Core i7 4770K processor review

TheDeeGee

2013-06-01 17:39

Thanks for that 😀 How much of an overclock can I expect at stock voltage? My 920 goes upto 3.5 GHz undervolted so something equivalent would be nice. My view is the same. I want the Z87 Deluxe by Asus and SSD's wouldn't work to their full potential on my current build anyway. i'm not sure about hex-cores though as new consoles have such weak processors and we have hyper threading.

For Gaming Hexa Core is a waste of money. If you do Heavy Video Rendering Hexa Core is what you want.

#4609448

PhoBos82

2013-06-01 17:43

Maybe Intel is just trying to give AMD time to catch up for some strange reason. Besides the new MB's that are really nice this reminds me of AMD release of the FX 8150. If you had a 1090T/1100T it was a waste to upgrade just for the CPU. I'm sure the 4770K will sell well because of people wanting new MB's but that's the only reason. Nice review as always.

If Intel was trying to let AMD catch up, and AMD indeed caught up then they would have to start offering there CPUs at a more competitive price. You know that will never happen. A nice CPU for new builds but like many have said, no reason to upgrade unless your one of those persons that has to have the newest and greatest * cought * Titan customers *cough*

#4609457

Dazz

2013-06-01 17:54

Pretty disappointing the graphics has been upped yet still well below trinity's, so much for the hype that Intel had going for it's graphics. Sandy bridge was the best and still a fantastic performer and overclocks better too this TIM Intel uses is a useless and should go back to soldering the IHS.

#4609461

scoter man1

2013-06-01 18:09

"When we place load on the CPU and we see the power draw rise, the system now consumes roughly 1350 Watts." 1350w? Must be some serious overclocking going on there.

#4609464

The Postman

2013-06-01 18:11

This is so disappointing. I waited so long to upgrade... I dont even know if I want to now.

#4609466

alanm

2013-06-01 18:14

The main point of Haswell is power savings and IGP performance. If they were to focus on better performance, then TDP goes out the window. So it was a set of compromises, they can afford to let go of performance in favor of the other areas. Especially as this arch goes into mobile platforms/devices, where I think its main emphasis will probably be.

#4609468

schmidtbag

2013-06-01 18:14

Ill be getting it anyways. My SSD isbeing hold back by like 200 MB\s due to SATA 300. My videocard is PCI-E Gen 3 ready which could be a 2-3% gain in performance (not a whole lot i know, but every bit counts). Also my Case is USB 3.0 ready and i got a couple of USB 3.0 devices by now. X58 is just getting a bit old by now, it's been almost 4 years since i bought it. Performance might be a bit dissapointing atm, but there will be new BIOS Firmware, Chipset Drivers. I highly doubt i will be throwing away money.

I think it'd make more sense to get a cheap PCI-e SATA III card and USB 3.0 card. But, if you decide to do the full upgrade and if you can put good use to your current system then of course it wouldn't be throwing money away. Anyways, I do find this to be a surprisingly poor "upgrade". Not sure why Intel felt the need to do a socket upgrade - they could've taken AMD's route with the FX series and the 800 chipset, where you CAN use it, but you might lose some features. I'm guessing Intel has some deal with certain mobo manufacturers where they're paid to make new sockets every other year whether they're necessary or not.

#4609472

xodius80

2013-06-01 18:17

Thorough review as always but is it me or is the i7-4770K a spectacularly unexciting product? I'm not sure why it was even released when it performs exactly the same as the i7-3770K. If the CPU ran cooler then that might have been something to shout about but, again, it's exactly the same as the 3770K. :3eyes: My i7-920 is getting on for 5 years old but, right now, I think I'd be better off waiting for the next-gen consoles to come out then buying a 6-core CPU around then. I see absolutely no need to upgrade to Haswell right now although USB 3.0, PCI-E 3.0 (why do the slides on page 6 all show PCI-E 2.0?) and SATAIII would, undoubtedly, be nice things to have. In fact, those things are way more appealing than the CPU upgrade itself. At one time, CPU upgrades used to be exciting events, promising faster performance in games, but now they seem to offer very little for gamers who already have powerful graphics cards.

i agree with you, i rather spend money on a good ssd wich can offer me more performance, than to updrage the whole system, im allready on ddr3 too with my current system, and my 4ghz oc represents no bottleneck to any videocard atm (single gpu)

#4609474

lucidus

2013-06-01 18:21

Frankly I doubt Broadwell will be much of an upgrade either. Perhaps the same with Skylake (except for DDR4) but who is to say for that far into the future. Wintel is getting hammered due to ARM, their focus for consumer chips will now be on power consumption and efficiency than more performance.

#4609478

mackintosh

2013-06-01 18:23

Incredibly disappointing. I suppose my poor 950 will simply have to die on me before Intel convinces me to upgrade. I can't believe I have the money for an upgrade and nothing to spend it on.

#4609485

Elder III

2013-06-01 18:28

As someone that was considering an upgrade later this year, I don't really see any reason for me to do so. I'd be much more tempted to find a shelf clearing sale on a 2600K or 3700K in a few more months and get it for half the price of a 4700K, and with the exact same game performance.

#4609487

lucidus

2013-06-01 18:29

I think I'll try playing with the voltages on mine and try to squeeze out a few more MHz first :P

#4609508

Veteran

2013-06-01 18:55

Good review Hilbert. I dont need to change from what i already have and at the rate of the way things are going with cpu development i wont need to change my cpu when the next architecture comes along after Haswell.

#4609513

alanm

2013-06-01 19:01

I've also heard that it will be the same as IB as far as TIM between heat spreader and CPU goes.

#4609517

Blackops_2

2013-06-01 19:09

Well just confirms the Chinese leaks we've all seen for the last couple of weeks. This was expected honestly. Though I was expecting to see better OCing like 5ghz become somewhat the norm. Well ill continue building my z77 rig as planned.

#4609523

BarryB

2013-06-01 19:19

Seems it's been a very disappointing year so far!! First, nvidia 7xx series with nothing to shout about and now Haswell with nothing extra to offer worth upgrading for. I'm still on on 1st gen i7 and 4xx series nvidia cards and thought this would be the year I would finally upgrade but looks like I'll be staying with my setup for sometime to come as there's just nothing out there that has convinced me to buy, and finding out Haswell uses the same TIM solution as IB then I'll be skipping Haswell altogether. To prolong my boards life a bit I bought a USB 3.0 card and a SATA-III card and to be honest, it made next to f*** all difference in speed over USB 2.0/SATA-II so to me upgrading offers no magnitude of improvement over my existing setup, which is very disappointing as it's 4 years old!!

#4609527

The_Fool

2013-06-01 19:25

When are the Ultrabooks being released?

#4609528

leeaids

2013-06-01 19:26

glad i went for the hexa now still sitting prity

#4609533

abula

2013-06-01 19:34

What worries me its not haswell being such a small upgrade, is that Broadwell will just be die shrink... well if they dont support ddr4 and sata express wont be worthwhile either... so what another 2 years for skylake.... this is going to be the longest wait i have done in upgrading.

#4609547

BLEH!

2013-06-01 20:02

Good review Hilbert. I dont need to change from what i already have and at the rate of the way things are going with cpu development i wont need to change my cpu when the next architecture comes along after Haswell.

This applies so well to me. Simply isn't enough reason to upgrade, yes the power drop would be nice, but properly tweaked I can hit 4.6 GHz with this chip, more than enough for now. Hell I may even end up seeing what AMD out with the new FX stuff in the near future.