The Intel Haswell Refresh Review: Core i7-4790, i5-4690 and i3-4360 Tested
by Ian Cutress on May 11, 2014 3:01 AM ESTReal World Benchmarks
2D to 3D Rendering –Agisoft PhotoScan v1.0: link
Agisoft Photoscan creates 3D models from 2D images, a process which is very computationally expensive. The algorithm is split into four distinct phases, and different phases of the model reconstruction require either fast memory, fast IPC, more cores, or even OpenCL compute devices to hand. Agisoft supplied us with a special version of the software to script the process, where we take 50 images of a stately home and convert it into a medium quality model. This benchmark typically takes around 15-20 minutes on a high end PC on the CPU alone, with GPUs reducing the time.
For Photoscan we see the incremental speedup with the i3 models, but the increased single thread speed of the i7 makes more of a difference.
Compression – WinRAR 5.0.1: link
Our WinRAR test from 2013 is updated to the latest version of WinRAR at the start of 2014. We compress a set of 2867 files across 320 folders totaling 1.52 GB in size – 95% of these files are small typical website files, and the rest (90% of the size) are small 30 second 720p videos.
For WinRAR, the increase in the threads makes the most difference here, moving from i5-4690 to i7-4675T.
Image Manipulation – FastStone Image Viewer 4.9: link
Similarly to WinRAR, the FastStone test us updated for 2014 to the latest version. FastStone is the program I use to perform quick or bulk actions on images, such as resizing, adjusting for color and cropping. In our test we take a series of 170 images in various sizes and formats and convert them all into 640x480 .gif files, maintaining the aspect ratio. FastStone does not use multithreading for this test, and thus single threaded performance is often the winner.
FastStone is all about the single thread speed.
Video Conversion – Xilisoft Video Converter 7: link
The XVC test I normally do is updated to the full version of the software, and this time a different test as well. Here we take two different videos: a double UHD (3840x4320) clip of 10 minutes and a 640x266 DVD rip of a 2h20 film and convert both to iPod suitable formats. The reasoning here is simple – when frames are small enough to fit into memory, the algorithm has more chance to apply work between threads and process the video quicker. Results shown are in seconds and time taken to encode.
Small frames prefer more single thread MHz, whereas the dual 4K frame conversion prefers threads.
Video Conversion – Handbrake v0.9.9: link
Handbrake is a media conversion tool that was initially designed to help DVD ISOs and Video CDs into more common video formats. The principle today is still the same, primarily as an output for H.264 + AAC/MP3 audio within an MKV container. In our test we use the same videos as in the Xilisoft test, and results are given in frames per second.
With Handbrake it would seem that it prefers actual cores rather than hyperthreading, given by the i5 and i7 being relatively close and 2x the i3.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
130 Comments
View All Comments
mikato - Thursday, May 15, 2014 - link
Antronman- your stupid Bing link does not say that being an enthusiast means someone deeply involved in the construction of computers or extreme overclocking. Give me a break, master lamer. Just throwing out a link doesn't make something true. Pretty much everyone reading this article is an enthusiast. Not just that, but he is commenting and listing his computer specs. Come on. Go spread your lame BS somewhere else because I'm all out of patience for it this morning.royalcrown - Wednesday, May 14, 2014 - link
The one thing I'd upgrade on yours is the 660. Even coming from a 680, I was surprised at the difference between that and my current 780ti. IMO go for a vanilla 780, you'll be pleased I bet.mikato - Thursday, May 15, 2014 - link
"Because enthusiasts have the money, they will always buy the new parts because they're new."Nope. That is some kind of warped perception of reality. Do enthusiasts require the newest part to get through life? Do enthusiasts never build a computer to last a few years? Do enthusiasts have unlimited money, or pretty much care about nothing else in life besides the newest computer parts?
Please provide bing link to confirm your answers, lol.
jamescox - Sunday, May 11, 2014 - link
Not much of interest with this refresh. For most consumers, anything in the last few generations of cpus offer sufficient processing power. I don't think this is going to change until we get a major form-factor change to something more gpu centric. The overclocking chips coming out later may be of interest, but I don't know if I will buy one. I have been wondering if anyone will integrate a thin vapor chamber instead of just a "lid"; this seems like it would handle hot spots and such, but it may not be worthwhile.Samus - Sunday, May 11, 2014 - link
If my brand new H87 board doesn't run broadwell in 6 months, I'm going back to AMD on principle. Not since the 965/975x has a sequel processor not supported the previous gen chipset with the same socket (in that case, the Intel 30 series chipset, which supported 1333FSB.) That was 7 years ago.If Broadwell is simply a die shrink, why the hell would they abandon millions of 80-series motherboards other than to alienate people back to AMD?
KAlmquist - Monday, May 12, 2014 - link
Actually, you are wrong about that. The B65, Q65, and Q67 chip sets only support Sandy Bridge, not Ivy Bridge.Samus - Monday, May 12, 2014 - link
Ohh wow yeah...damn intel are bastards with this crap. A new chipset just to support a die shrink?Ramon Zarat - Monday, May 12, 2014 - link
Artificial market segmentation is indeed an highly anti-consumer business practice, especially when abused to the extent Intel do it.hasseb64 - Monday, May 12, 2014 - link
5 years ago, this release would have been a single news flash not an article, not blaming the sites, because there are no news/momentum in DIY-PC anymore.milkMADE - Monday, May 12, 2014 - link
I think you meant i7 4790k...as the non k is 4790."To that end, Intel is going to release ‘Devil’s Canyon’ in due course. Devil’s Canyon has no official SKU name yet (i7-4970K or i7-4770X are my best guesses)"
4970k would make me think the successor to the 4960x ivybridge-e 6core.