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
Video Transcoding Performance
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.
In the second pass of our x264 test we see a nearly 14% increase over the 2600K. Once again, there's no replacement for more cores in these types of workloads but delivering better performance in a lower TDP than last year's quad-core is great for more thermally conscious desktops.
Software Development Performance
Compile Chromium Test
You guys asked for it and finally I have something I feel is a good software build test. Using Visual Studio 2008 I'm compiling Chromium. It's a pretty huge project that takes over forty minutes to compile from the command line on a Core i3 2100. But the results are repeatable and the compile process will stress all 12 threads at 100% for almost the entire time on a 980X so it works for me.
Ivy Bridge shows more traditional gains in our VS2008 benchmark - performance moves forward here by a few percent, but nothing significant. We are seeing a bit of a compressed dynamic range here for this particular compiler workload, it's quite possible that other bottlenecks are beginning to creep in as we get even faster microarchitectures.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
195 Comments
View All Comments
krumme - Wednesday, March 7, 2012 - link
Well the dilemma for Anand is apparent. If he stops writing those previews that is nice to Intel, someone else will get the oportunity and all the info. He can write two bad previews and the info and early chips just stops comming. Intel and Anand have a business to run, and there is a reason Intel gives Anand the chips (indirectly).He have a "deal" with Intel, the same way we have a deal with Anand when we read the review. We get the info - bended/biased - and then we can think ourselves. I think its a fair deal :) - we get a lot of good info from this preview. The uninformed gets raped, but its alway like that. Someone have to pay for the show.
chemist1 - Wednesday, March 7, 2012 - link
The Macbook Pro, for instance, has a discrete GPU, yet can switch to the chip-based GPU to save power when on battery. So having a better chip-based GPU makes sense in this context.Sabresiberian - Wednesday, March 7, 2012 - link
I'd like to see the discreet graphics card industry make the kind of progress, relatively speaking, Intel has made in the last 2 years.Ivy Bridge is a ways from competing with a high-end discreet solution, but if the relative rates in progress don't change, Intel will catch up soon.
sixtyfivedays - Wednesday, March 7, 2012 - link
I use the iGPU on my build for my second monitor and it is quite nice.I can watch HD videos on it and it doesn't take away from my dedicated GPU at all.
mlkmade - Thursday, March 8, 2012 - link
Is that even possible? Special hack or software?When you install a discrete graphics card, the integrated gpu gets disabled.
Would love to know how you accomplished this..Is it a desktop or laptop?
mathew7 - Thursday, March 8, 2012 - link
"When you install a discrete graphics card, the integrated gpu gets disabled."It was exclusive in northbridge-IGP units (Core2Duo/Quad and older). With Core-i, it's by default disabled but can be enabled through BIOS (of course if you don't have a P5x/6x chipset).
AnnonymousCoward - Wednesday, March 7, 2012 - link
1. How much faster is Ivy Bridge at single thread versus my Conroe@3GHz?2. How much faster is my GTX560Ti than HD4000?
dr/owned - Thursday, March 8, 2012 - link
1) Your 65 nm cpu would get the shit blow out of it by IB at the same clock speed in single threaded applications. Assuming 15% improvements in each of the tick-tocks since Conroe, a 1.8 Ghz IB would probably be about the same as a 3 Ghz Conroe.2) Discrete graphics vs. integrated graphics. Intel isn't trying to compete here so it's a stupid comparison.
AnnonymousCoward - Friday, March 9, 2012 - link
1. Your "get the shit blown out" is worthless. All I'm looking for is a number, and your effective answer is +67%.2. It's not a stupid comparison, because:
a) I'm interested.
b) HD4000 is designed for games.
c) They benchmarked with modern games.
d) Games are designed around people's performance.
AnnonymousCoward - Friday, March 9, 2012 - link
1. Another website shows the i7 3770K scored 2643 on the Fritz Chess Benchmark with 1 processor. My machine does 2093. That's only 26% different.2. I very roughly estimate the GTX560Ti might be 5-6x faster than the HD4000.
It'd be useful to see a real comparison of these though.