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Are Intel's Haswell chips the yang to Microsofts Windows 8?

T

TheDarkKnight

Senior member
I have been doing some research about which CPU I might want to purchase for my next system build.

I read a lot of good things about Intel's latest Haswell chip offerings. But at the same time it concerns me that, like Windows 8, the target audience of this new offering was the mobile segment and not the desktop segment. Which I only learned recently from browsing this article:

http://www.extremetech.com/computin...cpu-in-the-world-unless-youre-a-pc-enthusiast

I already own a SandyBridge and an IvyBridge pair of systems and I have been very happy with them.

I am not at all interested in overclocking any Haswell(or older generation for that matter) CPUs.

It just concerns when I now realize that the desktop segment was not top priority for the latest generation of Intes CPUs and wonder if there were any "other" compromises made to the architecture which would/could be viewed as negatives.

Do I really want to buy a Haswell even if it is faster with a "FIVR" if it's going to run hotter all the time?

Another thing that makes the decision harder is the price. On at least one apple-to-apple comparison I made between an IvyBridge and Haswell dual-core CPU the price gap was $30+ dollars, the IvyBridge being the more expensive chip.

Such a tough decision for me. Any pros cons for going either way that anybody can provide would be great.
 
ShintaiDK said:
You seem to have forgotten your previous thread:
http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2353696&highlight=

And I dont get the Windows 8 reference. Please elaborate.
Click to expand...

Mobile was the focus? *cough, cough*


ShintaiDK said:
It makes no sense to buy anything but Haswell, besides the possible discount price of older HW or if you want LGA2011.
Click to expand...

Does the fact I asked this question before indicate I may have the beginning symptoms of Alzheimers disease...or is it merely an indication that I am still in the research phase of my purchasing decision? I do already have two very capable systems as mentioned in my post. So there is no hurry for me. Everything I can learn will help make my next decision a successful and happy decision. 🙂
 
TheDarkKnight said:
Does the fact I asked this question before indicate I may have the beginning symptoms of Alzheimers disease...or is it merely an indication that I am still in the research phase of my purchasing decision? I do already have two very capable systems as mentioned in my post. So there is no hurry for me. Everything I can learn will help make my next decision a successful and happy decision. 🙂
Click to expand...

My vote is on Alzheimer's. In case it's not, the question you should be asking yourself is whether your computers are doing what you want/need them to do. For example, I have two hex-core Phenom II systems. One is a render node/file server (95% of time as server, ie it's idle) and the other is is most often used for GW2 if it is on (90% of the time it is off). I don't have a need or want to upgrade since those computers are more than adequate for what I want them to do.
 
jhu said:
My vote is on Alzheimer's. In case it's not, the question you should be asking yourself is whether your computers are doing what you want/need them to do. For example, I have two hex-core Phenom II systems. One is a render node/file server (95% of time as server, ie it's idle) and the other is is most often used for GW2 if it is on (90% of the time it is off). I don't have a need or want to upgrade since those computers are more than adequate for what I want them to do.
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No, I don't believe you should be determining what questions I need to be asking. I can formulate my own. This is a discussion website is it not? You ask a question on these forums and run the risk of getting a nailed to a cross. So now we gotta provide justification for our questions? Yeezus, as Kayne West would say. LOL.

The question is simple. Knowledge is a beautiful thing. It's an interesting topic. Were there compromises made to the Haswell architecture that may make it less desireable than a previous generation IvyBridge CPU. That's all. And the heat issue is of paramount importance when discussing the topic. But there may be others for all I know.
 
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Seems to me the question is not whether haswell was designed for notebook or not, but what gives the best performance for the application you wish to use. I dont see the temperature being an issue with Haswell for non-overclocked uses. It give somewhat better performance stock vs stock, but may not overclock as well.

If building new, I would choose Haswell unless I could get an exceptional price on Ivy, like the 149.00 deal on 3770k at microcenter. Obviously, it is difficult to justify upgrading from SB or Ivy to Haswell unless you are willing to pay a lot for a small performance gain.
 
TheDarkKnight said:
Were there compromises made to the Haswell architecture that may make it less desireable than a previous generation IvyBridge CPU. That's all. And the heat issue is of paramount importance when discussing the topic. But there may be others for all I know.
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No its fine.
 
The same could have been said about Core 2 Duo, where the architecture was developed from a chip architecture used in laptops. The fact was that those chips offered similar or better performance than its predecessors. Performance is tied primarily to clockspeed and the microarchitecture, not presumptions based simplistic assumptions such as "mobile is slow, so it must suck" despite data showing the contrary.
 
The way I see it, complaining that the best CPU on the market isn't good enough because Intel is shifting their focus to mobile is all well and good, but it's still the best CPU on the market and it's not like the competition is anywhere close... Unfortunately, but still, nowhere close.
 
TheDarkKnight said:
No, I don't believe you should be determining what questions I need to be asking. I can formulate my own. This is a discussion website is it not? You ask a question on these forums and run the risk of getting a nailed to a cross. So now we gotta provide justification for our questions? Yeezus, as Kayne West would say. LOL.
Click to expand...

You can come up with whatever questions you want. But ultimately for purchasing decisions, the rational ones include 1) Does current computer do its job adequately? 2) Does the increased performance justify its cost?

If you're buying stuff just to play around with (like some people here), that's ok too. But if you're basing purchases based on the presence of strained silicon, finfet, etc. people will just laugh at you.

The question is simple. Knowledge is a beautiful thing. It's an interesting topic. Were there compromises made to the Haswell architecture that may make it less desireable than a previous generation IvyBridge CPU. That's all. And the heat issue is of paramount importance when discussing the topic. But there may be others for all I know.
Click to expand...

Since you're not overclocking, heat is not an issue. Why don't you just replace one of your CPUs with a quad Haswell and be done with it instead of mulling over it so much? It's not like you're buying somethinghigh priced like a car or house.

*edit*
Oops, looks like you need a new motherboard for Haswell. Definitely not worth the money for an upgrade. Quad core Ivybridge is cheap enough though.
 
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Morbus said:
The way I see it, complaining that the best CPU on the market isn't good enough because Intel is shifting their focus to mobile is all well and good, but it's still the best CPU on the market and it's not like the competition is anywhere close... Unfortunately, but still, nowhere close.
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I don't know who's complaining but I don't think its me. I am asking questions is all. Please stop reading between the lines. My question keeps getting reformulated in peoples 'own' words.

Intel's focus when producing the Haswell line of CPUs was the mobile market. The FIVR on the die causes the CPU to run hotter than in previous generations and use morel power. So, as the article that I linked to in my original post correctly stated Haswell is a good choice if you are not an enthusiast. That means that it is not the best chip on the market for "everybody". I have no interest in overclocking personally but that doesn't change the reality that the Haswell chips run hotter and consumes more power relative to the IvyBridge processors. I don't view that as a positive thing.

You know what the problem is with people who think like you? They have one misconception permanently embedded in their tiny brain. "If it's newer it must be better." Just let me take a wild guess here. You have installed Windows 8 and love it, am I correct? LOL.
 
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TheDarkKnight said:
I don't know who's complaining but I don't think its me. I am asking questions is all. Please stop reading between the lines. My question keeps getting reformulated in peoples 'own' words.

Intel's focus when producing the Haswell line of CPUs was the mobile market. The FIVR on the die causes the CPU to run hotter than in previous generations and use morel power. So, as the article that I linked to in my original post correctly stated Haswell is a good choice if you are not an enthusiast. That means that it is not the best chip on the market for "everybody". I have no interest in overclocking personally but that doesn't change the reality that the Haswell chips run hotter and consumes more power relative to the IvyBridge processors. I don't view that as a positive thing.

You know what the problem is with people who think like you? They have one misconception permanently embedded in their tiny brain. "If it's newer it must be better." Just let me take a wild guess here. You have installed Windows 8 and love it, am I correct? LOL.
Click to expand...

The FIVR is not what makes Haswell run hot or use more power. AVX2 utilization is.

Under any non AVX2 load my 4670 runs cooler and uses less power than my 3570K. Not to mention that the 4670 is quite faster.
 
The only thing wrong with Haswell is some of the garbage k chips people have gotten, but it was the same for SB just swept under the rug much better because of the 5GHz effect.

De coupled L3 helped people achieve better performance, at lower voltage... It's not a negative it is a positive, and you can still run 1:1 if you you want the .03 increase on your benchmark score (I do it), but in real world it's stupid not to use a lower L3 since the L3 is so fast with insane bandwidth.
 
TheDarkKnight said:
Were there compromises made to the Haswell architecture that may make it less desireable than a previous generation IvyBridge CPU. That's all. And the heat issue is of paramount importance when discussing the topic.
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Two that I can think of:-

1. The biggest "compromise" that was part of the "feature" of the FIVR is the way Haswell unnecessarily auto-overvolts by +0.1v whenever it detects any AVX application, so you do lose tight voltage control of Haswell's that were present on previous Ivy Bridge's unless you manually fix the voltage (and lose power saving Steedstep idle state voltage drops in the process) or deliberately avoid some benchmarks / applications. Many people who don't run AVX benchmarks don't notice it, but if you're really worried about load temps, Ivy bridge chips are still available that don't auto-over-volt independently of the motherboard.

2. Intel nerfed the "+4-bins limited overclock" feature for non-K chips. ie, an i5-3570 can be max Turbo'd to 4.2GHz, but an i5-4670 is locked to just 3.8GHz. So for mild overclockers of non-K chips, Haswell's can actually be slower than their non-K Ivy Bridge equivalents.

TheDarkKnight said:
"I am not at all interested in overclocking any Haswell(or older generation for that matter) CPUs."
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No 2. above probably won't apply to you then, though you're not losing anything (and gaining quite a bit) with a mild OC to 4GHz. You could always do the opposite and undervolt it? That would run a lot cooler.
 
BSim500 said:
Two that I can think of:-

1. The biggest "compromise" that was part of the "feature" of the FIVR is the way Haswell unnecessarily auto-overvolts by +0.1v whenever it detects any AVX application, so you do lose tight voltage control of Haswell's that were present on previous Ivy Bridge's unless you manually fix the voltage (and lose power saving Steedstep idle state voltage drops in the process) or deliberately avoid some benchmarks / applications. Many people who don't run AVX benchmarks don't notice it, but if you're really worried about load temps, Ivy bridge chips are still available that don't auto-over-volt independently of the motherboard.

2. Intel nerfed the "+4-bins limited overclock" feature for non-K chips. ie, an i5-3570 can be max Turbo'd to 4.2GHz, but an i5-4670 is locked to just 3.8GHz. So for mild overclockers of non-K chips, Haswell's can actually be slower than their non-K Ivy Bridge equivalents.



No 2. above probably won't apply to you then, though you're not losing anything (and gaining quite a bit) with a mild OC to 4GHz. You could always do the opposite and undervolt it? That would run a lot cooler.
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There is no difference in idle power consumption between 4.8GHz 1.24v fixed and 800MHz 0.7v adaptive.

As long as you have your C states enabled Haswell is not affected.
 
TheDarkKnight said:
I am not at all interested in overclocking any Haswell(or older generation for that matter) CPUs.
Click to expand...
OP says he's not interested in overclocking and yet laments the chip "running hotter." While it's true that the chip itself runs hotter, total platform heat and power usage is down (that was the whole point). The only drawback is that the heat limits higher clock speeds. Because the OP is not interested in overclocking, he would only enjoy the benefits with none of the drawbacks. His complaint? Beats me.
 
BallaTheFeared said:
There is no difference in idle power consumption between 4.8GHz 1.24v fixed and 800MHz 0.7v adaptive.

As long as you have your C states enabled Haswell is not affected.
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That's odd. A lot of other people are saying the opposite:-

"The only way to prevent stress testing programs from pulling extra voltage is to use a manually set voltage, which takes away your CPU’s ability to reduce voltage when idle."
http://www.overclockers.com/3step-guide-to-overclock-intel-haswell

On the other hand, it may well be motherboard dependent:-

"On Gigabyte boards the voltage will go down at idle even with fixed voltage as long as you have the C states enabled (I think only C1E and C3 are required, but C6/7 lets it drop really far, like to 0.2V). So no reason to use anything other than fixed voltage as long as you don't mind having the C states enabled."
http://www.overclock.net/t/1401976/the-gigabyte-z87-haswell-overclocking-oc-guide/500#post_20433068

Just out of curiosity, how many Haswell owners here experience voltage drops when idle using "fixed" voltage? Anyone know what brands / boards do and what don't? I'm not planning to upgrade to Haswell at the moment, but it would be a useful piece of information to have for the future. Thanks.
 
The point was regardless of what cpuz says, 1.24v or .7v with c-states enabled I can idle at 800MHz .7v or 4.8GHz 1.24v and the kill-a-watt will not show a difference.
 
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