3770k retail review up

[Skurge]

I don't OC much so pretty meh in my opinion. Which is what I was expecting. CPU advances look pretty boring at the moment. Will see what IV-B looks like since it won't be saddled by an iGPU.

 

[Zargon]

hmph.

my new build really needs to have more CPU than a 2500k @ 4.3

I need more headroom as I doubt I can get much more from the 2500 even under water :/

 

[BallaTheFeared]

Water doesn't work like previous generations, voltage for clock rates isn't lowered by it, and SB doesn't get so hot it's unreasonable to use the upper end of "safe" voltage with decent air cooling.

Water cooling SB offers little to no return, except stupid low temps at stupid high clocks (cpu permitting). But all the OC potential your cpu is going to have can be seen with air typically, except maybe the last 100-200MHz that requires voltages over 1.6v that wouldn't be feasible on water anyways and only during benchmarks with phase or better.

What I'm trying to say is the cpu is what matters, a bad clocker on air will gain little to nothing from going water. The limitation is caused by the cpu itself, not the cooling. Whatever you're able to post/boot into windows at will pretty much be exactly the same with water cooling. The only difference is if your chip can run 5GHz+ water offers much better temps, which can lend into getting a few more MHz out of your cpu with more reasonable temps than the 80C+ you'd see with the top end air coolers.

 

[bunnyfubbles]

Pretty much as expected, no difference in games, slight boost in synthetics. Surprised idle power consumption/temps are the same as SB, maybe that is a Z68 issues. Load temps/power consumption and OC voltage look great.

Not sure why anyone on SB would consider IB unless they just like to tinker with CPUs or have a purely CPU bound user case. Zero impact on gaming (as expected).

yup, because the only thing anyone ever does that is CPU intensive is just gaming

 

[Arachnotronic]

I don't OC much so pretty meh in my opinion. Which is what I was expecting. CPU advances look pretty boring at the moment. Will see what IV-B looks like since it won't be saddled by an iGPU.

You mean IVB-E?

 

[Absolute0]

Looks like he got off a screenshot and a SP1M at 5 Ghz and everyone's excited about the OC potential? Didn't we see the exact same thing from SB... Now if he showed that he was priming at 5 Ghz then that would be a lot more impressive than a 7 second calculation.

While the voltage is lower, the default voltage is lower, so the relative voltage increase is probably similar... And as the process decreases, the voltage tolerance will also decrease. So if you can run 1.5v 24/7 on SB, it may prove to be a poor idea to run 1.5v 24/7 on IB

@ Zargon, any 2500K can exceed 4.3 Ghz. Under water, you would have to have a real clunker of a chip if it couldn't do 4.8. Mine goes 4.7 @ 1.25, 4.8 @ 1.3, 5 @ 1.4, 5.1 @ 1.49.

@Balla, even on water, heat is my enemy, I would not be able to exceed 4.8 on air that's for sure. Water is still useful, but because these chips can tolerate high temps fairly well, you are right in that it's less useful than for other chips. Water doesn't provide stupid low temps at stupid high clocks... I load in the 60's C. I don't want to know how high I would load under air. My chip apparently runs hotter than average.

 

[Grooveriding]

I can boot at 5.2 and do a cinebench or pi run at under 1.5v, but crash the moment I start prime or even a game. Need stable specs and data on how much lower the safe line of voltage is on IB.

Regardless I am waiting for IVB-E. Water is super helpful on SB-E with keeping not just CPU temps sane, but the VRMs, which get smoking hot with high overclocks and will throttle your chip without active cooling.

 

[Stoneburner]

I waited for Bulldozer, then i wait for IV

Why didn't i just get that 2500k ?

 

[utahraptor]

I am very excited about April/May. The PC I have built now is a i5 750 with an ATI 5870 and a 80 gig intel SSD. I can't wait to build a 256 gig SSD, this CPU and a 7970 OR whatever nvidia can muster ( I will with the best card of the two.) I am glad the IVY is not until late april so that I am forced to wait to see what Nvidia has.

 

[Silverforce11]

Not with only 1.272V, I think 1.45V-1.5V is typically necessary for 4.8GHz. IB hitting 5GHz at only 1.272V bodes well for it hitting low/mid 5GHz or maybe even higher if you feed it some more voltage.

You cannot directly compare vcore and call it a day assuming higher OCs, since we still know nothing about the characteristics of the new transistors or process.

Sure, get excited if you want.

It's a good upgrade for users still hanging on to Q66xx or Q94xx platforms, but going from SB to this is really a waste of $$, which btw, you may waste all you want.

 

[khon]

Looks just as expected.

Slight improvement in CPU speed to go along with significant reduction in power consumption.

Add in an improved IGP, and Intel is going to dominate AMD for another year.

Only thing that annoys me is that Intel's random naming policy struck again. Why exactly is it the i7-3770k ? Shouldn't it be the i7-3600K to at least be consisten generation to generation ?

Is it really too much to ask for a name that doesn't require a secret decoder ring to figure out ?

 

[AtenRa]

Nice power reduction and higher OC levels. Again my only problem is the lack of OC in the lower end models. IV's low power usage will be great for mobile and the higher iGPU performance will be greatly appreciated by many in the laptop market.

 

[bunnyfubbles]

really the only aspect of any IB review that I will care about is how well it overclocks within reasonable volts (which is pretty much the only other thing I care about - ie, what are reasonable volts for IB?...)

if I can't take a 3770K much over 5.2GHz, I'll probably be better off going all-in with a s2011 rig and sitting on SB-E until IB-E

 

[Nemesis 1]

Nice power reduction and higher OC levels. Again my only problem is the lack of OC in the lower end models. IV's low power usage will be great for mobile and the higher iGPU performance will be greatly appreciated by many in the laptop market.

I kinda understand what your saying. Lets look at it differantly. We all want THINGS more cheaply. Its normal but is it natural to YOU to want more than you payed for and you choose to buy. You sir want something for nothing . No one really cares how AMD does things as history shows us . It really something AMD HAS to to do . But there was a time befor 2006 this wasn't the case . Just some friendly advice . Get your head screwed on right without cross threading. or you will likely lose it.

 

[nyker96]

the article elude to 4-7% IPC improvements, not too bad, still nothing worth upgrading unless you need the IGP. I have a feeling the most tangible improvement is OC headroom. but this article doesn't address that.

 

[Nemesis 1]

the article elude to 4-7% IPC improvements, not too bad, still nothing worth upgrading unless you need the IGP. I have a feeling the most tangible improvement is OC headroom. but this article doesn't address that.

No it didn't . Use real world Apps. They had Sissoft in their which really doesn't measure IPC . These type of benchmarks bring scores down . The gaming performance isn't on the Cpu its on the GPU period . You want to test gaming put 4 gpu onboard than we can have a more clear view. Or turn resolution down way down so that the GPU doesn't choke the system.

 

[AtenRa]

I kinda understand what your saying. Lets look at it differantly. We all want THINGS more cheaply. Its normal but is it natural to YOU to want more than you payed for and you choose to buy. You sir want something for nothing . No one really cares how AMD does things as history shows us . It really something AMD HAS to to do . But there was a time befor 2006 this wasn't the case . Just some friendly advice . Get your head screwed on right without cross threading. or you will likely lose it.

Can you explain in plain English what are you trying to say ?? I didnt get that friendly advice of yours.

 

[blckgrffn]

This. Anyone on C2Q or older should have a great upgrade on their hands here.

Haha. Still waiting for Haswell. Still not worth it, IMHO, but at this point it may just be stubbornness. IVB won't let users do anything (significant) that SB can't already do. I really want more threads in my next box and I want all the features of Z68. So, not SB-E and not IVB.

Unless my DDR2/LGA 775 board dies, then anything could happen

I am planning on getting a 3570k for my ESXi/DC box. 5 Ghz and ~150W @ full load would be awesome 200W acceptable. Any higher than that and I'll be dialing it back. At 200W it costs me ~$15 month to run, and that is what my 1090t @ 3.4ghz uses when running flat-out.

 

[Ajay]

I kinda understand what your saying. Lets look at it differantly. We all want THINGS more cheaply. Its normal but is it natural to YOU to want more than you payed for and you choose to buy. You sir want something for nothing . No one really cares how AMD does things as history shows us . It really something AMD HAS to to do . But there was a time befor 2006 this wasn't the case . Just some friendly advice . Get your head screwed on right without cross threading. or you will likely lose it.

Drink much?

 

[Edrick]

I'll probably be better off going all-in with a s2011 rig and sitting on SB-E until IB-E

Thats exactly what I did.

 

[Arachnotronic]

Thats exactly what I did.

Edrick, are you planning to go 4C/8T IVB-E or 6C/12T+?

 

[Edrick]

Edrick, are you planning to go 4C/8T IVB-E or 6C/12T+?

I would be shocked if Intel releases a 4C/8T IB-E. What would be the point?

I expect that 8C/16T IB-E will be the top end ($999) and then multiple 6C/12T skus will fill out the line. So I plan on going to 6C/12T. Besides, I like higher clocks better than more cores.

Haswell-E is where I will make the jump to 8C/16T (unless Haswell goes higher). That is where I go all in. I have $6K saved for my Haswell-E system. Everything else is just holding me over until then.

 

[bunnyfubbles]

Thats exactly what I did.

Problem for me is I already have a 4.7GHz 2600K rig that has served me very well, if I can drop in a 3770K and hit 5.5+GHz that would be amazing. However I ultimately might just be at the point where more cores will serve me better, its really hard to say.

Edrick, are you planning to go 4C/8T IVB-E or 6C/12T+?

I'm hoping there will be non-Xeon 8C options for IB-E, although ultimately 5+GHz 6C would be just as welcomed

I would be shocked if Intel releases a 4C/8T IB-E. What would be the point?

I expect that 8C/16T IB-E will be the top end ($999) and then multiple 6C/12T skus will fill out the line. So I plan on going to 6C/12T. Besides, I like higher clocks better than more cores.

Haswell-E is where I will make the jump to 8C/16T (unless Haswell goes higher). That is where I go all in. I have $6K saved for my Haswell-E system. Everything else is just holding me over until then.

I'm kind of in the same boat in that I mostly prefer higher clocks over more cores, but I might be at the point where I really do need the extra cores. Problem is that IB-E seems so far away, so I'm really hoping that these 3770Ks can really clock very well. I'm not so inclined to believe we'll see anything close to 6GHz with reasonable volts, but I am hoping to be able to hit 5.5. If they can't do much more than 5.2 I might as well go all in with a SB-E and maybe even water cooling so I can hit 5GHz.

The decision would be so much easier had intel not nerfed X79

 

[TekDemon]

I really have to wonder how well this 22nm process is going to handle higher voltages...sandy bridge definitely has issues with degradation at high volts.

 

[BallaTheFeared]

Yeah the forums are littered with people who killer theirs.