i7-3770k or i5-4670k if Pricing is the Same?

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MagusALL

MagusALL

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Ok so I am wondering what you all think will be the best processor overall, not only now but by this time next year? I am currently upgrading my system and bought a i7-3770k for $230 and a Z77X-UD3H MB for $100. I could return those now and get a i5-4670k and ASRock Z87 Extreme 4 for the same price but I am wondering what you think is the better rig? I naturally have to say the i7 setup is ahead but I wonder if the new instruction set will help in the future as well as the other features the 4th generation Intel chips bring. Thanks for all your input.

BTW IU do not care at all what is "new" or "cool" as most C2D rigs are capable of most anything still with a newish GPU. I buy for value and for performance per dollar and with these two setups the same price I wanted to know, without any bias, what is the best rig.
 
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DarkSable
Consider the fact that Ivy Bridge overclocks so much better that it's usually the faster chip, and you pretty much have your answer.

Here's Tom's Hardware.
Our first-hand information involves a high double-digit number of processors, including samples and final shipping boxed CPUs. Sort testing was limited to 1.2 V to keep heat manageable. Ring/cache ratios are pegged at 3.9 GHz, with the memory controller operating at 1,333 MT/s. Of the chips available for sorting, only one is stable at 4.6 GHz under full load. A few are capable of operating at 4.5 GHz. More run stably at 4.4 GHz. Most are solid at 4.3 GHz and down. As you stretch above a 1,600 MT/s memory data rate or a ring ratio to match your highest single-core Turbo...
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DarkSable

DarkSable

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Consider the fact that Ivy Bridge overclocks so much better that it's usually the faster chip, and you pretty much have your answer.

Here's Tom's Hardware.
Our first-hand information involves a high double-digit number of processors, including samples and final shipping boxed CPUs. Sort testing was limited to 1.2 V to keep heat manageable. Ring/cache ratios are pegged at 3.9 GHz, with the memory controller operating at 1,333 MT/s. Of the chips available for sorting, only one is stable at 4.6 GHz under full load. A few are capable of operating at 4.5 GHz. More run stably at 4.4 GHz. Most are solid at 4.3 GHz and down. As you stretch above a 1,600 MT/s memory data rate or a ring ratio to match your highest single-core Turbo Boost ratio (which helps maximize performance), your top stable core frequency tends to drop.
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Overclockers.com guide to Haswell
The first thing you need to know about Haswell you already found out in our review (read it here if you haven’t already) – it runs hot. You will need a lot more than the stock cooler if you want to overclock. With a very good air cooler or all-in-one water cooler, you’re looking at a heat limited voltage cap of about 1.25 V. At that voltage with air or AIO cooling, you’ll be seeing temperatures in the upper 80′s to lower 90′s (°C) range under normal full processor load.
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Tech Report's Review
Asus has tested hundreds of Haswell CPUs as part of its effort to profile the chip for auto-tuning algorithms. According to the motherboard maker, Intel's new hotness has a little less overclocking headroom than Ivy Bridge does. Perhaps more importantly, Haswell apparently has more variance from chip to chip, especially in the voltages necessary to hit specific speeds.
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MagusALL

MagusALL

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DarkSable thanks for the quotes. Much appreciated. Say I overclock to around 4.2/4.3 on both rigs would those bits of information still be as profound or is it only in the upper limits of overclocking that Haswell seems to lack ability? I liken this to the classic Intel vs AMD convo which is Intel is awesome but AMD FX 30 cores can overclock to 7.0 and therefore is better. What I am saying is with clock's equal and speeds not past 4.5 does the Ivy still win or is Haswell better especially considering the new AVX2 and bandwidth increases? I know this is still a i7 versus i5 debate at its core and I wanted to know what the better rig is all things considered but excluding a steep overclock what do you think?
 
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MagusALL

MagusALL

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I guess my feeling is that on this forum people tend to judge things based on overclocks considered and maximum values and I wanted to get a more general answer as to which rigs, the i7 Ivy or i5 Haswell, will be the best rig a year from now, not only today before the first BIOS revisions even surface for the 8 series. Thanks again
 
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DarkSable

DarkSable

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Haswell can get to 4.3 reliably with a slight voltage increase. Ivy bridge can hit 4.2 on stock voltage and will easily get to 4.4 or 4.5 with that same slight increase Haswell had. Haswell, you'd be lucky to push it to 4.5, whereas pushing Ivy Bridge can often get you up to 4.7 or 4.8. (EDIT: And pushing does NOT mean disabling cores, or running unsafe voltages. It means using a good cooler and voltages just within what's considered safe.)

Also, bear in mind that the FX overclock to 7.0 GHz is meaningless - it's on a single core with liquid nitrogen cooling.

I don't think the extra features Haswell has are really worth that much except for SLI setups, but I also don't think an i7 is necessary for gaming whatsoever. That means that what you're liable to be comparing is an i5-3570k at 4.5 GHz (very easy to accomplish) to an i5-4670k at 4.3 GHz (about as easy to accomplish).

The Haswell will be ever so slightly faster in that situation, but you'd only notice it in benchmarks; the decision would come down to the cost of the two setups, I think.

Now if you're doing video editing, or something else that takes advantage of hyperthreading, then the i7 wins hands down.
 
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MagusALL

MagusALL

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I realize my i7 purchase was more about value than sense. I could have got an i5 for $60 less but I truly did want to make a rig that would be good enough for the next two years and think, hopefully, software will start to use more than one core on a regular basis that it would be the smarter buy. Like I said it would have cost me the same to get the Ivy i7 rig as the Haswell i5 rig so if you are telling me Ivy is hands down the better choice than I clearly owned that purchase and got the best parts for the $$. Yes, I could have saved some $$ and went with the 3570k but I didn't, oh well. I am really only doing gaming/web-browsing/MSOffice/video streaming so it's totally overkill but like I said I am looking for a rig that will still be good in a couple years so I don't have to have these debates every 12 months or so. I do plan to overclock and I do plan to SLI my GPU. With prices being equal for a i7-3770k and Gigabyte GA-Z77X-UD3H versus a i5-4670k and ASRock Z87 Extreme 4 which one is the best? Which one will be the best a year from now, two years from now? Whoever reads what do you think? Will the features in Haswell make me wish I had bought it? Will they not really matter? Will the difference be made up in the fact that I got an i7 over an i5, in the inherent overclock supremacy of Ivy? Door number 1 or Door number 2?
 
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MagusALL

MagusALL

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and I was using the FX example as simply a means to explain; I don't think it's always a numbers game and if software will utilize the Haswell hardware better over the next few years than Ivy perhaps it won't be needed to overclock it higher than the Ivy or even a few 100mhz down. I hear folks say FX chips will be better years from now due to optimization and their many cores so could this logic hold true for the instructions and bandwidth increase in Haswell too?
 
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DarkSable

DarkSable

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If you're overclocking high, Ivy bridge comes out on top. For anything else, there's really going to be no noticeable difference between Ivy Bridge and Haswell. (Heck, even overclocking high, the difference is only really enough to be able to definitively say Ivy is faster in testing.)

The extra PCIe 3.0 lanes that Haswell might be nice, but Ivy Bridge certainly isn't going to cause a bottleneck.
 
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