The Core i5-4670K And GeForce GTX 770 Make A Good Pair
In most ways, our new build is an iterative improvement over the last one, with a Haswell-based Core i5-4670K replacing the Core i5-3570K, and the GeForce GTX 770 replacing the GeForce GTX 680. We were only expecting a small improvement, and that's exactly what we get. The only strange result comes from our Adobe Photoshop CS6 OpenCL-accelerated benchmark, which really, really favors this quarter's GeForce GTX 770. Short of a driver optimization, it's tough to explain that one. Nevertheless, we ran the test several times to confirm.
Where we expected the GeForce GTX 770 to shine was in our gaming benchmarks, particularly the high-resolution multi-screen ones where more memory bandwidth would surface as a differentiator. Sure enough, the Surround test at 4800x900 demonstrates the new GeForce in a position of power; it outperforms its predecessor by double-digit percentages.
Unlike yesterday's story, there weren't any surprises from this build. Just a solid step up from hardware we were expecting to be faster anyway. We hoped that the Core i5-4670K would overclock like mad. However, early reports about Haswell-based CPUs tempered our excitement. It really does seem like a good overclocker is luck-of-the-draw, with more disappointments than gems. We're not altogether disappointed with 4.3 GHz, but that doesn't put our CPU in the upper echelon of what we hear the architecture can do.
Otherwise, we're happy with our decision to step up to a 128 GB SSD, and retain 1 TB of user storage space. Thanks to all of the readers who influenced that decision.
The biggest shocker was how much we liked Antec's $55 GX 700 chassis. It's gimmicky without being gawdy, and boasts solid fundamentals. Best of all, it sits at a price point we can afford for this build. As for Gigabyte's Z87X-OC motherboad, it was a lot of fun to play with. The firmware options are robust to say the least, so we look forward to a more overclockable CPU sample to play with.