The Intel Ivy Bridge (Core i7 3770K) Review
by Anand Lal Shimpi & Ryan Smith on April 23, 2012 12:03 PM EST- Posted in
- CPUs
- Intel
- Ivy Bridge
Overclocking and 22nm
In the old days, whenever Intel transitioned to a new manufacturing process it was accompanied by increased overclocking headroom thanks to the reduction in power consumption and increase in switching speed afforded by the new transistors. To be honest, it's surprising the ride has even lasted this long.
Intel's 22nm process (P1270) is the most ambitious yet. The non-planar "3D" transistors promise to bring a tremendous increase in power efficiency by increasing the surface area of the transistor's inversion layer. It's the vehicle that will bring Intel into new form factors in mobile, but we're around a year away from Haswell's introduction. Rather than 22nm being a delivery platform for Ivy Bridge, it feels like Ivy Bridge is being used to deliver 22nm.
The process is still young and likely biased a bit towards the lower leakage characteristics of lower voltage/lower wattage CPUs, such as those that would be used in Ultrabooks. These two factors combined with some architectural decisions focused on increasing power efficiency result in what many of you may have heard by now: Ivy Bridge won't typically overclock as high as Sandy Bridge on air.
The frequency delta isn't huge. You'll still be able to hit 4.4—4.6GHz without resorting to exotic cooling, but success in the 4.8—5.0GHz range will be limited to water alone for most. Ivy Bridge is also far more sensitive to voltage than Sandy Bridge. Heat dissipation can increase significantly as a function of voltage, so you'll want to stay below 1.3V in your overclocking attempts.
Dr. Ian Cutress, our own Senior Motherboard Editor, put Ivy Bridge through a pretty exhaustive investigation if you want more details on exactly how the chip behaves when overclocking and how best to overclock it.
For the past few years I've been focused on power efficient overclocking. I'm looking for the best gains I can get without significant increases in core voltage. With my 3770K I was able to reliably hit 4.5GHz with only a 140mV increase in core voltage:
The end result is a 15—28% overclock, accompanied by a 32% increase in power consumption. The relationship between overclock speed and power consumption actually hasn't changed since Ivy Bridge, at least based on this datapoint.
| Ivy Bridge Overclocking | |||||
| Intel Core i7 3770K | Stock | 4.6GHz Overclock | % Increase | ||
| Load Power Consumption | 146.4W | 204W | 39.3% | ||
| x264—2nd Pass | 41.8 fps | 49.5 fps | 18.4% | ||
As always, your mileage may vary depending on the particular characteristics of your chip. Ivy Bridge can be overclocked, but at least initially it's not going to be as good of an overclocker as Sandy Bridge. Over time I expect this to improve somewhat as Intel's 22nm process matures, but by how much remains a question to me. It's unclear just how much of these limits are by design vs. a simple matter of process maturity.
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pwnsweet - Saturday, April 28, 2012 - link
nevermind, I'm an idiot. I found it.PG - Sunday, April 29, 2012 - link
http://ark.intel.com/products/65511/Intel-Core-i5-...ktmobi - Wednesday, May 2, 2012 - link
Keep in mind that in Ivy Bridge, CPU speed is directly propotional to GPU's speed + performance.Source - http://mobilityupdate.com/notebooks/intel-hd-4000-...
BSMonitor - Wednesday, May 2, 2012 - link
In the mobile line up, there is only 1 SKU for Intel Processors. As they cut back on the CPU, the HD3000 or HD4000 remains for ALL mobile GPUs.SalientKing - Tuesday, May 8, 2012 - link
I just got a 3450, the tag on it says 95w, your chart here says 77w. I'm a little worried i just got a repackaged SB cpu....warmbit - Wednesday, May 9, 2012 - link
For those who want to see a comparison of 3770K to 2600k in more games (several sites), please check the article:http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=pl&sl...
DaddyMacCadillac - Thursday, June 14, 2012 - link
"Quick Sync's transcoding abilities are limited to applications like Media Espresso or ArcSoft's Media Converter—there's still no support in open source applications like Handbrake."Umm, try MediaCoder, steep learning curve but it works great! I also wish Handbrake would adopt this technology...
midn8t - Thursday, June 28, 2012 - link
I would like to say that they do not seem to say what they are running for GPU, also I own the fx chip in this review and would like to say that with the 7970 driect cuII asua vide card, I get way over those FPS in dawn of war maxed out gfxs I am getting 134 average fpsI also own dragonage and when I am running fraps I am getting maxed res max AA getting 139 average fps
cyris I get 139 fps and I get civ 5 225 fps
be honest the cpu has little to do with FPS its video card mostly anyways I am running eyeinfity setup on top of this and getting these fps in game according to fraps
midn8t - Thursday, June 28, 2012 - link
I have the AMD FX 8150 and I also own Crysis: Warhead, Civilization V, Dawn of War II, and Dragon Age Origins and I get way better FPS then they claimed to have gotten I mean my FPS are almsot double that, sometimes tripple and I am using Farpsfor exampel Civ 5 I get average of 190 FPS in game maxed out res with eyeinfity using Fraps
but I am also using a 7970 Directcu2 GPU
galestorm - Thursday, June 28, 2012 - link
double post, I almost did same thing lol, becuase I noticed my post was tooken down or did not show up right away..I have to agree with you I own your CPU also, one they dont claim to be using on board GPU meaning one built into CPU and if they where far as I know teh AMD fx dosnt have a built in GPU so it would suck and there actully called APU i belive ?
anyway I was also wondering what GPU they where using for the test becuase when I read this page it dosnt say it any where and page before the two buttons say review back and review http://www.anandtech.com/show/5771/the-intel-ivy-b... dosnt say anything about what GPU there using, but I do own amd FX and I also own a 7970 GPU and I will say that the FPS ratting on here a AMD FX comboed with 7970 you will get ammzing FPS in game it blows these fps they claim out of the water, the FPS 50 FPS I mean I use to get that with my 5k series amd card I hell I use to get 45 to 50 fps with my 6k series eyeinfity card this 7970 gets like use above says double or tripple preformance of whats claimed in this review with fraps.