The Intel Haswell Refresh Review: Core i7-4790, i5-4690 and i3-4360 Tested
by Ian Cutress on May 11, 2014 3:01 AM ESTSynthetic IGP Benchmarks
OpenCL – CompuBench: link
CompuBench is an OpenCL and RenderScript benchmark designed by Kishonti for both CPUs and any GPGPU capable device. While it offers almost two dozen tests, we select the more real-world tests in terms of fluid simulation and image analysis benchmarks and test on the CPU and IGP respectively. The CPU results are earlier in the review, and the IGP results are below.
CompuBench responds well to actual cores, but not so much to threads, given by the close scores of the i5 and i7 CPUs. AMD still wins here.
Unity – Graphic Scene 720p: link
As part of my IGP testing I went searching for a couple of new Unity based benchmarks to help decipher the line between the desktop graphics solutions and those that are not so great. First up is a graphical humdinger, implementing a complex scene with lighting effects (including fluid simulation, shadows, SSAO, Bloom). We run the benchmark at 720p with the highest graphical settings, reporting the average FPS.
The HD 4600 seems relatively CPU agnostic for complex graphics in Unity. More GPU power seems needed.
Unity – Draw Calls: link
Next up is a benchmark limited by draw calls rather than rendering complexity. The scene generates simple Nintendo Gamecube polygons that fall due to gravity and bounce around until stationary. The scene continuously spews out these polygons until three consecutive frames fall under a 20 FPS average. We run the benchmark at 720p at simple graphic settings to minimize the graphical complexity, take the number of consoles that spawn from each run and average over several runs.
3DMark
The synthetic tools from Futuremark have been on the benchmarking landscape for over a decade, with each generation designed to tackle new problems as either the CPUs or GPUs become too powerful. Here we test 3DMark 06, 3DMark 11 (Performance) and the latest 3DMark.
For CPU limited testing, such as Cloud Gate, the Intel i7 pulls ahead with the i5 quickly in tow. For the others, AMD has the lead.
Tessmark
The latest version of TessMark is designed to focus on tessellation via OpenGL 4. We run the latest version of the benchmark using the high resolution map set at maximum tessellation while 1080p full screen, reporting the average FPS.
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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.