The Intel Haswell Refresh Review: Core i7-4790, i5-4690 and i3-4360 Tested
by Ian Cutress on May 11, 2014 3:01 AM ESTCPU Synthetic Benchmarks
Content Creation - Cinebench
Based on MAXON’s CINEMA 4D animation software, Cinebench is used to determine the CPU and graphics performance via OpenGL. The software has gone through many iterations over the years, and here we use versions 10, 11.5 and 15 to compare single-threaded and multi-threaded CPU performance. As the generations increase, the software becomes more multithread aware and scales better, however for consistency with older results we keep the version 10 results in our database.
Video Conversion - x264 HD 3.03 Benchmark
Graysky's x264 HD test uses x264 to encode a 4Mbps 720p MPEG-2 source. The focus here is on quality rather than speed, thus the benchmark uses a 2-pass encode and reports the average frame rate in each pass.
Encryption –TrueCrypt v0.7.1a: link
TrueCrypt is an off the shelf open source encryption tool for files and folders. For our test we run the benchmark mode using a 1GB buffer and take the mean result from AES encryption.
Synthetic – 7-Zip 9.2: link
As an open source compression tool, 7-Zip is a popular tool for making sets of files easier to handle and transfer. The software offers up its own benchmark, to which we report the result.
Rendering – PovRay 3.7: link
The Persistence of Vision RayTracer, or PovRay, is a freeware package for as the name suggests, ray tracing. It is a pure renderer, rather than modeling software, but the latest beta version contains a handy benchmark for stressing all processing threads on a platform. We have been using this test in motherboard reviews to test memory stability at various CPU speeds to good effect – if it passes the test, the IMC in the CPU is stable for a given CPU speed. As a CPU test, it runs for approximately 2-3 minutes on high end platforms.
Console Emulation –Dolphin Benchmark: link
At the start of 2014 I was emailed with a link to a new emulation benchmark based on the Dolphin Emulator. The issue with emulators tends to be two-fold: game licensing and raw CPU power required for the emulation. As a result, many emulators are often bound by single thread CPU performance, and general reports tended to suggest that Haswell provided a significant post to emulator performance. This benchmark runs a Wii program that raytraces a complex 3D scene inside the Dolphin Wii emulator. Performance on this benchmark is a good proxy of the speed of Dolphin CPU emulation, which is an intensive single core task using most aspects of a CPU. Results are given in minutes, where the Wii itself scores 17.53; meaning that anything above this is faster than an actual Wii for processing Wii code, albeit emulated.
Dolphin relies very much on architecture as well as CPU single thread speed. It would also stand to reason that there is a small about of thread switching going on, given how far off the i3 and i7-4765T CPUs are.
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stephenbrooks - Saturday, May 24, 2014 - link
I guess in the event that desktops die, I could attach my two 23" screens, keyboard and mouse to a laptop dock instead, because that's more futuristic or something.mikato - Thursday, May 15, 2014 - link
"the limiting factor is the technology between the keyboard and the monitor: the user"Uhh, the user isn't between the keyboard and monitor. The user is on the end of a branch, past the keyboard. Maybe in the future... :)
jayshank7 - Thursday, May 15, 2014 - link
I bought 4770K 2 months back so won't be getting anything before 2016 to be honest.. i may build broadwell based i5 system but my main 4770K based rig would be here with 3 x 280X Toxic for those years..HardwareDufus - Sunday, May 18, 2014 - link
Looking forward to a Broadwell based I7-5790K with IrisPro (HD5200+)Krysto - Wednesday, May 21, 2014 - link
The only reason there's even a "Haswell Refresh" is because Intel blew it with Broadwell, and got delayed by a whole 6 months. In 2015 they will have most of their process advantage, and will be only 6 months ahead of TSMC, once it gets FinFET at 16nm, compared to IVB/Haswell/Silvermont where it had a generation/node and a half advantage.Be Careful - Friday, May 30, 2014 - link
Hey technology nuts I would like you to read this:http://www.jimstonefreelance.com/corevpro.html
deruberhanyok - Monday, June 2, 2014 - link
I might be late to the party, but, on page 9, the bioshock infinite benchmark charts - is the second one mislabeled? The minimum frame rates? It seems to be.duttasanjiv - Thursday, November 13, 2014 - link
Thx for the much elaborate review.I was looking for the Pure CPU performance of i5 4590 in Video encoding, and it unfortunately did not reveal much of the testing procedure. Kindly let us know-
1) What was the Handbrake source(UHD or DVD) & target (Full HD /half HD) frame size ?
2) What was the encoding speed settings (medium? slow?)
3) What was the CRF/ CQF used?
Most imnportantly (for me atleast :-) ) was a comparison in visible quality difference with pure CPU vs Haswell refresh applied. I heard that there is minor quality compromise with Haswell? Did they improve it with Haswell refresh??
GGuess - Saturday, December 6, 2014 - link
There should be a line of discussion of why haven't CPU speeds increased in the past 5years in a significant way. My 5yr old Intel I7 is a 4 core at 3GHz. The ones discussed here are only 6 or 8 cores and run stock in the mid-3 to 4GHz range. So over 5yrs, the CPU capability has not grown 2 to 3times faster, and that only applies to applications that can use the extra cores and hyper-threading. The usual rule we work to is that people won't even notice a 50% speed increase. It has to be 2 to 3 times before it is noticed. Previously, a 3year refresh of a computer resulted in a 5 to 10x computer speed increase.With the current barely noticeable 2x, why bother with the trouble of an upgrade? No wonder Intel's and AMD's sales figures are failing to grow.
johnny_boy - Friday, February 27, 2015 - link
Why are all the AMD chips APUs? Why not throw at least one top-end FX processor into the mix, like the very common FX-8350 which costs about as much as a 4360.