Intel Core i7 4770K “Haswell” Processor Review

It is clear from our testing that Intel’s Haswell Core i7 4770K offers by far the most performance per thread we have ever seen from an Intel CPU – it is a major step forward in Intel’s tick-tock program both in terms of performance and power efficiency. At stock it is Intel’s best quad core CPU while it beats their six core i7 3960X CPU in some applications that rely less on cores/threads and more on single threaded performance, while most AMD CPUs don’t even come close. In this respect it does offer you a really extreme amount of performance if you haven’t got the money for the X79 platform.

The Haswell platform as a whole is unique in that it isn’t aimed at “everyone”. If you are rocking a Sandy Bridge, Ivy Bridge or Sandy Bridge-E platform, then there really is very little need to buy a new motherboard and processor and get going with Haswell – it doesn’t follow that traditional upgrade cycle. Particularly the Core i7 4770K which only offers very marginal performance improvements (around 5-10%) over Ivy Bridge’s flagship the i7 3770K. Haswell for desktops is mainly aimed at people using older platforms like LGA 775 and LGA 1156, and if you are using one of these systems then Haswell is really for you – particularly the Core i7 4770K if you want the best from Intel without spending a fortune on X79.

In terms of pricing we are expecting the Intel Core i7 4770K to come with a 1K unit tray price of $339.99 so by the time they arrive at stores we may be looking at about $359.99 for a retail version and $349.99 for an OEM version. This means the Core i7 4770K is actually priced competitively to the Core i7 3770K that currently sells for $329.99 on Newegg. As you can see from our pricing details on page two, the other Haswell Core i7 and Core i5 desktop models are also priced similarly to their Ivy Bridge predecessors.

Despite all the talk of power efficiency, we unfortunately couldn’t replicate these results, but we know of others who could, so we are still kind of on-the-fence about this. However, we still saw excellent performance results given the power consumption figures we had. The integrated graphics are something I will briefly mention here because there has been a lot of talk about them, particularly in Intel’s marketing. Intel have updated the integrated graphics to HD 4600 on the Core i7 4770K from HD 4000 on the Ivy Bridge Core i7 3770K. They do bring a significant performance boost (around 50% or more), yet on gaming terms, they are still not going to allow you to play many games. Particularly from an enthusiast perspective it still makes the most sense to opt for a discrete graphics card and the integrated graphics are almost irrelevant unless you are looking to use Intel’s QuickSync technology for faster encoding or you don’t really play games.

Pros

• Excellent overall performance
• Unparalleled single threaded performance
• Good overclocking headroom
• Priced competitively to Ivy Bridge
• Improved integrated graphics

Cons

• Runs with high temperatures
• We saw worse than Ivy Bridge power consumption figures
• Comparatively low performance gain versus Ivy Bridge

eTeknix says: Intel have raised the performance bar once again and Haswell is a platform that delivers unparalleled single threaded performance along with high levels of power efficiency for the performance it offers. While the Core i7 4770K is unlikely to sway Ivy Bridge users into making an upgrade, Sandy Bridge users may be tempted and pre-Sandy Bridge users should seriously consider the Core i7 4770K as it adds to the generational performance improvements of previous platforms in a significant way. The Core i7 4770K comofortably steals the quad core performance crown from its predecessor.