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Test Setup And Benchmarks

The Core i7-4770K Review: Haswell Is Faster; Desktop Enthusiasts Yawn
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Test Hardware
ProcessorsIntel Core i7-4770K (Haswell) 3.5 GHz (35 * 100 MHz), LGA 1150, 8 MB Shared L3, Hyper-Threading enabled, Turbo Boost enabled, Power-savings enabled

Intel Core i7-3770K (Ivy Bridge) 3.5 GHz (35 * 100 MHz), LGA 1155, 8 MB Shared L3, Hyper-Threading enabled, Turbo Boost enabled, Power-savings enabled

Intel Core i7-2700K (Sandy Bridge) 3.5 GHz (35 * 100 MHz), LGA 1155, 8 MB Shared L3, Hyper-Threading enabled, Turbo Boost enabled, Power-savings enabled

Intel Core i7-3930K (Sandy Bridge-E) 3.2 GHz (32 * 100 MHz), LGA 2011, 12 MB Shared L3, Hyper-Threading enabled, Turbo Boost enabled, Power-savings enabled

AMD FX-8350 (Vishera) 4.0 GHz (20 * 200 MHz), Socket AM3+, 8 MB Shared L3, Turbo Core enabled, Power-savings enabled

AMD A10-5800K (Trinity) 3.8 GHz (19 * 200 MHz), Socket FM2, 4 MB Total L2 Cache, Turbo Core enabled, Power-savings enabled
MotherboardMSI Z87 Mpower Max (LGA 1150) Intel Z87 Express, BIOS 1.2B1

MSI Z77 Mpower (LGA 1155) Intel Z77 Express, BIOS 17.8

MSI X79A-GD45 Plus (LGA 2011) Intel X79 Express, BIOS 17.2

MSI 990FXA-GD80 (Socket AM3+) AMD 990FX/SB950, BIOS 13.2

MSI FM2-A85XA-G65 (Socket FM2) AMD A85X, BIOS 2.0
Memory
G.Skill 16 GB (4 x 4 GB) DDR3-1600, F3-12800CL9Q2-32GBZL @ DDR3-1600 at 1.5 V
Hard Drive
Samsung 840 Pro 256 GB, SATA 6 Gb/s
Graphics
Nvidia GeForce GTX Titan 6 GB
Power Supply
Corsair AX860i, 80 PLUS Platinum, 860 W
System Software And Drivers
Operating System
Windows 8 Professional x64
DirectX
DirectX 11
Graphics DriverNvidia GeForce Release 320.18


As we were planning out our test platforms, MSI responded to a call for vendor consistency across the motherboards we wanted to use. The company sent us one board for each of the processor interfaces we planned to compare, making it easy to tune each firmware exactly the same way. In this case, we wanted all power-saving features turned on and all automatic overclocking capabilities turned off (including settings that pushed all cores to the maximum Turbo Boost setting).

The first platform we set up centered on the 990FXA-GD80 board and FX-8350 processor. Four 4 GB DDR3-1600 memory modules from G.Skill populated the motherboard's slots, while a Samsung 840 Pro attached to its first SATA 6Gb/s port.

Next, we configured MSI's FM2-A85XA-G65 using the same drive image, complementing the platform with AMD's highest-end A10-5800K APU. While a number of our earlier benchmarks exploited the chip's on-die Radeon HD 7660D, everything from here on out leverages an Nvidia GeForce GTX Titan.

With the AMD testing out of the way, we were able to start configuring Intel-based systems. We started with the Z87 Mpower Max, which glows yellow up top and white underneath. To be quite honest, I haven't been so impressed with an MSI motherboard in a long time. The company appears to have really stepped up its game for the 8-series generation.

The Z77 Mpower board serves our LGA 1155 needs, hosting Intel's Core i7-3770K and -2700K, yielding comparisons to two prior-generation architectures.

I want to point out something MSI did for us leading into this launch. Like pretty much every motherboard vendor out there, it has a setting in its BIOS called Enhanced Turbo. This sets all four cores to operate at the processor's maximum single-core Turbo Boost ratio as a sort of sneaky overclock. At our request, MSI turned this off by default with its 8-series boards so that Haswell-based CPUs operate according to Intel's specification.

We had to turn this quiet "cheat" off manually on the Z77 Mpower and Z79A-GD45 Plus, below. However, we appreciated that MSI was willing to get back to Intel's spec for this generation. We prefer control over this, and to not have it be a default setting.

Finally, theX79A-GD45 Plus hosted our venerable Core i7-3930K processor. Old though it might be, this is still one of our favorite CPUs around. And as you'll see, the old timer has no trouble beating Haswell down in threaded apps able to exploit its six cores.

Noctua sent over its LGA 1150-compatible NH-U14S to help with testing, too. We used an NF-F12 fan to blow over our memory modules. This seemed to help put a stop to the errors we were getting in our long, taxing Visual Studio compile workload.

Corsair also sent over some hardware for us to use. We leaned on its AX860i power supply for its promised compatibility with Haswell's low-power states. We also used its CMY16GX3M2A2400C10R memory kit for our overclocking efforts.

Benchmark Configuration
3D Games
Battlefield 3Campaign Mode, "Going Hunting" 90-Second Fraps, Low-Quality Preset, 1280x720 and 1920x1080
BioShock Infinite
Built-in Benchmark Utility, Fraps, Low-Quality Preset, 1280x720 and 1920x1080
Hitman: Absolution
Built-in Benchmark Utility, Fraps, Lowest-Quality Preset, 1280x720 and 1920x1080
The Elder Scrolls V: SkyrimUpdate 1.5.26, Celedon Aethirborn Level 6, 25-Second Fraps, Medium-Quality Preset, 1280x720 and 1920x1080
World of Warcraft: Mists of Pandaria
Flight Point Benchmark, Fraps, Good Quality Preset, 1280x720 and 1920x1080
Adobe Creative Suite
Adobe After Effects CS6Version 11.0.0.378 x64: Create Video which includes three Streams, 210 Frames, Render Multiple Frames Simultaneosly
Adobe Photoshop CS6Version 13 x64: Filter 15.7 MB TIF Image: Radial Blur, Shape Blur, Median, Polar Coordinates
Adobe Premeire Pro CS6Version 6.0.0.0, 6.61 GB MXF Project to H.264 to H.264 Blu-ray, Output 1920x1080, Maximum Quality
Audio/Video Encoding
iTunesVersion 10.4.1.10 x64: Audio CD (Terminator II SE), 53 minutes, default AAC format 
Lame MP3Version 3.98.3: Audio CD "Terminator II SE", 53 min, convert WAV to MP3 audio format, Command: -b 160 --nores (160 Kb/s)
HandBrake CLIVersion: 0.98: Video from Canon Eos 7D (1920x1080, 25 FPS) 1 Minutes 22 Seconds
Audio: PCM-S16, 48,000 Hz, Two-Channel, to Video: AVC1 Audio: AAC (High Profile)
TotalCode Studio 2.5Version: 2.5.0.10677: MPEG-2 to H.264, MainConcept H.264/AVC Codec, 28 sec HDTV 1920x1080 (MPEG-2), Audio: MPEG-2 (44.1 kHz, 2 Channel, 16-Bit, 224 Kb/s), Codec: H.264 Pro, Mode: PAL 50i (25 FPS), Profile: H.264 BD HDMV
Productivity
ABBYY FineReaderVersion 10.0.102.95: Read PDF save to Doc, Source: Political Economy (J. Broadhurst 1842) 111 Pages
Adobe Acrobat XVersion 10.0.0.396: Print PDF from 115 Page PowerPoint, 128-bit RC4 Encryption
Autodesk 3ds Max 2012 and 2013
Version 14.0 x64: Space Flyby Mentalray, 248 Frames, 1440x1080
BlenderVersion: 2.64a, Cycles Engine, Syntax blender -b thg.blend -f 1, 1920x1080, 8x Anti-Aliasing, Render THG.blend frame 1
Visual Studio 2010Version 10.0, Compile Google Chrome, Scripted
File Compression
WinZipVersion 17.0 Pro: THG-Workload (1.3 GB) to ZIP, command line switches "-a -ez -p -r"
WinRARVersion 4.2: THG-Workload (1.3 GB) to RAR, command line switches "winrar a -r -m3"
7-ZipVersion 9.28: THG-Workload (1.3 GB) to .7z, command line switches "a -t7z -r -m0=LZMA2 -mx=5"
Synthetic Benchmarks and Settings
3DMark 11Version: 1.0.1.0, Benchmark Only
PCMark 7Version: 1.0.4 x64, System, Productivity, Hard Disk Drive benchmarks
SiSoftware Sandra 2013Version 2013.01.19.11, CPU Test = CPU Arithmetic / Multimedia / Cryptography / Memory Bandwidth / Cache Bandwidth
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  • 1 Hide
    phil_livesey , 1 June 2013 16:56
    Yet another competition not open to UK residents, despite this being on the UK site. Thankyou Tomshardware!!!!
  • 0 Hide
    Pailin , 1 June 2013 18:06
    Sounds... disappointing after hearing about the Uber high LN OCs.
    Also thought I recently heard somewhere of others getting Nice 5GHz+ OC's on water and Very low vcore's - perhaps you guys have a Poor batch?
  • 0 Hide
    das_stig , 1 June 2013 19:46
    So once again, the UK site publicises a competition as part of a review and once again, it's limited to the US readers. Come on TH tis just sucks and shows that you don't give a toss about the rest of the world. The internet is a global community, it doesn't stop at the US border. Surely your programming monkies can code a conditional statement to blockout content if outside the U.S of Ass or are they to busy coding up more ad boxes ????
  • 0 Hide
    daglesj , 1 June 2013 21:01
    Guys, you are posting this on the useless and superfluous UK version.
    No one will be reading it.
  • 0 Hide
    mi1ez , 2 June 2013 11:01
    Quote:
    the only arrangement emerging today is the quad-core SoC

    SoC is pushing it a bit given it doesn't contain RAM, USB, network, etc.
  • 0 Hide
    bwrlane , 2 June 2013 14:08
    Great article, but what a let down. Ivy Bridge was already a disappointment, but Haswell is far more disappointing even than that. My 2700k based PC can manage 4.84GHz under full load, while remaining stable. My 3770k PC can do 4.74GHz. The IPC improvements are almost exactly compensated for by the lower attainable clock speed.
    But with Haswell, the world has gone backwards. Apparently, a 4770k can be pushed to 4.4GHz and that's it. That's a 7% reduction in clock speed. Since most benchmarks don't show a 7% improvement at stock, Haswell is slower than the Ivy Bridge that it replaced.
    For years we've been hearing that the answer to all our tech questions is "you have to wait for Haswell for that". But as this article shows, that was a lot of hot air.
  • 0 Hide
    doive1231 , 2 June 2013 19:33
    What a load of baloney we were spun about Haswell graphics. I read it would be a real step change and we should expect something special. Well, the comparisons between HD4000 and HD4600 are a real kick in the teeth. Nothing more that a few frames per second in most tests. Bah, Intel. And not I won't be getting Crystalwell.
  • 0 Hide
    selfmade_exe , 2 June 2013 21:45
    amd trinity gets bottlenecked by 1600 ram!!!
  • 0 Hide
    JRAtk94 , 2 June 2013 23:42
    Yay for AMD.
    Finally, AMD wins on price AND performance.
  • 0 Hide
    selfmade_exe , 3 June 2013 22:22
    TO ALL THOSE RESPONSIBLE FOR THIS TEST: I DARE YOU "CLEVER" TESTERS TO TEST AMD TRINITY WITH 1866 RAM OR ABOVE, AND ALSO COMPARE WITH RICHLANT FLAGSHIP. ALSO, PLZ RUN GPU_CAPS_VIEWER -> THE JULIA SET WITH GPU OPENCL AND COMPARE WITH TRINITY! PERIOD!
  • 0 Hide
    Tedfoo25 , 5 June 2013 08:34
    I'm quite impressed actually. With a decent overclock, you are essentially getting a 3930k on the cheap with a socket that will have CPUs developed for it in the future.
  • 0 Hide
    mateau , 11 June 2013 15:22
    Haswell is old tech already. AMD just rekeased FX-9590 a 5 ghz 8 core MONSTER that is sure to stomp all over Hasbeen. And the FX-950 is unlocked for overclocking!!!!!
  • 0 Hide
    Alps , 11 June 2013 19:26
    "several strides behind"?? I'll but an AMD FX-8350 and overclock it, thanks for the usual biased review!!
  • 0 Hide
    Alps , 11 June 2013 19:26
    "several strides behind"?? I'll but an AMD FX-8350 and overclock it, thanks for the usual biased review!!
  • 0 Hide
    Alps , 11 June 2013 19:26
    "several strides behind"?? I'll but an AMD FX-8350 and overclock it, thanks for the usual biased review!!
  • 0 Hide
    Alps , 11 June 2013 19:26
    "several strides behind"?? I'll but an AMD FX-8350 and overclock it, thanks for the usual biased review!!
  • 0 Hide
    Alps , 11 June 2013 19:29
    "several strides behind"?? I'll but an AMD FX-8350 and overclock it, THANKS for the usual BIASED review!!
  • -1 Hide
    genz , 16 June 2013 19:49
    Why are we comparing a dual module CPU to a quad core/8 thread one? Shouldn't you be using the quad module/8 core AMD chip?
  • 0 Hide
    genz , 16 June 2013 19:49
    Why are we comparing a dual module CPU to a quad core/8 thread one? Shouldn't you be using the quad module/8 core AMD chip?
  • -1 Hide
    genz , 16 June 2013 19:51
    Why are we comparing a dual module CPU to a quad core/8 thread one? Shouldn't you be using the quad module/8 core AMD chip?