Core i7-4770K: Haswell's Performance, Previewed

Results: Performance Teaser, Per-Clock Perf And Threaded Apps

Per-Clock Performance

First, let's take a look at how Haswell fares against Ivy and Sandy Bridge at a constant 3.5 GHz, with power-saving features and Turbo Boost disabled.

At least in our single-threaded LAME conversion test, Haswell is just over 3% faster than Ivy Bridge and over 5% faster than Sandy Bridge.

Threaded Performance

How about when we turn on all of the chip’s features, and let the Core i7-4770K stand up against Ivy Bridge, Sandy Bridge, and Sandy Bridge-E?

In Blender 2.64, the quad-core Haswell-based part is more than 7% quicker than Core i7-3770K and 14% faster than Core i7-2700K. At the same time, a stock Core i7-3970X is still more than 23% faster than Core i7-4770K. If you were hoping that Haswell would offer an inexpensive quad-core substitute for what will be the two-generation-old Sandy Bridge-E architecture, it’d appear that the six-core design will continue to make sense for anyone with a true workstation.

Our Visual Studio-based Chrome compile benchmark would seem to concur. Think the -3770K and -2700K seem too close together? That’s what I thought at first, until I looked back to this image from our Core i7-3770K launch and saw the same thing. In comparison, Haswell has a huge impact in performance, pretty much cutting the gap between Sandy Bridge and Sandy Bridge-E in half. The six-core chip still reigns supreme in workstation-oriented tasks, but the Core i7-4770K’s >13% advantage over -3770K is stellar.

Chris Angelini
Chris Angelini is an Editor Emeritus at Tom's Hardware US. He edits hardware reviews and covers high-profile CPU and GPU launches.
  • twelve25
    Obviously with AMD striggling, Intel has no need to really stretch here. This is another simple incremental upgrade. Good jump from socket 1156, but I doubt many 1155 owners will feel the need to buy a new motherboard for this.
    Reply
  • EzioAs
    Thanks for the preview!

    So all of these results are what most people expected already: minimal increase in CPU performance while the iGPU shows significant increase? I'm not surprised really (and I believe most people have speculated this), since Haswell mostly targets the mobile segment.

    @twelve25

    In my opinion though, unless LGA1156 i5/i7 users really want to upgrade (native USB 3.0, more SATA 3, etc), they can still hold out with their current CPUs. Although upgrading to Haswell rather than IB does make much more sense if they really want to but there's also the reported USB 3.0 bug and we haven't seen the thermals and overclocking capability on this chip so it might actually be a turn off for some people. And yeah, I don't think many SB or IB users will upgrade to Haswell.
    Reply
  • dagamer34
    @twelve25 But who does Intel really need to convince here? Trying to chase after people who upgrade every year is a fools errand because its such a small piece of the pie compared to the overall larger market. Besides, most of Intel's resources are clearly going towards making mobile chips better, where there energy really needs to be anyway.
    Reply
  • dagamer34
    To add to EzioAs's point, I don't see most people on SB/IVB systems upgrading until Intel makes chips that have a good 10-15% better performance than 4.2-4.5Ghz SB/IVB systems or they decide to go down the APU route like AMD is (and also find/create workloads which an APU would beat those systems). In other words, not for another 2+ years.
    Reply
  • killerchickens
    Does Haswell run hot as Ivy Bridge?
    Reply
  • Adroid
    killerchickensDoes Haswell run hot as Ivy Bridge?That = the million dollar question. Did they do away with the bird poop and return to fluxless solder.

    Intel should stop throwing insults to the overclocking crowd. We will pay another 10$ for the fluxless solder.
    Reply
  • mayankleoboy1
    @ Chris Angelini : Man, you are amazing for this preview! +1 to Toms.


    There is no surprise at Intel excluding TSX from the unlocked K parts. They removed teh VT-d in the Sb/IB too. Just so that people not use teh $300 chip in servers, but have to buy th e$2000 chip.
    Intel are fucked up

    i dont think Intel will be too happy with Toms for this preview....
    Reply
  • universal remonster
    Excellent!! Thanks very much for the preview! Been waiting for this =)
    Reply
  • sixdegree
    Good preview. I kinda hoped that Toms includes the power consumption figure for Haswell. It's the biggest selling point of Haswell, after all.
    Reply
  • mayankleoboy1
    sixdegreeGood preview. I kinda hoped that Toms includes the power consumption figure for Haswell. It's the biggest selling point of Haswell, after all.
    Power consumptions is a lot dependent on the BIOS optimizations, which are far from final.
    Reply