

The Intel Ivy Bridge (Core i7 3770K) Review: AnandTech - amartya916
http://www.anandtech.com/show/5771/the-intel-ivy-bridge-core-i7-3770k-review

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sciurus
"Classic feature segmentation is alive and well with Ivy Bridge. In the quad-
core lineup, only Core i7s get Hyper Threading - Core i5s do not. When the
dual-core Core i3s show up in the coming months they will once again do so
without support for turbo boost. Features like VT-d and Intel TXT are once
again reserved for regular, non-K-series parts alone."

This makes shopping for computers with Intel CPUs incredibly frustrating. It's
impossible to tell what a CPU supports without getting the full product name
and plugging it in <http://ark.intel.com/>

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polshaw
Quite disappointing gains considering the move to 22nm, 3d transistors, and
being delayed (from Jan).

I could live with the overclocking/heat issues if it meant more undervoltage
headroom- but this doesn't seem to be the case either.. odd. Perhaps the
process will improve over time? Load power is down, but the 3770K is only
where the 2500K was.. yet to see where the 3570K lies. GPU increases are
welcome but not thrilling.

I was waiting for this for an upgrade, but i'm left unsure 3570k vs 2500k.
Think i'll wait for some more info on clocks vs volts/temps.

You have to say it's a no-brainer for anyone considering a non-K cpu however;
cheaper, faster, better GPU, less power. And they don't lose virtualisation,
either.

~~~
ctdonath
Methinks the point is to survive & solidify the transition to the new
manufacturing tech _before_ going whole-hog on capability improvements. Such
is the nature of Intel's "tick-tock" development cycles: get fundamental and
boring changes down cold before showing what awesomeness can come of them.

~~~
wmf
But a new process is at least supposed to provide 30% more performance even
without awesomeness, not 10%.

~~~
pmjordan
Let's check that claim for the 65nm -> 45nm transition of the Core2Duo.

According to

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Intel_Core_2_microproce...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Intel_Core_2_microprocessors#.22Allendale.22.2C_.22Conroe.22_.2865_nm.29)

The fastest 65nm Core2Duo with 65W TDP was the 3.0GHz E6850, released in July
2007. The first batch of 45nm CPUs was released in January 2008, the fastest
one being the 3.17GHz E8500. A whopping 6% clock speed improvement, though
admittedly the cache size grew from 4MB to 6MB. Bus speed stayed the same. I
doubt that resulted in a 30% performance improvement overall, 10-15% seems
more likely.

They followed up with some significantly faster CPUs a few months later, and I
suspect they will do so with Ivy Bridge, too.

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Symmetry
More or less what the rumors were predicting. slightly faster CPU, significant
power reductions, significantly better GPU.

~~~
rdl
Haswell's Fused Multiply-Add is the thing which excites me the most. I
remember seeing that on the roadmap when it came out, and wondering how I'd
live until 2013. It's weird that 2013 is next year now.

~~~
Symmetry
Really? There are lots of architectures that have that already, and really
when you're using the vector unit you're going to be limited more by bandwidth
than by execution resources. I hear that it will let you have more precision
in the intermediate state, though, which some scientific computing people will
care about.

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Symmetry
Here's a very good summary of the changes in the GPU
[http://www.realworldtech.com/page.cfm?ArticleID=RWT042212225...](http://www.realworldtech.com/page.cfm?ArticleID=RWT042212225031)

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Retric
Ouch, this is horrible news for Intel they are ~10% faster than the year old
CPU and use about 20% less power. The horrable GPU still get's dominated by
80$ GPU's even though it uses a large chunk of the 300$ CPU's transistor and
power budget.

PS: I am saying this as someone that was going to upgrade just for the sake of
it. But, even though the cost is irrelevant I don't think it's worth the time
to swap motherboards. And if you read their comments section I am not the only
one.

~~~
phren0logy
It is great news for those of us shopping for laptops. They will have better
battery life and decent GPU performance, as well as USB3.

~~~
Retric
I would be shocked if the battery life increased by more than 3% because idol
is almost identical and CPU's don't eat that much power to begin with. If you
actually use the GPU your better off with a cheaper CPU and a dedicated
graphics card from a power, cost, and performance standpoint.

Anyway, as long as Intel has such a significant performance lead and still
charges reasonable prices it's mostly moot. I just wish they where still
hungry for more.

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gouranga
I'm using a circa 2007 core 2 duo. I genuinely see no improvement in CPUs
since then in price/performance.

Is there a reason I should upgrade my kit that I'm missing?

~~~
yread
I couldn't find all the numbers for any 2007 mainstream notebook cpu, but here
is a comparison between 3720QM (an upper mainstream, 2012) and P8400 (upper
mainstream 2008):

    
    
        Model           3DMark06 CPU    Cinebench R10 32Bit Single    Cinebench R10 32Bit Multi    SuperPI 1M*    SuperPI 32M*    wPrime 32
        3720QM              6470                4810.5                    16822                        11             594                12.9
        P8400               2014                2526.9                    4700.6                       22.1          1212                34.2
                             321%                 190%                     358%                        50%            49%                 38%
    
    

So you would see 2x performance in single threaded, 4x performance in
multithreaded and probably way better battery life due to stuff like
TurboBoost (and getting a new battery :-)

~~~
gouranga
Thanks for this - appreciated :)

Perhaps I should take a look at a newer machine! Battery life is what is
super-important to me.

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cjenkins
That's an impressive die shrink as well. Seems like Intel can make the 4 core
Ivy in about the same die area as the 2 core Sandy. Considering the 4 cores
are going to sell for quite a bit more that has to be great for margins.

~~~
r00fus
Great for them, what does it to for the end consumer?

I'm guessing this is the natural tilt after they (effectively) defeated AMD
using their slimy tactics through out the last decade. The customer always
loses when the monopoly decides breaking the law (and paying off the judges +
any fines) is more profitable than competing fairly.

I can't wait for Intel's mobile reckoning to occur. I still don't see their
tech being anywhere near energy efficient to compete with ARM. It's a matter
of time before Apple, Google, and Microsoft have effectively cut Intel out of
the processor monopoly.

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rollypolly
Related discussion:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3879473>

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joshu
Will there be a version without the GPU?

