Intel’s Haswell: Quad-Core Desktop Processor SKUs
by Jarred Walton on June 1, 2013 10:01 AM ESTIntel’s Haswell is here, or at least the first salvo of quad-core parts has arrived. Just like we saw with Sandy Bridge and Ivy Bridge, Intel will be releasing Haswell in stages, starting at the high-end and trickling down from there. Today, we can tell you about the quad-core desktop and mobile parts, and we have several other articles going into greater detail on the performance and features you’ll get. These two Pipeline posts are going to strip out all the other stuff and just focus on the processors being launched today. We’ll have a few short tables showing the currently-announced quad-core SKUs for desktops and mobile, and we’ll have another similar post covering the dual-core parts when those are officially announced.
Intel 4th Gen Core i7 Desktop Processors | ||||||
Model | Core i7-4770K | Core i7-4770 | Core i7-4770S | Core i7-4770T | Core i7-4770R | Core i7-4765T |
Cores/Threads | 4/8 | 4/8 | 4/8 | 4/8 | 4/8 | 4/8 |
CPU Base Freq | 3.5 | 3.4 | 3.1 | 2.5 | 3.2 | 2.0 |
Max Turbo | 3.9 (Unlocked) | 3.9 | 3.9 | 3.7 | 3.9 | 3.0 |
Test TDP | 84W | 84W | 65W | 45W | 65W | 35W |
HD Graphics | 4600 | 4600 | 4600 | 4600 | Iris Pro 5200 | 4600 |
GPU Max Clock | 1250 | 1200 | 1200 | 1200 | 1300 | 1200 |
L3 Cache | 8MB | 8MB | 8MB | 8MB | 6MB | 8MB |
DDR3 Support | 1333/1600 | 1333/1600 | 1333/1600 | 1333/1600 | 1333/1600 | 1333/1600 |
vPro/TXT/VT-d/SIPP | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | Yes |
Package | LGA-1150 | LGA-1150 | LGA-1150 | LGA-1150 | BGA | LGA-1150 |
Price | $339 | $303 | $303 | $303 | $303 |
Starting at the top of the product and performance stack, we have the desktop Core i7 parts. All of these CPUs feature Hyper-Threading Technology, so they’re the same quad-core with four virtual cores that we’ve seen since Bloomfield hit the scene. The fastest chip for most purposes remains the K-series 4770K, with its unlocked multiplier and slightly higher base clock speed. Base core clocks as well as maximum Turbo Boost clocks are basically dictated by the TDP, with the 4770S being less likely to maintain maximum turbo most likely, and the 4770T and 4765T giving up quite a bit more in clock speed in order to hit substantially lower power targets.
It’s worth pointing out that the highest “Test TDP” values are up slightly relative to the last generation Ivy Bridge equivalents—84W instead of 77W. Whether that reflects a change in how they determine TDP or if it’s simply to give more headroom to the top performing parts isn’t clear. On the desktop, this is probably not particularly important—7W in TDP could often end up being just 1-2W in practice—so we’re not really concerned. Mobile TDPs are a different matter, and as we’ll discuss elsewhere they’re all 2W higher, but that could also be thanks in part to the higher performance iGPU.
Nearly all of these are GT2 graphics configurations (20 EUs), so they should be slightly faster than the last generation HD 4000 in graphics workloads. The one exception is the i7-4770R, which is also the only chip that comes in a BGA package. The reasoning here is simple, if flawed: if you want the fastest iGPU configuration (GT3e with 40 EUs and embedded DRAM), you’re probably not going to have a discrete GPU and will most likely be purchasing an OEM desktop. Interestingly, the 4770R also drops the L3 cache down to 6MB, and it’s not clear whether this is due to it having no real benefit (i.e. the eDRAM functions as an even larger L4 cache), or if it’s to reduce power use slightly, or Intel may have a separate die for this particular configuration. Then again, maybe Intel is just busily creating a bit of extra market segmentation.
Not included in the above table are all the common features to the entire Core i7 line: AVX instructions, Quick Sync, AES-NI, PCIe 3.0, and Virtualization Technology. As we’ve seen in the past, the K-series parts (and now the R-series as well) omit support for vPro, TXT, VT-d, and SIPP from the list. The 4770K is an enthusiast part with overclocking support, so that makes some sense, but the 4770R doesn’t really have the same qualification. Presumably it’s intended for the consumer market, as businesses are less likely to need the Iris Pro graphics.
Intel 4th Gen Core i5 Desktop Processors | ||||||
Model | Core i5-4670K | Core i5-4670 | Core i5-4670S | Core i5-4670T | Core i5-4570 | Core i5-4570S |
Cores/Threads | 4/4 | 4/4 | 4/4 | 4/4 | 4/4 | 4/4 |
CPU Base Freq | 3.4 | 3.4 | 3.1 | 2.3 | 3.2 | 2.9 |
Max Turbo | 3.8 (Unlocked) | 3.8 | 3.8 | 3.3 | 3.6 | 3.6 |
Test TDP | 84W | 84W | 65W | 45W | 84W | 65W |
HD Graphics | 4600 | 4600 | 4600 | 4600 | 4600 | 4600 |
GPU Max Clock | 1200 | 1200 | 1200 | 1200 | 1150 | 1150 |
L3 Cache | 6MB | 6MB | 6MB | 6MB | 6MB | 6MB |
DDR3 Support | 1333/1600 | 1333/1600 | 1333/1600 | 1333/1600 | 1333/1600 | 1333/1600 |
vPro/TXT/VT-d/SIPP | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Package | LGA-1150 | LGA-1150 | LGA-1150 | LGA-1150 | LGA-1150 | LGA-1150 |
Price | $242 | $213 | $213 | $213 | $192 | $192 |
The Core i5 lineup basically rehashes the above story, only now without Hyper-Threading. For many users, Core i5 is the sweet spot of price and performance, delivering nearly all the performance of the i7 models at 2/3 the price. There aren’t any Iris or Iris Pro Core i5 desktop parts, at least not yet, and all of the above CPUs are using the GT2 graphics configuration. As above, the K-series part also lacks vPro/TXT/VT-d support but comes with an unlocked multiplier.
Obviously we’re still missing all of the Core i3 parts, which are likely to be dual-core once more, along with some dual-core i5 parts as well. These are probably going to come in another quarter, or at least a month or two out, as there’s no real need for Intel to launch their lower cost parts right now. Similarly, we don’t have any Celeron or Pentium Haswell derivatives launching yet, and judging by the Ivy Bridge rollout I suspect it may be a couple quarters before Intel pushes out ultra-budget Haswell chips. For now, the Ivy Bridge Celeron/Pentium parts are likely as low as Intel wants to go down the food chain for their “big core” architectures.
For those interested in the mobile side of things, we’ve broken out those parts into a separate Pipeline article.
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Freakie - Saturday, June 1, 2013 - link
Ah yes, yet again, not VT-d for K parts.Maybe I'm just the only one who thinks that people concerned about performance enough to get a K part would actually want and use VT-d? I mean sure, businesses wont be equipping their workstations with K parts, but there are plenty consumers who do visualization AND like high performance parts. I can understand leaving out TXT and vPro but common Intel... Excluding VT-d just seems like a move to purposely make sure there is still ill-will with customers.
AccountCreationUnsuccessful - Saturday, June 1, 2013 - link
Agree. I'm currently in the AMD camp and was looking forward to switch to Intel with the arrival of Haswell.I didn't know they disabled VT-d on K processors, that's a real bummer for me. Of all the people I know IRL I'm the only one who uses either unlocked processors or virtualization, and I use them both together. I'm now doubting wether I should still go with the locked Haswells or stick in the AMD camp a little longer to see if things get better here, with the understanding that I'll not hold my breath...
DigitalFreak - Saturday, June 1, 2013 - link
To force you to buy Xeon models.AccountCreationUnsuccessful - Saturday, June 1, 2013 - link
That makes no sense. Any Xeon is by definition a locked processor, and the locked i7/i5 models have virtualization just like the Xeon.If they really wanted to push Xeon they'd do the opposite of what they're doing: VT-d only on K processors (which are not available in Xeon) and only Xeon for all else.
coolbho3k - Saturday, June 1, 2013 - link
Or, maybe to force you to buy Enthusiast models (which are now an unprecedented TWO microarchitecture generations behind) if you want an unlocked CPU AND VT-d?Klimax - Sunday, June 2, 2013 - link
Price of Xeon validation. (Same as eq Xeon, but with some things fused off)LGA 2011 is same track as workstation/server chips.
Zinc64 - Saturday, June 1, 2013 - link
VT-d is disabled on the current K's like the 3570K.Virtual machines run just fine with VT-x enabled on the 2600K, 3570K and 3770K.
What if any benefit would VT-d add for the average user?
AccountCreationUnsuccessful - Saturday, June 1, 2013 - link
For the average user? Maybe little. The point Freakie and me are making is that someone with a K processor is NOT likely an average user, and we are the most likely to need VT-d at least.In my case it's niche hardware with Windows-only software.
patrickjchase - Monday, June 3, 2013 - link
VT-d allows virtual machines to directly access "dedicated" peripherals like network controllers, disk controllers, etc. By "dedicated" I mean that each such peripheral can only be used by either the host or by one virtual machine. As such it's mostly applicable to server virtualization under ESX/Vsphere and similar "bare-metal" platforms.VT-d also tends to add overhead to transfers to/from PCIe devices (for example I've seen ~40% performance hits to zerocopy GPU<->host transfers with VTd enabled) so you really don't want to enable it unless your machine is dedicated to server virtualization. I therefore expect that 99.999% of customers for "K" series processors would be better off disabling it even if it were supported.
Going a bit deeper, the problem with allowing VMs to directly access peripherals is that a "rogue VM" can configure the DMA in a peripheral to read or write arbitrary memory addresses, and thereby violate VM isolation. VTd addresses that my putting an IOMMU (basically a paged memory management unit with TLB) between the peripheral and memory. The hypervisor (a fancy name for a virtualization platform like VMware) then configures the IOMMU so that the peripheral can only access memory owned by its assigned VM.
The benefit to "dedicating" peripherals to VMs is that you no longer have to "trap out" to the hypervisor in order to do I/O, so in principal it reduces the CPU overhead associated with VM I/O ("in principle" because that overhead is already fairly low for devices that can do vectored I/O). As noted above, the cost is that all peripheral accesses (whether from VMs or the host OS) now go through an MMU, and it's entirely possible to thrash that MMU's TLB with "unfriendly" access patterns.
iLloydski - Sunday, July 14, 2013 - link
stupid question, im planning to game on VMs - do I need these VM features to benefit from the optimal performance?