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Intel Haswell i7-4770K and MSI Z87 MPower Max and Z87-GD65 Gaming Motherboards Review - Reviews [T-break Tech (Middle East)](T-break Tech (Middle East) Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) It's that time in the generation of Intel's yearly processor update where we see the jump to the next generation. As with Intel's yearly "tick-tock" model, this year we're in the "tock" phase, signifying the introduction of a revamped micro architecture which will be continuing on last year's die size of 22nm introduced on Ivy Bridge. Design With Haswell, Intel's main focus is to introduce more power efficient design for ultrabooks, but today our focus is on the desktop side with the Core i7-4770K processor and the accompanying Z87 chipset equipped motherboards. First thing's first, the socket has, once again, been changed and we now have LGA 1150 for all Haswell motherboards. On the desktop side we see a jump from Intel HD 4000 to HD 4600, jumping up from 77W TDP on i7-3770K to 84W on the i7-4770K. Graphics There is a SKU called the "R" series where Intel has combined the CPU with the PCH on the same die, giving it a smaller all-in-one package for smaller devices, such as HTPCs. These processors will come on a totally new platform, called BGA. On the desktop side we'll see the i7-4700R, which will have the highest level of integrated graphics onboard, the Intel Iris Pro (GT3e) 5200 which is supposedly twice as powerful as the Intel HD 4000. Coming with just 65W TDP, the i7-4700R is a locked CPU. Coming back to the Haswell i7-4770K, this will be the processor of choice for most PC enthusiasts. If all you're planning is just games, then a strong argument can be made in the favor of the new i5 processors. For the heavy user who's into video editing and a lot of encoding work, the i7 will remain the king. Upgrade Between the i7-3770K and the i7-4770K, the only major difference is the TDP increase (from 77W to 84W) and the onboard GPU upgrade to HD 4600 (up to 1250MHz) from HD 4000 (up to 1150MHz). You can now increase your Base Clock ratios (similar to the Extreme Edition CPUs) and basically change your CPU core, GPU and memory frequencies independently while overclocking. For the most part, though, the two processors remain pretty much identical, with the same memory support (DDR3 1600MHz), same clock speeds (3.5GHz boosting up to 3.9GHz) and the same price ($349). The Intel 8 series chipset brings some new benefits along with it as well. You now get 6x USB 3.0 native ports on Z87 motherboard compared to 4x on Z77 and 6x SATA III ports, compared to just 2x on the previous generation. Intel DZ87KLT-75K So with that, let's take a look at our test motherboards. First up we have Intel's own DZ87KLT-75K which comes in a blue and black design. The flimsy heatsinks near the power phase surrounding the CPU area have a nice design. You get 6x USB 3.0 ports and 2x USB 2.0 ports on the back, 8x SATA III (6Gbps) ports. Dual Gigabit LAN comes right next to the HDMI connector. A Thunderbolt connector ensures connection to monitors with DisplayPort, but no DVI. And for the ultimate gaming setup, there are 3x PCIe 3.0 ports for a complete full speed multi-GPU setup. MSI Z87-GD65 Gaming The first entry from MSI is their MSI Z87-GD65 Gaming Series motherboard. It's a very well-priced board with some really cool distinguishing features from competitors in the same price range. For all intents and purposes, this is just a refresh of the Z77A-GD65 Gaming motherboard I reviewed last month with some layout changes. The Z87-GD65 has the Killer E2205 LAN chipset that set its predecessor apart, but we also get some cool improvements in the audio department. There's a nice looking EMI shield on the audio chipset, in addition to golden jacks on all the audio ports as well as a headphones amplifier. Combine this with 8x SATA III (6Gbps) ports, easy overclocking via OC Genie 4 and high quality Military Class 4 components, and you have one of the most compelling Haswell motherboards. MSI Z87 MPower Max Next up we have the MSI Z87 MPower Max which comes in an impressive yellow and black layout. The massive heatsinks surrounding the SFC and the dark silver capacitors looks very impressive, and essential for the overclocking claims MSI is making. Dual 9-pin power connectors ensure enough juice is provided to your components under extreme overclocking. In addition to power/ reset buttons we get an auto-overclocking button (OC Genie 4) and dedicated +/- buttons for changing frequencies while overclocking. In addition to 6x USB 3.0 ports on the back, you get 8x SATA III (6Gbps) ports. And just like the Z87-GD65 Gaming, the MPower Max also comes with the Audio Boost 7.1 HD audio and a Killer E2205 Gigabit LAN chipset. Every component used is Military Class 4 classified, so rest assured you're getting an extremely durable motherboard; ideal for overclocking. Testbed Now let's have a look at our test setups: CPU Benchmarks As you can see the Haswell i7-4770K is 11% faster than last year's Ivy Bridge i7-3770K on average, and 24% faster than the Ivy Bridge i7-2600K. Onboard GPU Benchmark Sadly the i7-4770K doesn't come with the much hyped Iris Pro HD 5200 graphics, so I'm not really expecting miraculous performance out of the HD 4600. And for some good measure I've also thrown in the AMD A10-5600K APU that was released last year. While the HD 4600 is 23% faster than the HD 4000, the AMD A10 APU still outperforms the new Intel HD 4600 GPU handily (except for the DX10 based 3DMark Cloud Gate). Gaming Benchmarks Using our GTX 680, we see that there's pretty much no performance increase when you average everything out. Bioshock: Infinite and Tomb Raider notwithstanding, which actually decreased performance(!), we hardly see any performance difference between Haswell and Ivy bridge. Overclocked Overclocking the Haswell i7-4770K was a pleasant surprise as I managed to bump the ratio to "46x" with a voltage of just 1.25v, much lower than the 1.45v needed to achieve the same speeds on the Sandy Bridge i7-2600K and the Ivy Bridge i7-3770K. By increasing the maximum speed by almost 18%, we see an average performance jump of about 9%. Temperature & Voltage Going through all those benchmarks we see the temperature jump from Ivy Bridge to Haswell increase by an average of 23%. Meanwhile measuring the live voltage through the display monitoring system on our Thortech 850W Thunderbolt Plus, we see an average voltage increase of 26%. Conclusion In general we see a performance increase of about 11% from Ivy Bridge to Haswell, with the integrated GPU performance increasing by 23%. Realistically we won't see anybody using an i7 processor just for integrated GPU, with everyone using a dedicated graphics card. Perhaps with the i7-4770R the situation might be different, thanks to the Iris Pro HD 5200 iGPU. In terms of gaming, there's no real advantage. In terms of power draw and temperature, we see that Haswell is worse off than Ivy Bridge. Honestly, if you have an Ivy Bridge processor right now, there's no need to upgrade to Haswell. You will not only pay for a new processor but a completely new motherboard as well. The mild performance upgrade simply doesn't justify the cost of upgrading. Sure one can argue that you're future-proofing yourself for Broadwell processors, where Intel will shrink the die size to 14nm, but then you'll probably not see a significant performance increase; just look at Sandy bridge (32nm) versus Ivy Bridge (22nm) with barely 10% performance increase. Unless you have something older than a Sandy Bridge processor, the jump to Haswell seems useless at this time. Even if you're not a gamer, people heavily relying on the raw processing power of a Core i7 processor won't see a worthwhile jump from Ivy Bridge to Haswell; maybe from Sandy Bridge. Bottom line: only upgrade to Haswell if you have a processor older than the 2 year old Sandy Bridge. For first timers, a Haswell processor is definitely the way to move forward. For people who already have a Sandy/ Ivy Bridge processor, just wait for Broadwell next year, or better yet, Skylake which is set to come out in 2015. Review Score 7.9 + New microarchitecture brings improvements + Definitive performance increase over previous generations - Minor performance increase over Ivy Bridge - New socket means new motherboards Taimoor Hafeez (follow on twitter) When I'm not burning up hardware in the name of science, you'll find me nuking in DOTA 2 or engineering in TF2. COPYRIGHT 2013 TBREAK MEDIA. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. Provided by Syndigate.info an Albawaba.com company (c) 2013 All rights reserved. Albawaba.com |