The Ivy Bridge Preview: Core i7 3770K Tested
by Anand Lal Shimpi on March 6, 2012 8:16 PM EST- Posted in
- CPUs
- Intel
- Core i7
- Ivy Bridge
Intel HD Graphics 4000 Performance
With respectable but still very tick-like performance gains on the CPU, our focus now turns to Ivy Bridge's GPU. Drivers play a significant role in performance here and we're still several weeks away from launch so these numbers may improve. We used the latest available drivers as of today for all other GPUs.
A huge thanks goes out to EVGA for providing us with a GeForce GT 440 and GeForce GT 520 for use in this preview.
Crysis: Warhead
We'll start with Crysis, a title that no one would have considered running on integrated graphics a few years ago. Sandy Bridge brought playable performance at low quality settings (Performance defaults) last year, but how much better does Ivy do this year?
In our highest quality benchmark (Mainstream) settings, Intel's HD Graphics 4000 is 55% faster than the 3000 series graphics in Sandy Bridge. While still tangibly slower than AMD's Llano (Radeon HD 6550D), Ivy Bridge is a significant step forward. Drop the quality down a bit and playability improves significantly:
Over 50 fps at 1680 x 1050 from Intel integrated graphics is pretty impressive. Here we're showing a 41% increase in performance compared to Sandy Bridge, with Llano maintaining a 33% advantage over Ivy. I would've liked to have seen an outright doubling of performance, but this is a big enough step forward to be noticeable on systems with no discrete GPU.
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Bateluer - Tuesday, March 6, 2012 - link
Until AMD goes out of business. Then Intel gets lazy again, and the price of even a mid range CPU creeps back up above 600 dollars. You might be too young to remember the 500 dollar price tags on the first gen P3s, when Intel had no effective competition from AMD.Its not in the consumer's best interests for AMD to die off.
And, FYI, their GPUs are top notch and excellent, across the entire market. Downside is, they're basically carrying the company right now and that's not sustainable.
m.amitava - Tuesday, March 6, 2012 - link
This sans guy is hilarious!!Lets prod him a bit more and really get his fanboi juices flowing :)
AMD is the best!!!!! yaaay....Intel sucks they'll go out of business sometime next week :D
Azeraph - Thursday, March 8, 2012 - link
it doesn't really matter if the igp isn't that great most people don't buy them for their graphics power.I get the feeling that maybe intel is just putting them out there to keep it's base solid against AMD,Not that it needs it and i'm an amd fan. i found something the other day that will possibly change how tomorrows processors will use light instead of electricity.http://scitechdaily.com/penn-researchers-build-a-c...
m.amitava - Tuesday, March 6, 2012 - link
ain't he cute ? :)...I hope he's not a bot...that would break my heartGalvin - Wednesday, March 7, 2012 - link
Pleasemattgmann - Wednesday, March 7, 2012 - link
it would be cool to see a 4ghz clocked nehalem shuffled in the mix. I'm sure I'm not the only one rocking an i7 9xx wondering how much actual productivity gains are to be had with the new tech. I personally don't like to upgrade until the new gen's retail performance out-does my previous overclocked performance by a solid 15%.svata - Wednesday, March 7, 2012 - link
Is the bug with true 23.976 fps playback fixed?http://www.anandtech.com/show/4083/the-sandy-bridg...
sicofante - Wednesday, March 7, 2012 - link
I understand that will be part of the new chipsets which haven't been tested here, but I'm also very interested. As a matter of fact, I have a few HTPC customers waiting for Ivy Bridge for this sole reason.vlado08 - Friday, March 9, 2012 - link
I don't find the silence about 23.976 fps playback very promising. This is new chipset "Keep in mind that this is a preview using early drivers and an early Z77 motherboard" .... "Intel Z77 Chipset Based Motherboard"I find three possibilities:
1. They are not going to fix it with Ivy bridge.
2. They are not ready with the drivers.
3. They are ready and everything is fine but keeping silen becoause they need to sell old chips.
It didn't left much. We'll see.
Assimilator87 - Wednesday, March 7, 2012 - link
Intel's always the best, EXCEPT WHEN THEY'RE NOT! Athlon 64. Since AMD's sticking with Bulldozer's base architecture for at least a couple generations, they won't be competitive for a while, but that doesn't mean they'll never be competitive.