Reviews - Intel Core i7-4770K (22nm Haswell)

[HEXUS]

Meet the 4th Generation Core Processor Family.

Read more.

[Aleks]

Looking good, but realy disapointing at overclocking potential(it's not near 5Ghz that was rumor).

[Noxvayl]

Do motherboards with Haswell ship with Lucid MVP or a newer version? The new graphics should provide decent gains in performance and should be great for multi-monitor setups. I use Lucid MVP on my Ivy Bridge machine and it gives me a 10-20% boost in performance depending on the game.

[brasco]

Definitely leaning towards the APU side of things, very disappointed by the OC head room, other reviews report the same, but of course the OCing community is not a priority for intel

[lowers93]

It would be interesting to see where voltage adjustments might/might not lead with the overclocking.

[petrucius]

Nice, thanks for the review.
I am very curious about the Core i5-4670K's performance & overclocking. I am still with my good old Core i5-760 and I think now is the time to upgrade.

[Willzzz]

Yeah, overclocking is not looking promising :/

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Last time I checked the K series CPUs lacked TSX too.

Edit!!

From all the feedback that I am getting through motherboard makers about Haswell overclocking, the basic thread at this time in terms of getting "high overclocks" seems to be, "You need to have a good CPU."

ASUS has tested a couple hundred Haswell processors at this time and this is ASUS’ specific feedback from that overclock testing.

70% of CPUs can clock to 4.5GHz
30% of CPUs can clock to 4.6GHz
20% of CPUs can clock to 4.7GHz
10% of CPUs can to 4.8GHz

Most of the 5GHz overclocks are ES chips... really I think retail ought to be reviewed to show realistic results to the end user. In our review, we used retail and it prove difficult getting beyond 4.7GHz even with big volts!

The movement of some of the voltage regulation onto the chip might be not helping too:

http://www.overclock.net/t/1396503/v...#post_20092173

[aramil]

No supprise really as intel had already said that it's next gen would be focused mainly on battery life and graphics performance.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

No supprise really as intel had already said that it's next gen would be focused mainly on battery life and graphics performance.

One of their own engineers said on Reddit Haswell, would be an overclockers dream too!

[Agent]

Do motherboards with Haswell ship with Lucid MVP or a newer version? The new graphics should provide decent gains in performance and should be great for multi-monitor setups. I use Lucid MVP on my Ivy Bridge machine and it gives me a 10-20% boost in performance depending on the game.

Are the new versions really an better? I tried it on launch and again a while after and it was awful.

Having a quick Google suggests version 2 is much better, but I'm unsure on if it's worth the hassle messing (given that it's not free!).

[Bambooz]

Last time I checked the K series CPUs lacked TSX too.

Edit!!

From all the feedback that I am getting through motherboard makers about Haswell overclocking, the basic thread at this time in terms of getting "high overclocks" seems to be, "You need to have a good CPU."

ASUS has tested a couple hundred Haswell processors at this time and this is ASUS’ specific feedback from that overclock testing.

70% of CPUs can clock to 4.5GHz
30% of CPUs can clock to 4.6GHz
20% of CPUs can clock to 4.7GHz
10% of CPUs can to 4.8GHz

wow.. even my (at this rate) ancient i5-2500K on air easily does 4.6 at stock vcore ... 4.7 up to 5.0 requires a bit of a voltage bump but still isn't a problem at all. I just don't like the increase in noise due to Gigabytes fan controller being pretty crappy.

Haswell seems like a step back.. better integrated graphics no one cares about, a bit more performance compared to ivy, new incompatible socket. And I'm willing to bet the next tick-tock cycle will be yet another (incompatible) new socket because of DDR4. Socket 1156/1366 all over again anyone?

[Willzzz]

Broadwell is also 1150.

[george1979]

Last time I checked the K series CPUs lacked TSX too.

Edit!!

From all the feedback that I am getting through motherboard makers about Haswell overclocking, the basic thread at this time in terms of getting "high overclocks" seems to be, "You need to have a good CPU."

ASUS has tested a couple hundred Haswell processors at this time and this is ASUS’ specific feedback from that overclock testing.

70% of CPUs can clock to 4.5GHz
30% of CPUs can clock to 4.6GHz
20% of CPUs can clock to 4.7GHz
10% of CPUs can to 4.8GHz

wow.. even my (at this rate) ancient i5-2500K on air easily does 4.6 at stock vcore ... 4.7 up to 5.0 requires a bit of a voltage bump but still isn't a problem at all. I just don't like the increase in noise due to Gigabytes fan controller being pretty crappy.

Haswell seems like a step back.. better integrated graphics no one cares about, a bit more performance compared to ivy, new incompatible socket. And I'm willing to bet the next tick-tock cycle will be yet another (incompatible) new socket because of DDR4. Socket 1156/1366 all over again anyone?

I'd imagine quite a lot of people care about the improved graphics. The vast majority of people don't need dedicated graphics but do want longer battery life so it does seem pretty interesting. I appreciate this review is for a desktop chip but, like the article suggests, I'll be looking forward to seeing how Haswell improves battery life and thermal performance for mobile.

[MrJim]

Personally, I'm not really sure overclocking is even worth it with Haswell processors. Most of the reviews I've read have struggled to get past 4.5Ghz, even using high-end coolers like the Corsair H100i. If you're having to spend about £100+ on an appropriate cooler, why bother? That sort of money could probably be better spent upgrading other parts of the average system, e.g. SSD, GPU, etc...

[Willzzz]

Maybe, but others have hit much higher clocks, especially HardOCP.

The regular chips can still overclock by 4 bins right? So a regular 4770 can still hit 4.3ghz?