- Back to homepage
- Related articles
  Related articles

Intel Haswell 4th Generation CPU: i5-4670K and i7-4770K Review

CPU by leeghoofd @ 2013-06-01

Intel keeps on pushing their technology to the max. Even while being the performance leader in most hardware segments, their engineers are driven to (re)design new architectures to satisfy the end-user's desire for more speed. However the focus with this CPU generation is not purely based on raw speed; this 4th generation main objective is to reduce the power consumption to the max, to gain grounds in the portable market. Rumor that Intel was pulling out of the desktop market has partially become reality. Not leaving the desktop market for what it is, as they will continue to develop the chipsets and processors. With Haswell we see the last releases of Intel's own motherboard branch. The market share of notebooks, ultrabooks, tablets and mini enclosures are steadily taking over the market share of the desktop. Enhanced battery life, a result of a reduced power consumption, an enhanced onboard graphic chip and the reduction of required motherboard components are the major trademarks of Intel's 4th generation processors. Time to put both K skews to the test.

Memory Divider Galore

The memory controller of Haswell is a true marvel. Ivy-Bridge was a huge leap forward from Sandy-Bridge, with some good CPUs being capable of running 16GB of 2800C11 for daily usage. However some Ivies were flawed and couldn't even stabilize 2600MHz RAM speeds. The Haswell memory controller is ready to boost your RAMs to new heights and is warranted to avoid being the bottleneck when wanting to run high speed RAMs.

We conducted our tests at the most common RAM speeds:

1600C9-9-9-27 1T
2133C9-11-10-27 1T
2400C10-12-12-31 1T
2933C11-14-14-31 1T (1.77Vdimm with tweaked subs)

We used our double sided Hynix CFR CORSAIR 2800C11 Dominator 2 x 4GB kit to simulate the above speeds. The above dividers are all available via the 1.00 gear ratio clock. More dividers are unlocked once you select another gear ratio of 1.25X, 1.66X. The 2.50 gear ratio is also selectable, but does not allow the system to boot.

Time to analyse our results:

The benefit of running high speed RAMs for benchers and enthusiasts can't be more obvious then this. Take note that the 2933MHz run was highly tweaked in the bios, adjusting all the secondary and tertiary timings manually to maximise the performance. With the bios auto adjusting all the settings, the performance was far worse and even slower then the 2400C10 results. The increase in bandwidth is phenomenal and the latency drops drastically.

Cinebench Release 11 hardly gets influenced by the massive increase in bandwidth, however the encoding of the AVI file receives a decent boost. It can be concluded that faster RAM brings more overall system performance. Nevertheless the applications have to be able to properly use it. The sweetspot seems to still be around 2400-2600MHz. More is nice, but has to be properly tweaked by the end-user. Unless the RAM sticks get shipped with a seriously decent programmed SPD.

Only time will tell when the big RAM companies start to ship RAMs out of the factory running at +3000MHz speeds.

No comments available.

All information and graphics contained in Madshrimps are sole property of the Madshrimps crew and may not be reproduced or copied in any manner without written permission from us.