Giveaway of the Day Forums

1. 

   mikiem2
   Moderator

   http://www.techspot.com/review/679-intel-haswell-core-i7-4770k/

   Regular TechSpot readers will have no doubt spotted several mentions of Haswell on our front page this year. In the past few months we have covered everything from model names to performance and battery life claims. A key focus has been Haswell's graphics, with rumors suggesting its performance is set to be 2 to 3 times that of current HD 4000 integrated graphics.

   So what is Haswell exactly? It is Intel’s 4th generation Core architecture which will see a major refresh of the entire Core i3, Core i5 and Core i7 product lineup in 2013. Whereas last year’s Ivy Bridge was a "tick" release, Haswell is a tock and traditionally that's meant a more significant advance forward.

   Final Thoughts

   In terms of performance the upgrade to Haswell is very reminiscent of what we observed when going from Sandy Bridge to Ivy Bridge: for the most part we saw very minor performance increases. Haswell looked most impressive in our encoding benchmarks where it was 3 to 13% faster. In our battery of application-based it was was 2 - 11% faster than Ivy, while the synthetic benchmark programs showed only minimal margins.

   Posted 10 years ago #
2. 

   Whiterabbit-uk
   Games Guru

   Thanks Mikiem. Maybe we should have a section in the tech forums that deals with the latest upgrades, for RAM, graphics cards, coolers, c.p.u's etc. :)

   I'm hoping to build another computer in the near future (once the house move is completed and we've managed to get someone to live in the property we are vacating - thankfully, its in a sought after area, with good schools). Sooo, it's useful to keep an eye on these developments. I don't want to spend twice as much on a c.p.u. with new architecture if the benefits are so low. Seems a waste of money. The i7 2600K 3.2GHz cpu I purchased for my last build (December 2011) has coped with everything I've thrown at it without having to overclock. I purchased the overclocking version just in case. I needed to increase the clock speed (apparently you can overclock to about 4.8GHz clock speed with this cheaper version of the i7 so long as you have a decent cooler).

   My computer is virtually as cold as a stone even when playing the most graphically intensive games (such as ArmA 3) apart from a vague warmth in the grill that's opposite the cpu fan, I should be okay to overclock, but haven't felt the need as yet. Maybe with the next generation of games. :)

   Posted 10 years ago #
3. 

   mikiem2
   Moderator

   Well, they've been sort of running into a brick wall trying to get more speed & power out of CPUs for a while now, so I guess these smaller improvements are about all we can expect, & yeah, you're right, unless you've got money to throw away or want/need some feature on the newest motherboards, upgrading your 2600K's probably not worth it. TO me the big advantage when they come out with new CPU lines or models is the old version gets cheaper as they clear out inventory.

   My computer is virtually as cold as a stone even when playing the most graphically intensive games (such as ArmA 3) apart from a vague warmth in the grill that's opposite the cpu fan,

   I *think* you mentioned once that you're running water cooling -- it is nice now that they've got so many self-contained water coolers on the market for pretty reasonable pricing. I wound up getting a monster case a couple years back on close out -- the new models have the inside painted too. I got it because it has so much room inside, making it a LOT easier to set up, & sitting under the desk it doesn't matter if it huge or tiny. But with the almost window-sized fans it uses, without a temp monitoring app I haven't a clue how warm things are getting http://www.coolermaster-usa.com/product.php?product_id=2810

   I should be okay to overclock, but haven't felt the need as yet. Maybe with the next generation of games. :)

   Well, I've got my fingers crossed for you -- not for the overclocking part, but for the next gen games. :)

   Posted 10 years ago #

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