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

My Durable i-7 920 keeps on trucking for raw performance. But I cannot help get a bit jealous with each new intel-chip-cycle features like less power consumption, and sata 3, easier overclocking etc...

I'm sure somewhere in the halls of Valhalla Odin awaits its retirement with all the honor and glory befitting this battle-hardened warrior.
 
Granted thanks solely to the IGP Moore's Law is still alive in a literal sense, but in principle it's dead. And Moore lived to see it happen.

I supposed this primarily due to an absence of competition from AMD, increasing difficulty in reducing the size of the manufacturing process, and the fact that a four year old computer works just fine for watching Youtube videos. Oh well, hard drives haven't gotten any bigger for a while either. At least there's still some action in video cards and SSDs, or this whole hobby would become quite boring.
 
demingo said:
See, to me these are reasons not to upgrade right now. It usually takes developers 1-2 years to go into full swing with features (we see this with DX all the time).

I figure by the time any of the above matters we will be discussing the "tick" of Broadwell. A shrink to 14nm and some refinement due out next year sounds like good timing for the fall of 2014 gaming season. You won't really see much new tech in fall 2013 as those games have been in dev for a while.
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Is that shrink to 14nm confirmed? Last I heard the limit of silicon hit 20-17nm. I know some memory manufacturers made prototypes at 14 but that's really pushing the very limits of the silicon. I mean to get to 32 and 28nm they had to start using hafnium.
 
nutzo said:
So I'd be lucky if I got a chip that could hit 4.5 Ghz on air.

That's only around 30% faster than my 4 year old i860 CPU.
Disappointing how little the speeds have increased over the past 4 years.

Still don't seen a reason to upgrade.
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You do not hit 4.5Ghz with your i7 860 and there is a 20 to 30% IPC improvement so the gain from your i7 860 is considerably more than 30%.
 
Thanks for the review, Kyle. I just replaced my i7-930 with an i7-3770k system at a good discount assuming that Haswell would not bring a lot more performance for the same or more money. Seems as though I was right. :)
 
so as i expected it is a big long drawn out MEH now time for amd bring forth kavari :D the gddr5 memory controller sounds interesting
 
Well, shit. If too many people decide to keep their current setups then my hope for a flood of cheap 2nd hand IB quads just went down the crappper! How am I supposed to upgrade now?! :( ;)
 
King of Heroes said:
Well, shit. If too many people decide to keep their current setups then my hope for a flood of cheap 2nd hand IB quads just went down the crappper! How am I supposed to upgrade now?! :( ;)
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Wait for HWL price drops due to lack of sales. Oh, wait... :p
 
Looks like I wont be upgrading my i7 870 after all. If Sandy Bridge & Ivy Bridge wasn't a big enough gap, then going to Haswell wont see much difference either.

Time to look into Nvidia or AMDs GPUs now.
 
Nice review, Kyle. Straight, to the point, and excellent OC advisory!

For more in-depth architectural stuff, I usually go to AT, though. Do you think you could incorporate such information into your future reviews?
 
Kor said:
Allow me to provide a very real very much right now example. GRID 2 came out this week and includes an AVX supporting executable. The game had a lot of Intel co marketing and tech work (hence some of the Iris only GPU effects using PixelSync). However the enhancements aren't simply limited to visual side of things from what I've seen.

Bellow are the xml's from the benchmark included with the game. The first is from my 920 @ 4ghz with SLI GTX680's and the second is from my 3570K @4.4ghz with a single GTX680.

i7 920 - https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/44321990/GRID2_Benchmark_14-05-08_on_02-06-2013.xml

i5 3570K - https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/44321990/GRID2_Benchmark_11-11-25_on_02-06-2013.xml

Long story short the average fps so the 920/GTX680 SLI rig was just over 72fps using the non AVX enabled build of the game, the 3570K single GTX680 rig scored an average of just shy of 78fps.

That's double the GPU horse power (and yes both cards were fully loaded before you ask :D ) but a lower framerate. In a world where enthusiast PC gamer's are constant bitching about un-optimized games using ancient tech we should be embracing and pushing for greater adoption of stuff like this, it's ready now and is clearly easily (relatively speaking) implemented.

EDIT: I've since decided that the results on this are probably a bit funky and something went crazy. Re-ran the SLI and it coughed up another 50 frames... weird. Still a fairly big gain between the two platforms from a CPU standpoint, I believe code masters is offloading tasks they would normally assign to the GPU to the CPU instead.
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I definitely see your point but is one game worth the ~$500 or so for the upgrade? Considering how few Fall 2013 titles will use this tech I don't think so.
 
viscountalpha said:
Is that shrink to 14nm confirmed? Last I heard the limit of silicon hit 20-17nm. I know some memory manufacturers made prototypes at 14 but that's really pushing the very limits of the silicon. I mean to get to 32 and 28nm they had to start using hafnium.
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No it's not. 14nm was on their roadmap but no confirmation they will hit it.
 
Thanks for the excellent review Kyle.

Looking at Haswell K as replacement for the old reliable E8500, LGA775 last gasp!
The 4.50 year old i7-940 remains solid at this time for my purposes (Gaming:)).
 
Kyle said all old heatsink, block that fitted 1155/1156 etc should fit the new 1150 mount holes.
 
My almost two year old sandy 2500k, that i got from MC with asus mb combo for $230, really seems like a steal now.
Run quite cool with the new Zalmen LQ320 (sort of like corsair H60-80) at 4.3 g.
I doubt i will upgrade to haswell system base on the review so far. I just can't see upgrading for 10-15% bump in speed, I went from core E2500 to sandy 2500k. I want to see 30-50%+ improve before i take the jump.
Recent upgrade has been getting a good steal on CL for dell 3008, and 7970, 240g ssd. I think I will just save for while and wait to see how good/cheap is the new 4k monitor coming out. and maybe the next graphics upgrade.
 
People that got into 2500k and 2600k early sure look like geniuses right now.

I'm very happy to have gone socket 2011, but have to admit, sandy bridge right now looks like the epic platform of choice for gamers.
 
this 2600k is going to last me 3 more years it seems. I never seen my cpu go above 40% i think.

haswell beats sandy obviously(although by not much) , but sandy can clock further than haswell, then they both would be around the same performance.

glad I got this silver arrow cooler for when i'll actually need to OC it (gtx 580 doesn't currently need more cpu power)
 
I was planning my gaming built machine 2 days back and cancelled it to check what is coming for Intel 4th Gen. Now reading through various posts and review it seems not much of a surprise.
 
Just picked up 3ea Core i7-4770K retail processors at MicroCenter. Will get to OC testing Monday.
 
Great info and thanks for the OC tips, those are very helpful.
It's a nice feature with the SP and DP FLOP processing power increase as well on Haswell.

Intel's only issues at this point is that AMD is not offering any competition at the top end, and their processors are honestly too good at this point to fully warrant an upgrade for individuals already on 1366/1156 2011/1155 sockets and processors.
 
Well, not as good as I hoped for, but should be a suitably massive increase nevertheless from my Q6600. Looks like I have a reasonable shot of having a GHZ advantage over my Q6600 as well, so whatever.
 
I have a i7 920 @ 4.0ghz and I would love to see how it stacks up to a haswell. I also have a GTX 570, and I would be very curious what the difference between my 920 and a haswell with the 570 would be. I can't justify buying a titan, and my 570 still works just fine for all my games at my resolution (1080).
 
same.. even 920 @ 3.8, i lowered mine a bit for heat concerns...

imho maybe 10% performance gain at most, probably wont even bottleneck a titan... (920 @ 3.8/4.0GHz)
 
demingo said:
I definitely see your point but is one game worth the ~$500 or so for the upgrade? Considering how few Fall 2013 titles will use this tech I don't think so.
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Not for one game no, but for future titles that really aren't that far out (really 2014 isn't really the distant future) I believe it's worth it at this point. I don't expect to see a performance jump of any real note when they do the 14nm Broadwell part so I feel fairly sound for the next 3 years or so. Skylake might offer something new in the desktop performance arena but for the time being and the near future I'd call this a perfectly acceptable time to jump in if you're on 1366.

Still you're perfectly entitled to your opinion in this case :)
 
I really love the Apples-to-Apples comparison of Sandy, Ivy, Haswell at 4.5GHz.

However, i'm still on Nehalem (i7 930) at 4.5GHz and I really wonder how it compares to the rest. I would imagine i'm not alone.
 
I feel that on the desktop Haswell is an iterative addition and not a transformative one like I had hoped. Not having SOix and eDRAM basically takes out shiny-factor, and the IPC improvement is roughly the same as going from Sandy to Ivy. To be specific it's a bit more than that, but not enough to warrant an upgrade from my i5-750. Maybe Broadwell will be worth the upgrade.
 
For testing purposes, I'd kinda like to see a combination of video game testing + encoding. Basically playing at 1920x1080 while also streaming or recording your game play at 720p or 1080p, like what anyone over at twitch.tv is doing with one computer. Streaming, at least with Xsplit uses alot of cpu power and I'd like to see the difference between the last few series, sandy, ivy and the new Haswell. At least to me that is a more realistic real world test, I can't even remember the last time I held a dvd let alone even thought about ripping one haha (I blame netflix and Amazon instant video lol).

As someone who's still hung onto his i7 920 I found the amount of detail in the review to be fantastic, thanks for putting so much work into this review, I've been itching for some upgrades, also really enjoy reading about the power differences, as I've been upgrading parts it has helped me bring down my electric bill.
 
SirMaster said:
However, i'm still on Nehalem (i7 930) at 4.5GHz and I really wonder how it compares to the rest. I would imagine i'm not alone.
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Couldn't you just knock ~10% off of SB?

IINM, approximately :

Haswell = 1.08x Ivy
Ivy = 1.03x Sandy
Sandy = 1.1x Nehalem
 
WhoBeDaPlaya said:
Couldn't you just knock ~10% off of SB?

IINM, approximately :

Haswell = 1.08x Ivy
Ivy = 1.03x Sandy
Sandy = 1.1x Nehalem
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See this is the thing. You say it's 10%. I found this benchmark supposedly comparing Nehalem to Sandy and it says 20%.

http://www.tomshardware.com/charts/x86-core-performance-comparison/Cinebench-11.5,2753.html

This is why I would have liked to see an actual updated test of all generations of Core iX done by a same and reputable tester.

My best estimate for a 4.5GHz Nehalem to a 4.5GHz Haswell would be a 33% increase.
 
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That's just a single benchmark though. The figures I quoted are the generally accepted average IPC gains.
 
Good review. It's a nice CPU but I'm not impressed for desktop/gaming use. It's more exciting as a mobile chip and I'm interested in seeing what this does to ultrabooks in both performance/battery life as well as price.

I can't justify upgrading my 2600K with this, just as I couldn't justify moving to IVB, If I were concerned with power/electric I could see it as a reasonable "side-grade".

I was lucky enough to get my 2600K for $99 a few years back and actually made a profit selling my 2500K. It's the single best CPU I've ever owned and will easily go down as a legend along with the A-64/X2 3800/E6600/Q600 etc.

At this point, we NEED AMD to release something that puts more pressure on Intel. We've gotten meager upgrades in IPC the past 3-4 years because AMD isn't competing 1:1. In my personal opinion Thuban and Piledriver aren't bad chips and actually excel compared to similar priced Intel models depending on the application but they aren't enough to compete across the board.

I'm hoping AMD can rock the boat with Steamroller and force Intel to put out a significantly faster chip, as more and more games are developed for PS4/XB1 we are finally going to see a need for 6-8 cores to max out our games and at that point IPC is going to be incredibly relevant when it comes to benchmarks and the performance crown. The next 6-12 months are going to be very exciting.
 
Looks like I won by going with a 3930k instead.

$400 chip + $300 rampage IV extreme

vs

$780 or so shipped from newegg for a 4770k+OC Force motherboard

Just put it together today and hit 4.8 without any real effort, could hit 5 if I wanted.
 
Thoroughly enjoyed the review!!
Lots of good information with good details and experiences
Gave my 3570k to one of my kids and running a 3770k now so may well do that for awhile yet
I will just wait and see how the oc's come in
Fair dollar to change over and price vs performance is my hold back for now but we'll see
 
i5 750 here, if I was on a i7 920 I would probably not even bother. Moving to an i7 4770K with a modest overclock hopefully to 4.4gHz.

This is definitely a big deal for the mobile market so I can't complain too much, I expected a marginal performance boost desktop-wise. From my stock i5 750 I would imagine a 40% or more performance boost I'd hope. Not to mention moving to SSD and better RAM as well!
 
I'm considering another build (after being out of the PC loop for this entire console generation).

I'd be looking for a system to last a good few years, say 5yrs as a minimum, perhaps with a couple of minor interim upgrades whilst retaining the CPU and MoBo).

However, I am under no pressure to pull the trigger as it were. Seeing as the 4770k is somewhat underwhelming, would it be advisable to hold out until IB-E is released?

Is the socket lifecycle something that I need to consider? 1155 is obviously EoL and 1150 is the replacement and I suppose the same could be said of 2011 as IB-E will be last chip to support that (obviously I know it's not out yet though).

Or do I just resign myself to gaming on a console without having to worry about all this stuff?!

:confused:
 
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