First complete review of Haswell i7-4770K

[Rvenger]

Why would you do tick/tock upgrades?

Because I can.... Because I can.

 

[Gillbot]

Is the verdict here that I should hold onto my 3770k because it maybe a sidegrade at best?

I would say yes. I went from 2600k to 3770k not because I wanted the upgrade, but I was given a GREAT offer to sell it to someone who couldn't run a 3770k in their mobo and I could. Basically he paid for my new 3770k and he got my used 2600k out of the deal. I got a bit lower power draw, he got to "max out" his mobo so it was a win-win for both of us.

After playing a bit, it was a side grade at best IMHO so I suspect the 4770k will be similar.

 

[zephyrprime]

Intel are very far from incapable, it just isn't their priority right now.

From their point of view, the most profitable customers who demand performance improvements are those who run massive datafarms, or build supercomputers- the kind who buy literally thousands of high margin Xeon chips. And what do they care about most? Performance/W. Look at why they shut down Roadrunner, because it cost too much to run compared to modern designs. When your compute cluster uses 2.5 megawatts of power and runs flat out 24/7, damn straight you care about efficiency. They want Intel to make chips which are as efficient as possible (maximum performance/W), and then they buy thousands and thousands of cores.

I have to disagree. Cause and effect are backwards here. The reason why computer sales are down is because nobody can increase the performance of cpu's significantly. Nobody needs to upgrade when newer machines aren't any faster than older machines. It's not because there's no money in the market so nobody is bothering trying to improve things. We have already been knocking on the end of moore's law for a couple of years now. Datafarms and supercomputers are only a small slice of the market even if they are the highest profit margin. And besides, it looks like Intel failed at increasing performance/watt too.

 

[blackened23]

I have to disagree. Cause and effect are backwards here. The reason why computer sales are down is because nobody can increase the performance of cpu's significantly. Nobody needs to upgrade when newer machines aren't any faster than older machines. It's not because there's no money in the market so nobody is bothering trying to improve things. We have already been knocking on the end of moore's law for a couple of years now. Datafarms and supercomputers are only a small slice of the market even if they are the highest profit margin. And besides, it looks like Intel failed at increasing performance/watt too.

Computing has changed, desktop isn't the primary purchase for new computing devices for the average consumer and mass market. Consider the typical use of a computing device: media consumption, browsing, email. 10 years ago this required a desktop PC. Now you can do all of the same things on a tablet, and that is what the mass market buys.

Intel has shifted their goalposts because the mass market doesn't care about IPC, period. If intel wants to be relevant a decade from now, they have to get a slice of the ultra mobile and ultra portable market. Stating that desktop IPC has anything to do with PC sales, which by the way - is dominated by new consumers, is just a completely incorrect assumption.

edit: I forgot to add: this is exactly what you're seeing with Haswell and Broadwell. These architectures are designed from the ground up for efficiency, because intel wants to put this technology in high end tablets - now they can share this uarch across a wide variety of platforms such as desktop and enterprise computing. But the baseline will always be designed for efficiency, I can't see that changing over the next several years.

 

[Nate_007]

Thanks for this, I will get to spend more time with my i7 2600k. But Im happy that iGPU looks betters. I may build one for my future HTPC.

 

[NTMBK]

I have to disagree. Cause and effect are backwards here. The reason why computer sales are down is because nobody can increase the performance of cpu's significantly. Nobody needs to upgrade when newer machines aren't any faster than older machines. It's not because there's no money in the market so nobody is bothering trying to improve things. We have already been knocking on the end of moore's law for a couple of years now. Datafarms and supercomputers are only a small slice of the market even if they are the highest profit margin. And besides, it looks like Intel failed at increasing performance/watt too.

Modern PCs are vastly more powerful than older ones, but people still hold onto them. My parents only just ditched a couple of months ago a 1.6GHz Pentium 4 machine with 1GB RAM and a Geforce 3. Why did it take them that long to replace it? Because it did everything they asked of it. I remember back in the 90s, when my father would replace his PC almost every year because he desperately needed more power just to crunch spreadsheets and documents. What on earth does your average user do that needs a 4GHz watercooled i7? Nothing, that's what. Us power users are a minority.

 

[blackened23]

Modern PCs are vastly more powerful than older ones, but people still hold onto them. My parents only just ditched a couple of months ago a 1.6GHz Pentium 4 machine with 1GB RAM and a Geforce 3. Why did it take them that long to replace it? Because it did everything they asked of it. I remember back in the 90s, when my father would replace his PC almost every year because he desperately needed more power just to crunch spreadsheets and documents. What on earth does your average user do that needs a 4GHz watercooled i7? Nothing, that's what. Us power users are a minority.

Yeah, this is a very good point as well. Keep in mind that the power users that continually upgrade are the exception, not the rule. The mass market buys a machine that does basic tasks, and that is actually the great majority of sales. The issue right now for intel is that purchasing trends have shifted away from desktops in favor of ultra portables.

Now, I would certainly love it if Haswell had 50% better IPC than prior generation CPUs, but I completely understand why it doesn't. Their R+D is focused on getting this technology inside of what the mass market buys - ultra portables. To do this, they need the most efficient part possible.

 

[Phynaz]

as a former purchaser of computers in "business" (whatever that is supposed to mean), power consumption was NEVER on the radar. never ever

So you don't know what business purchasing is, but yet claim to have done it.

Alrighty then...

 

[AtenRa]

Us power users are a minority.

Us power users were a minority 3-4 years ago when Intel introduced first the Core i7 920 and then the mainstream socket 1156.

10-20 years ago, us power users were still the minority but Intel and AMD was releasing the high-end first.

If Intel NOW cares about the average user, why the hell dont they release the low end Haswell Celeron/Pentium and Core i3 first ??? This has nothing to do with mobiles/Laptops beeing the higher volume, this has to do with Intel trying to keep the high margins, and its big GPU market share for marketing and other reasons.
90% or more of Intels CPUs sold the last two years have iGPUs. They know that power users and high-end gamers dont care about the iGPUs and they would buy and recommend a 6 core over a quad + iGPU. Thats why they dont release the High-End Socket 2011 first. They would lose GPU market share.

AMD is also at fault here, if they had a much faster CPU Intel would have been pressed to release a $300 6-core CPU long ago.

Power users and gamers are also at fault because they still supporting/buying from a company that has stopped producing high-end products (at the same price points) for them anymore. Before you all start jumping all over me, yes SB was a great gain over Nehalem but two generation after that, with a smaller node and we are still at the same level of performance.

 

[cytg111]

Computing has changed, desktop isn't the primary purchase for new computing devices for the average consumer and mass market. Consider the typical use of a computing device: media consumption, browsing, email. 10 years ago this required a desktop PC. Now you can do all of the same things on a tablet, and that is what the mass market buys.

Has it? Has computing changed? I was under the assumption that it was actually server parts/requirements that drove performance innovation, and while a new ISA/arch is developed for server end of the spectrum, we desktop users may get to 'betatest' the chips first.
It is now like it is the other way around is it? The average consumer demands performance and then it dripples down on the server segment as a consequence later on.

I may have gotten it wrong, but thats how I thought it worked.

 

[Idontcare]

So you don't know what business purchasing is, but yet claim to have done it.

Alrighty then...

It is pretty clear that anyone who's experiential reference point is based on the past will be stuck living in the past unless they accept the realities of the present.

10yrs ago power was certainly less of a concern, but it was already becoming one. 20yrs ago you could argue that power consumption of the average employee computer was less not much of a concern. But today that is certainly a laughably false position to take.

10yrs ago in the USA we had gasoline that was nearly $1/gallon, not the same situation now, not by a long shot. Anyone that thinks energy consumption is not a concern on the minds of businesses is someone who is raising their hand and waving it around when asked the question "are you living in the past?".

 

[AtenRa]

It is pretty clear that anyone who's experiential reference point is based on the past will be stuck living in the past unless they accept the realities of the present.

10yrs ago power was certainly less of a concern, but it was already becoming one. 20yrs ago you could argue that power consumption of the average employee computer was less not much of a concern. But today that is certainly a laughably false position to take.

10yrs ago in the USA we had gasoline that was nearly $1/gallon, not the same situation now, not by a long shot. Anyone that thinks energy consumption is not a concern on the minds of businesses is someone who is raising their hand and waving it around when asked the question "are you living in the past?".

I will agree that for businesses and servers etc, power usage IS the number one problem as of now.

Servers can have any performance they would like, that is we can pout one trillion CPUs and make the highest performance Super Computer on the planet. But the power usage needed to run this monstrosity would be that high that the operating price will be sky rocket. Not to mention that they will need to build a few Nuclear power stations to support the huge power it will need.



On the other hand, the majority of Desktop power users and Gamers care more about performance/price than lower power usage. And it seems that the last two years the performance/price has been stagnated.

 

[Cerb]

On the other hand, the majority of Desktop power users and Gamers care more about performance/price than lower power usage. And it seems that the last two years the performance/price has been stagnated.

The majority of desktops are in sleep mode for 70-95% of their service lives, so total power use is usually fine. Exceptions to this require changing power settings, which few users do. In addition, the current Energy Star certification is actually not bad. Hardware is generally more efficient, and OEMs do know to care about noise, so the consumer has to do little or no research on the matter.

Performance/$ has not improved nearly enough, though, and for high-performance CPUs (all x86 but Atom or Bobcat types, Celerons etc.), that can be squarely blamed on AMD's Stars replacement's performance. While the performance Intel could offer if they had such competition would only be slightly higher, the important thing they haven't had to face is price competition.

 

[cytg111]

AMD is also at fault here, if they had a much faster CPU Intel would have been pressed to release a $300 6-core CPU long ago.

You are talking about gamers right? Crysis3 is the first piece of software that will actually hog into those 4+ cores .. As I see it, the need for those cores have only just begun.

 

[Phynaz]

It is pretty clear that anyone who's experiential reference point is based on the past will be stuck living in the past unless they accept the realities of the present.

10yrs ago power was certainly less of a concern, but it was already becoming one. 20yrs ago you could argue that power consumption of the average employee computer was less not much of a concern. But today that is certainly a laughably false position to take.

10yrs ago in the USA we had gasoline that was nearly $1/gallon, not the same situation now, not by a long shot. Anyone that thinks energy consumption is not a concern on the minds of businesses is someone who is raising their hand and waving it around when asked the question "are you living in the past?".

Spot on.

Not to mention business rates for power are much higher than residential. In a very real way, business rates subsidize residential rates.

Another aspect, the more power business' consume, the higher the cost of the products or services they provide.

 

[AtenRa]

You are talking about gamers right? Crysis3 is the first piece of software that will actually hog into those 4+ cores .. As I see it, the need for those cores have only just begun.

Actually BF3 Multiplayer is way more in need of more than 4 cores/threads than Crysis 3.

 

[Hulk]

Modern PCs are vastly more powerful than older ones, but people still hold onto them. My parents only just ditched a couple of months ago a 1.6GHz Pentium 4 machine with 1GB RAM and a Geforce 3. Why did it take them that long to replace it? Because it did everything they asked of it. I remember back in the 90s, when my father would replace his PC almost every year because he desperately needed more power just to crunch spreadsheets and documents. What on earth does your average user do that needs a 4GHz watercooled i7? Nothing, that's what. Us power users are a minority.

I have to say that is is a very astute analysis. If you look back 10 or 15 years ago there were plenty of applications that actually had a wait time. Today they don't. By wait time I mean start up time and wait time when you were using them.

Word processing
Spreadsheets
Presentation software
Vector drawing
Bitmap photo editing applications
Internet browsing
e-mail applications

I think we can agree that the above list is the bulk of the software a majority of computers users use on a daily basis. And today they all open either instantaneously or very quickly. They also run very fast on any modern CPU. Keep in mind I'm not talking about imaging pro's as they have the fastest available hardware. We're talking mainstream users, the bulk of what is out there.

In addition, there are applications such as
Video editing
Audio editing
Gaming

That are "usable" on stock hardware that simply were not 10 or 15 years ago. I have plenty of friends that game on integrated GPU's on low settings, do light video editing, etc.

Finally, modern CPU's have enough compute overhead for the above applications that even when the mainstream user has "junked up" their system with all kinds of little garbage apps, the CPU is still fast enough to keep the performance of the system at a reasonable level.

This is why we're not on the upgrade cycle we were 15 years ago.

Put simply, for mainstream users, hardware has caught up to and surpassed software.

Now this analysis DOES NOT apply to most people in this forum, including myself, but it has slowed my upgrade cycles. I'll be getting Haswell in the fall but my last upgrade with the 2500k from a few years ago, and a C2D a few years before that. Prior to Core I'd upgrade every 12 to 18 months because I needed the compute. Even if the upgrade was only the same core at a faster clock (because prices had come down).

 

[cytg111]

Actually BF3 Multiplayer is way more in need of more than 4 cores/threads than Crysis 3.

Allright, but point sorta remains the same


"Put simply, for mainstream users, hardware has caught up to and surpassed software."

- Crysis3 and BF3 is pushing that hardware right now and come oculus rift-kind of hardware, kinnect-kind of hardware, eeg based controls and next gen AI's, I look forward to games pushing the hardware to its limits(cores/threads) once again.

 

[Hulk]

Allright, but point sorta remains the same


"Put simply, for mainstream users, hardware has caught up to and surpassed software."

- Crysis3 and BF3 is pushing that hardware right now and come oculus rift-kind of hardware, kinnect-kind of hardware, eeg based controls and next gen AI's, I look forward to games pushing the hardware to its limits(cores/threads) once again.

If you mean "pushing" by pushing every setting to max then yes. But if you just want to play a game with good graphics and performance then no. There will always be settings in software that take like 10x the compute for 1% improvement. Those apps and settings are outliers of the mainstream.

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/CPU/50

 

[Stoneburner]

Intel hasn't impressed with a new release since SB.

 

[galego]

Haswell is good- just not for desktop.

I am debating about the i7-4770k in a thread about the i7-4770k and the last time that I checked this the i7-4770k was a desktop cpu.

 

[Remobz]

I am debating about the i7-4770k in a thread about the i7-4770k and the last time that I checked this the i7-4770k was a desktop cpu.

For people like me with an Intel i3 2120 Haswell is GOOD!

How can that upgrade really be bad?

 

[galego]

I'd estimate that about 80% of your posts in this forum consists of "AMD is going to..." type mantra, so you posting what you did above is just forehead-smacking irony.

I doubt it.

 

[Charles Kozierok]

Put simply, for mainstream users, hardware has caught up to and surpassed software.

I agree, though I am somewhat on a limb in that I think most of the current situation is part of a cycle. We just haven't really had anything serious to push the hardware in a long time. I think someday it will arrive, and it will set the current "good enough" market on its ear.

I doubt it.

Brilliant repartee. I'm sure "I know you are but what am I?" can't be far behind.

 

[galego]

Modern PCs are vastly more powerful than older ones, but people still hold onto them. My parents only just ditched a couple of months ago a 1.6GHz Pentium 4 machine with 1GB RAM and a Geforce 3. Why did it take them that long to replace it? Because it did everything they asked of it. I remember back in the 90s, when my father would replace his PC almost every year because he desperately needed more power just to crunch spreadsheets and documents. What on earth does your average user do that needs a 4GHz watercooled i7? Nothing, that's what. Us power users are a minority.

Exact! You don't need an i7 for facebook, gmail, and youtube.