maybe Id finally jump to the Intel side with Haswell but honestly, Im not that impressed. While a 10% gain isnt anything to sneeze at, it kinda bothers me that each successive line from Intel seems to be harder and harder to overclock. Think Ill just ride out my AM3+ system til Steamroller.
 
Really good read!

Mostly what I was expecting. Especially the last bit...

I'll be honest, I am right with Kyle, it's almost more exciting because of the Motherboards that makers are planning. I got a 350D thinking I was set on a Gene MB, then they revealed the Z87 Gryphon! :eek:
 
In my opinion any traditional review of Haswell is going to paint a not too impressive picture on the CPU. The whole scope of the design was focused on mobile which was terribly needed. The CPU landscape has been excellent since SB and there is literally zero reason to aim higher unless you go for the 6 core variants or Extreme versions for workstation specific loads.

This chip will get the credit it deserves when it is reviewed in laptops. These reviews should not really surprise anyone and if anyone tries to slam Intel they should be ashamed of themselves as Haswell is a gigantic improvement on the laptop front.
 
KindredCone said:
2600k is still going strong maibe next tick will warrant an upgrade
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Unless you're in it for the iGPU there is nothing to expect big coming out of Intel as there really hasn't been since they started focusing on the iGPU with SB. Broadwell's biggest thing is a redesign of the iGPU and die-shrink. At least the performance increase from IB > Haswell is slightly bigger than SB > IB.

Here's to Skylake and beyond.
 
I'm hoping ivy bridge will be on closeout now @ mc. Would really like sub $199 4 core/8 thread and a nice board to upgrade from my phen2-940 box.
 
Great review!

From gaming enthusiast perspective quite simply your hard earned hardware dollar is better spent on a new video card or display.
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From the reviews I've ready so far, this seems the consensus. It looks like Haswell has made some great changes in power consumption, but the architecture is primarily focused on mobile computing. I don't think I'm going to be upgrading to the new architecture on my personal system immediately by any means (running Ivy bridge right now). Even though there is some performance increase, I think I'd rather put my money into a ssd or new gpu as opposed to buying a new motherboard/chip.

I think its also worth pointing out that since Intel has no competition from AMD on the top end now, that these will basically be the results from here out I think.
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Sadly, probably true. Intel really does not have to innovate to make money at the moment. I really hope AMD gets back in the game (as unlikely as that may be) and starts pushing them. Intel came out with some great stuff in response to AMD's last push, but both Ivy and Haswell seem like they have made only modest improvements in regards to performance.
 
Hmm...still not really feeling the imminent urge to upgrade my 920.

Thanks for the review!
 
Remember the glory days of PC computing when a system would be obsolete as soon as you plugged it into the wall?
 
Hmm so even thou my 3 Nvidia 780s are siting at PCI 2.0 in my 2600K @ 4800Mhz i just cant take a chance on a crappy overclock on these things. Guess ill have to wait it out even more.
 
Agree Kyle... my i5-2500k at 4.5 GHz is going to hang around for a while longer.

However, my x200s laptop with a SU9300 is ready to be replaced when they put out some nice notebook versions of Haswell. The SSD upgrade helped quite a bit, but it's time.

Also, would love to see the overclock reports from retail purchased CPUs when you get the chance. Never quite trusted the samples sent by CPU/GPU vendors and you've added to that concern.
 
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I guess the only set-up so far to meet (future proof) was socket 1366 as other then some power savings i just still don't see an upgraded path over my i7-930 which i got on at the tail end of the platform.. i'm just starting to play with overclocking it which it's at 3.6 now and more to come .. i picked up waterblocks for my EVGA x58 3/Sli and never installed them ..lol

If you do a i7-920 test, just remember that some of the models overclocked higher as the i7-930 is said to reach 4.3ghz+
 
Thanks for the review. I keep getting the itch to upgrade my i5 sandy, but at a rock stable 5.0ghz it's hard to let it go. Like you mentioned in the review, if I do upgrade to Haswell, it will pretty much be purely for the new motherboard features.
 
Great review [H]! Just bought a Sugo SG10 and all Noctua fans to outfit it with as well as a Seasonic X-650. But, based on the review, im certainly disappointed in what is being reported. I honestly had high hopes this new chip would yield 4.8-5.0ghz with ease. This Q6600 @ 3.6ghz will keep me until September now for sure. If I have to go LGA 2011 I will, but proof is in the pudding. So, September it is.
 
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