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
Content Creation Performance
Adobe Photoshop CS4
To measure performance under Photoshop CS4 we turn to the Retouch Artists’ Speed Test. The test does basic photo editing; there are a couple of color space conversions, many layer creations, color curve adjustment, image and canvas size adjustment, unsharp mask, and finally a gaussian blur performed on the entire image.
The whole process is timed and thanks to the use of Intel's X25-M SSD as our test bed hard drive, performance is far more predictable than back when we used to test on mechanical disks.
Time is reported in seconds and the lower numbers mean better performance. The test is multithreaded and can hit all four cores in a quad-core machine.
Our Photoshop test is well threaded but it doesn't peg all cores constantly. Instead you get burstier behavior. With the core count advantage out of the way, SNB-E steps aside and allows the 3770K to step up as the fastest CPU we've tested here. The performance advantage over the 2600K is around 9%.
3dsmax 9
Today's desktop processors are more than fast enough to do professional level 3D rendering at home. To look at performance under 3dsmax we ran the SPECapc 3dsmax 8 benchmark (only the CPU rendering tests) under 3dsmax 9 SP1. The results reported are the rendering composite scores.
In another FP heavy workload we see a pretty reasonable gain for Ivy Bridge: 8.5% over a 2600K. This isn't enough to make you want to abandon your Sandy Bridge, but it's a good step forward for a tick.
Cinebench 11.5
Created by the Cinema 4D folks we have Cinebench, a popular 3D rendering benchmark that gives us both single and multi-threaded 3D rendering results.
The single threaded Cinebench test shows a 9% performance advantage for the 3770K over the 2600K. The gap increases slightly to 11% as we look at the multithreaded results:
If you're running a workload that can really stress multiple cores, the 6-core Sandy Bridge E parts will remain unstoppable but in the quad-core world, Ivy Bridge leads the pack.
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The0ne - Wednesday, March 7, 2012 - link
"There's not enough of an improvement to make existing SNB owners want to upgrade, but if you're still clinging to an old Core 2 (or earlier) system, Ivy will be a great step forward."Basically all the laptops in the last few years for business have been bought with C2D. I think with Ivy, it's a great time to upgrade them all and see a good improvement. Same for family members too. I can't wait to try them out! Thanks for the review Anand.
benjaminbldp - Thursday, March 8, 2012 - link
maybe intel should drop the graphics all together, i don't like it, let the pro take care of it. just too much.dr/owned - Thursday, March 8, 2012 - link
This article blows because there's no overclocking results. We're not looking for a fine tuned overclock. Just give us the rough and dirty! My money is on 5 ghz with minimal effort using an air cooler.dagamer34 - Thursday, March 8, 2012 - link
It's a preview, not a review.dr/owned - Thursday, March 8, 2012 - link
It seems like Intel has the tick-tocks backwards. The i7-920 is arguably the greatest cpu to come out in recent years and it was "just" a tick.Wardrop - Thursday, March 8, 2012 - link
I'm afraid you have it backwards.The i7-920 is a Nehalem processor (it's a 45nm chip). It's a tock. Why is this concept so hard to grasp?
bigboxes - Thursday, March 8, 2012 - link
Look at the chart. Nehalem (i920) was a tock.just4U - Thursday, March 8, 2012 - link
I have to disagree with you on the i920 being such a huge leap. As someone who goes thru virtually every cpu line up for AMD/Intel I'd have to say the C2D (or quad) 6x series was the biggest leap forward in the past decade. Before that it was the A64 and X2 variants (altho.. we didn't get alot of use out of those secondary cores)IntelUser2000 - Thursday, March 8, 2012 - link
LOL, this must be the most hilarious argument I've heard in a while.How do you relate 30+ % graphics gain as being ALL CPU? Don't be ridiculous, and that's an understatement.
Silma - Thursday, March 8, 2012 - link
Are low-res testing really relevant for graphics?Most players play at 1920x1080 or higher.
1368x720 or 1680x1050 does not seem relevant to me at all for most people, especially those purchasing a computer with this processor.