The Intel Haswell Refresh Review: Core i7-4790, i5-4690 and i3-4360 Tested
by Ian Cutress on May 11, 2014 3:01 AM ESTFor our discrete GPU benchmarks, we have split them up into the different GPU configurations we have tested. We have access to both MSI GTX 770 Lightning GPUs and ASUS reference HD 7970s, for SLI and Crossfire respectively. These tests are all run at 1080p and maximum settings, reporting the average and minimum frame rates.
dGPU Benchmarks: 2x MSI GTX770 Lightning
F1 2013
Despite the lack of scaling, moving to dual GPU puts a larger rift between the i3 and the other CPUs for average FPS in 2013.
Bioshock Infinite
Tomb Raider
Sleeping Dogs
While average FPS takes a ~10% drop from i3 to i5, the same 10 FPS drop is seen in the minimum frame rates but this equates more to a ~20% decline.
Company of Heroes 2
Battlefield 4
When you start adding the GPU horsepower, the i3 core count becomes a hindrance in minimum FPS values for BF4.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
130 Comments
View All Comments
Basilisk - Sunday, May 11, 2014 - link
While I enjoy the image of you chatting away with worms a'dangling, The Bard has his due:"Shall I bend low and in a bondman's key, With BATED breath and whispering humbleness, Say this..." [Shylock]. Billy originated the phrase, and his spelling is still considered correct... although it's a common enough error. Think of it as abated (restrained) breathing.
Informative article, however, so Thanks!
dwbogardus - Monday, May 12, 2014 - link
Really? I thought it meant breath that smelled like bait! (just kidding)coburn_c - Sunday, May 11, 2014 - link
I swear I saw a 'Death of the Desktop' and a 'PC gamers outnumber next-gen consoles' article in the same news feed last week.dave_the_nerd - Sunday, May 11, 2014 - link
So this is what you were working on?!?!10 days with no updates; you had me worried AnandTech. Thanks for the kickbutt review, as always.
davegraham - Sunday, May 11, 2014 - link
lol. in your conclusion, you say "baited breath" which would lead someone to believe that you smell of fish. what you meant to say is "bated breath" which approximates to your intent. :) great article overall Ian.IndyJaws - Monday, May 12, 2014 - link
Merchant of Venice +1FreeMan4096 - Sunday, May 11, 2014 - link
Impressive article. Bookmarking the webpage.Galatian - Sunday, May 11, 2014 - link
Ian: on page 12 dual 7970 testing in Bioshock Infinite the graph for minimum frame rates has the core i3 twice with two completely different values.Thanks anyway for the great article!
extide - Sunday, May 11, 2014 - link
"Eventually as the future of the chipset progresses, I see all these ports becoming flexible, though I would imagine we are a few years out from this." -- I actually don't think that will happen. It undoubtedly will increase the complexity of the chipset to allow the possibility for every single port to be configurable, thus increase costs. However, it is very unlikely that you would have a situation where you wouldn't want any SATA ports, or USB3 ports. Thus it seems pretty pointless to make ALL of the ports configurable. I would imagine that we will see a future with MORE configurability, but I would bet you will always see some dedicated ports.mapesdhs - Sunday, May 11, 2014 - link
If anyone's curious as to how the article's results compare to an oc'd older CPU,
here are some CB R15 numbers for a 5GHz i7 2700K (RAM @ 2133 CL10, ASUS M4E):
1-thread: 177
N-thread: 880
There's a power consumption difference of course, but the lower purchase cost of
a used 2700K makes up for it by more than an order of magnitude.
Ian.