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Intel Core i7-4770K CPU Review - Intel Haswell For Desktop (Part 2)

9/8/2013 9:15:31 AM

The benefits gaining in terms of performance are estimated at 5% to 10%. The new CPU’s clock rate is not very promising in favor of speed. Assuming that manufacturing technology does not changed, the frequency potential of the Haswell CPU might be the same as that of the Ivy Bridge series.

We used SiSoftware Sandra 2013 SP3, a synthetic benchmarking suite, testing many aspects relating to different CPU designs’ performances, and we will make a comparison between the Core i7-4770K (Haswell) with the quad-core Core i7-3770K (Ivy Bridge) as both of them have the same clock rate: 3.5 GHz by default and up to 3.9 GHz in the Turbo mode.

Comparing the parameters

Comparing the parameters

The result is not encouraging. Unless the applications use the AVX2/FMA3 (of course, nowadays’ software has not supported yet), the microarchitecture does not provide any benefit in terms of performance. It is just 2% - 3% when processing simple Sandra 2013 algorithms using for benchmarking the performance. Yes, even this improvement should be appreciated when looking at Intel’s current priorities and the lack of competition between the top-performance x86 CPUs. If new instructions are actually implemented everywhere, the Haswell can be much better compared to its predecessor with a certain increase in performance of 30-40%. It depends on how current application developers use that advantage.

Well, we can also hope that Haswell would be somehow faster in practical applications in all of the cases, although there is no innovation in its microarchitecture can be the basis of this hope, but on the higher bandwidth of the L1 and L2 cache. This can be easily seen in any professional benchmark like the Sandra 2013 SP3. The tests are conducted based on the DDR3-1866 SDRAM platform (9-11-9-27-1T timing).

Comparing the parameters

Comparing the parameters

Therefore, in the Haswell, the L1 and L2 cache seem to operate much faster than that its predecessor. This is a very important advantage of the microarchitecture which can make it faster compared to the Ivy Bridge in the practical applications. On the other hand, the L3 cache and memory controller seem to perform slower, which might affect negatively on the performance. Enabling individual control over power-saving states of the uncore part of the CPU, the clock rates of the L3 cache and memory controller are not connected to the clock rate of the x86 core. Although the subunits works at the similar frequencies as the x86 cores, their performance would actually lower in return of the asynchronous operation.

Summing everything up, it is very hard for the new Haswell microarchitecture to life the performance of Core CPU to a new level. The only certain thing that all of the new innovations ensure you is just a minor boost in speed, which is originated mostly from increase of cache memory bandwidth rather than from any changes in the execution pipeline. Theoretically, by using the AVX2/FMA3 code, Haswell might display better, but it seems that the applications do not want to write such code even when some of the instructions have been supported by AMD processors as well.

Haswell for Desktop in Details

What is introduced under the name of Haswell is the latest update of the Core architecture. It would be used for all of the modern desktops manufactured in the next several years, except for the LGA2011 infrastructure designed for the CPU Sandy Bridge. Actually, there is not much for Haswell to show off when talking about desktops. This CPU would be manufactured based on the 22nm facilities using 3D transistors. It also supports the FMA3/AVX2 code for the latest features and faster L1 and L2 cache, and provides the certain optimization in favor of parallel execution.

The basic innovation can be easily realized in the Haswell semiconductor die, which not only look so alike the Ivy Bridge but also similar in terms of dimensions and configuration.

Processor die map

Processor die map

The quad-core die point of the Haswell desktop (featuring with the integrated GT2 graphics core) incorporates 1.4 billion transistors and is 177 sq. mm. Its Ivy Bridge counterpart just has 15%.incorporating 1.2 billion transistors (we would like to emphasize the complexity in the synthetic design that does not looking at some duplications of certain elements in the die). Half of the transistors list added to be in charge of the graphics core is now occupying 30% of the whole CPU die, so there are very few positions left for any change in the microarchitecture of the x86 cores.

As the result, there is no considerable change in terms of technical details in the new CPUs. The CPU generations still have the same x86 core number and similar technology. The clock rate and number of cache memory amounts are not very different. You might notice this in the specifications that Intel would announce within 3 days.

The parameters

The parameters

Therefore, the senior desktop Haswell CPUs have almost the same specifications as the senior products of the previous generation. That is why no performance benefit seems to be possible to us thanks to the higher clock rates or larger cache. There are only two differences. First, the obviously faster graphics core of the Haswell desktops than that of Ivy Bridge is just because there are more execution devices in it. Second, the increase of 77-84 watt of TDP is because some voltage regulator components have been moved to the CPU die.

The Core i7 series distinguish from the Core i5 series in the same way as before. Both of the series include the CPU quad-cores but Hyper-Threading is supported by Core i7 series, and the topmost model in each series is still an overclockable K-indexed with unlocked multipliers. However, there is no more offers of different graphics cores from Intel in its new quad-core CPUs now, so all of them use mainly the GT2 core with 20 executive devices. The graphics core GT1 might be limited to junior CPU series.

There is almost no difference in the price policy. $10 would be the maximum price gap between similar CPUs of different generations.

Comparing price

Comparing price

We should also add that we do not describe the whole Haswell desktops series here. Intel is really preparing for its unusual biggest release to introduce, beside the Core i7 and Core i5 for regular computer, the dedicate CPU version with S index (with the TDP 45 or 35 watt) and R index (in BGA package coming with the GT3 Iris graphics core). We will discuss more details in our upcoming reviews.

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