Final Words

I’m a fan of Haswell, even on the desktop. The performance gains over Ivy Bridge depend on workload, but in general you’re looking at low single digits to just under 20%. We saw great behavior in many of our FP heavy benchmarks as well as our Visual Studio compile test. If you’re upgrading from Sandy Bridge you can expect to see an average improvement just under 20%, while coming from an even older platform like Nehalem will yield closer to a 40% increase in performance at the same clocks. As always, annual upgrades are tough to justify although Haswell may be able to accomplish that in mobile.

Even on the desktop, idle power reductions are apparent both at the CPU level and at the platform level.  Intel focused on reducing CPU power, and it seems like Intel's motherboard partners did the same as well. Under load Haswell can draw more power than Ivy Bridge but it typically makes up for it with better performance.

Overclockers may be disappointed at the fact that Haswell is really no more of an overclocker (on air) compared to Ivy Bridge. Given the more mobile focused nature of design, and an increased focus on eliminating wasted power, I don’t know that we’ll ever see a return to the heyday of overclocking.

If the fact that you can’t easily get tons of additional frequency headroom at marginal increase to CPU voltage is the only real downside to the platform, then I’d consider Haswell a success on the desktop. You get more performance and a better platform at roughly the same prices as Ivy Bridge a year ago. It’s not enough to convince folks who just bought a PC over the past year or two to upgrade again, but if you are upgrading from even a 3 year old machine the performance gains will be significant.

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  • Da W - Saturday, June 1, 2013 - link

    It confirms Temash tablets will be the GPU+CPU performace / power / price ratio to beat.
  • takeship - Sunday, June 2, 2013 - link

    At 8-15W. What size market is that again? It's like saying Amtrak has a better cost/distance than a Prius. Yes, but so what?
  • Dal Makhani - Saturday, June 1, 2013 - link

    its not disappointing at all, its gains, and any gains matter on an annual schedule. As long as it beats Ivy by any percentage, its progress. You know Intel's goals are not IPC related as much as mobile, so dont rant when all the facts are in front of you.
  • peterfares - Saturday, June 1, 2013 - link

    You must have missed the part where S0ix isn't available on the desktop parts. How about you wait until the MOBILE and ULV processor tests are in before you start ranting.
  • Jammrock - Saturday, June 1, 2013 - link

    The point of Haswell is not to drastically improve performance. Haswell is designed to move x86 into the tablet and mobile market with drastically improved idle and low power performance. Skylake, in roughly 2015, will likely be the next big performance boost.
  • Hector2 - Sunday, June 2, 2013 - link

    "Haswell" isn't going into tablets
  • Klimax - Sunday, June 2, 2013 - link

    It does - Surface Pro class.(TDP 10W)
  • thebeastie - Sunday, June 2, 2013 - link

    Well I am happy to see the 4th gen release. And yay PCI is now officially gone. Shouldn't there be a memorial ceremony? And maybe a trophy? :)

    Kudos to the first posters looks like they some what actually read the review, even tho I don't know if I agree with your comments.
  • klmccaughey - Monday, June 3, 2013 - link

    Yes, it is great to see PCI finally dead and buried. It's been a bit like having a tow bar on a ferrari this last few years. Hoorah for the death of PCI!!! :)
  • GullLars - Sunday, June 2, 2013 - link

    Where this will probably shine is in mixed workloads. Not overclocking for gaming or production.
    It will be easier to put Haswell into (G)HTPC builds at mini-ITX and µATX formfactors and keep noise down while still having great burst performance. The 4770K seems to be not worth it for overclockers that have got good Sandy/Ivy chips.

    I think i may upgrade my parents living room PC to something like a mini-ITX build with i3-42xxT, and just transfer the SSD (Force GT 120GB) and RAM (8GB 1600 SO-DIMM). It should be a substantial upgrade from E-350 and almost fit the same power envelope for their use cases.

    I'm looking more forward to more info on Ivy-E. I'm happy with my 3930K with a decent OC, but if Ivy-E can bring the power/performance ratio down without bringing performance down or heat issues, i might upgrade :)

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