Report: Haswell Core i5 Benchmarked

The guys over at ChinaDIY have managed to attain an engineering sample of a Core i5 Haswell CPU. It is unknown which model it is, but the specifications are known.

The CPU is a quad-core part without HyperThreading, as was the case with (most of) the Ivy Bridge i5 parts. The CPU's base clock speed is set at 2.6 GHz, and the Turbo Boost 2.0 enables it to reach a frequency of 3.0 GHz. This is under a TDP of 84 W. (The CPU-Z has a bug; hence it says 83 W.) What's more interesting, though, is the idle clock speed. While Ivy Bridge chips only clocked down to 1,600 MHz, the Haswell chips should clock all the way down to just 800 MHz, which should really save on the power bill if you were to leave the computer running idle much of the time. Furthermore, the CPU packs 6 MB of L3 cache along with an HD 4600 graphics part. Beyond this, the Haswell chips should also feature better overclocking abilities. While the highest overclock is not what we're talking about, the CPUs will support BCLCK and FSP adjustments as well as overclocking the memory up to 3,200 MHz.

Here are the shots of the benchmark results; enjoy the trip. Do consider though, it still remains unknown which version of the Haswell i5 CPU this is. Considering the clock speeds, it is likely that this is not the flagship "i5-4570K," but rather a lower model.

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Niels Broekhuijsen

Niels Broekhuijsen is a Contributing Writer for Tom's Hardware US. He reviews cases, water cooling and pc builds.

  • jkflipflop98
    Meh. I was playing with Broadwell yesterday. Haswell is so oldhat. :D
    Reply
  • subasteve5800
    They're bringing back old school overclocking? Might be time for a new rig.
    Reply
  • DarkSable
    Wait, overclocking through the BLCK? Why...
    Reply
  • josejones
    What does the Sandy Bridge CPU clock down to in order to help put this into perspective?
    Reply
  • JAYDEEJOHN
    It will be interesting to see the pricing of these
    Reply
  • A Bad Day
    Hm... Haswell with a midrange mobile GPU, Richland, or Kaveri?...
    Reply
  • PreferLinux
    10649957 said:
    What does the Sandy Bridge CPU clock down to in order to help put this into perspective?
    Same as Ivy Bridge, 1.6 GHz.
    Reply
  • PreferLinux
    10650101 said:
    It will be interesting to see the pricing of these
    10650530 said:
    Hm... Haswell with a midrange mobile GPU, Richland, or Kaveri?...
    And I can't see these posts in the comments either. :??:

    EDIT: Actually, yes I can. But I'm not really any happier with being able to see them than I was before – all the posts shown with the "see more" or whatever it is come up on the top. Ghastly.
    Reply
  • abbadon_34
    wtf is going on with this site?!
    Reply
  • CaedenV
    10649957 said:
    What does the Sandy Bridge CPU clock down to in order to help put this into perspective?

    SB and IB both clock down to 1.6GHz, so clocking down to 800MHz is essentially going down to 1/2 of the idle clock. If paired with even lower voltages at 800MHz then it would mean massive power savings for 'always on' equipment.
    I use my rig as both a gaming/production rig, as well as the home file server. Because of it's file server uses my machine is not ever allowed to go to sleep. Sandy Bridge is not a huge power hog, but my next upgrade should be to Skylake or Skymont in ~3-4 years, and the idle power on that should be essentially nothing.

    The bigger issue for power use on computers is the GPU. My wife's last upgrade went from a Core2Duo with a 8600GT to an Ivy Bridge i3 with HD4000 graphics. Sure, the CPU takes less than 1/2 of the power at idle, but dropping the GPU made for massive gains in power consumption. Even my own rig went from a 9800GT to a GTX570 which has a pretty big drop in idle power consumption, but moving to a chip just 1 gen later would cut that in half again.
    Reply