The Haswell Ultrabook Review: Core i7-4500U Tested
by Anand Lal Shimpi on June 9, 2013 9:00 AM ESTCPU Performance
With Haswell on the desktop we showed a 0 - 19% increase in performance over Ivy Bridge at the same clocks. With Haswell ULT, similar parts have identical turbo frequencies but Haswell does drop the base clock by 100MHz in this case. There’s also a lower TDP, and that TDP now includes the PCH as well, potentially decreasing the time spent in max turbo.
The end result is effectively no gain in performance across our benchmarks. PCMark 7 and single-threaded Cinebench show a 3 - 6% increase in performance, while multithreaded Cinebench and x264 show a 3 - 5% decrease in performance.
As we saw in our battery life tests, it looks like there are some larger performance gains to be had in power limited scenarios. The explanation there makes sense. Haswell ULT’s lower TDP may cap max frequencies more than on Ivy Bridge, but at lower frequencies the CPU cores are less likely to bump into the chip’s TDP limits - allowing Haswell’s IPC advantage to really shine. When plugged in however I wouldn’t expect CPU performance any different from Ivy Bridge.
| CPU Performance Comparison | ||||||||
| PCMark 7 | Cinebench 11.5 (single threaded) | Cinebench 11.5 (multithreaded) | x264 5.0.1 - 1st pass | x264 5.0.1 - 2nd pass | PCMark 8 Home (Power Saver) | PCMark 8 Creative (Power Saver) | ||
| Core i7-3517U | 5058 | 1.25 | 2.8 | 29.67 | 5.55 | 1595 | 1391 | |
| Core i7-4500U | 5216 | 1.33 | 2.7 | 28.4 | 5.25 | 1777 | 1583 | |
| Haswell Advantage | 3.1% | 6.4% | -3.5% | -4.3% | -5.4% | 11.4% | 13.8% | |
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broccauley - Tuesday, June 11, 2013 - link
Were Acer not known for their "Timeline" series of laptops which were known for groundbreaking battery life?smilingcrow - Tuesday, June 18, 2013 - link
Apple are claiming dramatically improved battery life.deeps6x - Sunday, July 14, 2013 - link
I just don't get why Intel caved to MS pressure and made touchscreen a requirement for Haswell. Everyone I know who does image editing insists on doing it on a matte screen.Metro was a huge mistake.
Gaah, just too pissed about this to make a coherent comment.
I want haswell with a matte screen and 13 and 15 inch 'ultrabook' size options. I guess manufacturers will just have to invent some new name to call their matte screen ultrabooks. Perhaps just call them 'laptops' and say screw you and your goof ass naming rules Intel.
Xenon14 - Sunday, June 9, 2013 - link
It would be useful to see productivity and multithreaded benchmarks like Excel and Fritz. It'd be nice if you provide a few charts with higher TDP Cpu's so we can see the relative performance differences.Synaesthesia - Sunday, June 9, 2013 - link
Wow Anand you delivered! Once again such an in-depth analysis of EVERYTHING relevant to the platform. Nowhere else can I find this information!uditrana - Sunday, June 9, 2013 - link
Except for one thing. How did they change the backlighting in the S7. I am really interested in knowing.n13L5 - Sunday, June 9, 2013 - link
yeah, they did a good job doing that on location and before anyone else :Dmeacupla - Sunday, June 9, 2013 - link
That's great news.Now, I can't wait to see it in surface pro.
B3an - Sunday, June 9, 2013 - link
Yeah Surface Pro with one of these, in a thinner and lighter design (should be possible now) with Windows 8.1 = ultimate device.MrSpadge - Monday, June 10, 2013 - link
Or the Thinkpad Helix!