Has Intel made a real improvement in their enthusiast CPU lineup in the past 2 years?

[996GT2]

I've been running a 2700K @ 4.8 GHz for over 2 years now, and in that time I haven't really looked much into the CPU scene. The other day I was looking at some Ivy Bridge and Haswell reviews, and it seems like those CPUs are only a little bit faster than Sandy Bridge at the same clock speeds. Additionally, it seems like a 4.8 GHz overclock on air is pretty rare for Ivy Bridge or Haswell chips for some reason. I remember 5 GHz overclocks being relatively common with Sandy Bridge a couple of years back, and the only reason I'm not running mine @ 5 GHz for daily use is because I didn't feel like the performance improvement was worth going up to 1.42V.

So is an overclocked 2700K still pretty much comparable to a 3770 or 4770K in terms of CPU performance, despite being 2 years old?

 

[CRCSUX]

From what ive heard 2700k @ 4.8 GHz is around a 4770k @ 4.2 GHz and 4.4 maybe the avg overclock for the 4770k. So thats maybe a 200 MHz improvement if you upgraded to haswell. And you stated that 4.8 GHz to 5 GHz isnt worth it (voltage wise) so im guessing 200 MHz for an upgrade probably isnt worth it either.

If it was me id stay with the 2700k @ 4.8 GHz.

 

[JDG1980]

In my opinion, the desktop enthusiast market hasn't seen any major advances in the CPU state-of-the-art since Sandy Bridge. Haswell has slightly higher IPC (usually 10% or less), but it also runs much hotter and doesn't overclock nearly as well. Intel's 32nm process seems to be much more optimized for high-power desktop applications than 22nm.

 

[Yuriman]

Minor advancements, but not enough to justify an upgrade from Sandy in my eyes. I'm sure my 3570K is marginally faster per-thread in most things than your 2700K despite the clock difference, and probably draws a bit less power. Because I'm delidded I only hit about 60c under full load, but that's added risk. The improvements worth having are largely platform features and not performance improvements.

 

[sniffin]

Ivy Bridge brought pretty sizeable improvements in power consumption, so if you care about that sort of thing I guess there was some progress made there. Ivy Bridge to Haswell is basically a useless upgrade for anything that doesn't operate on a battery.

 

[Silverforce11]

Considering 60 vs 90W difference is nothing compared to most gamer's rig total consumption in the 300 to 400W range (and thats "modest" rigs), no, Intel has given enthusiasts nothing worthwhile for those on SB for years already.

Better iGPU is moot, because real gamers have high end GPUs already. We need better IPC, lots of games still come out these days with 1 or 2 threads only and become major bottlenecks.

 

[Essence_of_War]

So is an overclocked 2700K still pretty much comparable to a 3770 or 4770K in terms of CPU performance, despite being 2 years old?

Yup. On the desktop, I don't think there is any reason to upgrade a great, stable, OC of SB unless:
1) there are MoBo/chipset features you feel like you're desperately missing.
2) you're doing a ton of gaming on the igpu.

 

[24601]

The CPU/MOBO package is effectively cheaper if you want to OC since you don't need as good phases on your MOBO for 22nm compared to 32nm. Cooling is also easier if you take the delidding route. As mentioned the mobo stock features are greatly improved.

If you have a sandy bridge OCed on big water with a high quality (read: expensive) mobo you wont see a large difference though.

 

[Seba]

Better iGPU is moot, because real gamers have high end GPUs already.

And another wrong decision by Intel (wrong for the user) was to put the more powerful integrated graphics only on it's high end processors. It would have made more sense (for the user, at least) to combine the low end processors with the most capable integrated graphics.

 

[zir_blazer]

And another wrong decision by Intel (wrong for the user) was to put the more powerful integrated graphics only on it's high end processors. It would have made more sense (for the user, at least) to combine the low end processors with the most capable integrated graphics.

They did improved that with Haswell. With Sandy Bridge and Ivy Bridge, K-series Processors had a better IGP than the non-K equivalent models (Core i7 2600K vs 2600 for example), even through as they were aimed to the enthusiast which should have a decent discrete Video Card to begin with, didn't make sense.

 

[Seba]

Just because it is not a "k" i7, I can not see how could you call that low end.

Low end is Celeron and Pentium (Sandy Bridge, Ivy Bridge, Haswell).

 

[Ajay]

From what ive heard 2700k @ 4.8 GHz is around a 4770k @ 4.2 GHz and 4.4 maybe the avg overclock for the 4770k. So thats maybe a 200 MHz improvement if you upgraded to haswell. And you stated that 4.8 GHz to 5 GHz isnt worth it (voltage wise) so im guessing 200 MHz for an upgrade probably isnt worth it either.

If it was me id stay with the 2700k @ 4.8 GHz.

^^ This. Well said.

 

[piasabird]

I was contemplating whether Intel is going to come out with a 4K Integrated Video capability or will they start making video cards for 4K? They also need a new kind of plug that has a faster data transport rate for SSD. Short of making a processor faster is making it access drives faster. O Baby. Photonic radical speed for SSD's. Laser feed.

 

[VirtualLarry]

I was contemplating whether Intel is going to come out with a 4K Integrated Video capability or will they start making video cards for 4K?

Haswell IGP is already 4K capable. (Probably only over DP though.)