Could I7 desktop Haswell been better?

[Gattberserk]

I have been wondering why Intel is abandoning the desktop series advancement of its Haswell... It seem like Haswell architectural has alot of potential as well for desktop part, yet they arent doing anything much to it...

Clock for Clock performance, Haswell flagship seem to be between 5-10% faster than IVB, up to 15% faster for certain application or programme. But the Performance per watt have remain stagnant since it consume the increased amount of power proportionally.

OC ability is begin hindered thanks to high temps from FIVR and probably even poorer TIM.

This make me really wonder if the flag 4770K could be better without even having to do anything to the current Haswell architecture? What happen if they include the TSX instructions, added the 128mb of eDRAM as L4 cache, and use solder instead of TIM for the 4770K? I doubt it is impossible for Intel not to implement these in their current flagship model.


And for their future Haswell-E, like 5820K, could it be possible they wont include the FIVR?

 

[enenyi]

I think answer can be guessed, looking at how Intel pampers its mobile processor series for Haswell. Intel probably has already acknowledged that the tablet/laptop/smartphone sector can earn more money than the desktop ones, so it is pumping resources into making Haswell a revolutionary upgrade from Ivy Bridge mobile processors. As for desktop series, well Intel still has to come up with something to prevent pple like us who loves DIY and pushing limits of electronic products from jumping ship towards AMD desktop processors. Some more Haswell is really a refresh of Ivy Bridge, since new stuff like PCIe3.0, native USB3.0 suport have already been introduced during Ivy Bridge era, so why bother with the desktop chips so much?

 

[Gattberserk]

I think probably I just don't understand why do they sort of handicapped the potential of Haswell...


They dun even need to tweak anything or improve anything. All those extra benefit can be done since they already exist in their current lineup...


I just dun see the point of delibrately crippled 4770K for eg.

 

[FinalTidus]

no competition from amd. full stop.

 

[pa9797]

Lack of competition leading to lacking or wanting to improve. All start to rest on the laurels

 

[betadyne]

OK, the problem is quite simple.

1. Lack of competition.

2. Size of notebook market.

If you look at notebook market and sales it has surpass PC already. Hence, it makes more sense to design a CPU thats more suitable for notebooks than PC.

In notebook power consumption far more important than outright performance.

 

[betadyne]

Btw, including the 128MB as L4 cache will make i7 very expensive.

The nature with multi chip modules is that if a die is faulty (or even partially faulty) the whole CPU is useless. This reduces yield and increase production cost.

Also, the performance increase will be very small as well. If you want good improvement you need software to be able to take advantage of the L4 cache. If its just used to cache data from the RAM, its not much use.

 

[MacClipper]

Seems like PC gamers have it really cham...

Software = console ports

while

Hardware = notebook ports

Song boh?

 

[muddle]

On the bright side, at least there is no compelling reason to upgrade parts anymore. Previous 2yr upgrade cycle can lengthen to 3 or more years.

 

[junialum]

As others said above. No competition.
Second, people change laptops more than they change desktops. Money is on the other end.
Third, Intel is more interested on lowering power consumption because they want the mobile space.

You can wait and wait and it'll be the same. How many people (not here in this forum of coz) uses desktops as primary computers. Most people I know use laptops with smartphones and tablets as sidekicks.

 

[junialum]

On the bright side, at least there is no compelling reason to upgrade parts anymore. Previous 2yr upgrade cycle can lengthen to 3 or more years.

Definitely, my 4 year old i7 920 still feels good enough for 99% of the things I do.

Only will upgrade if someone in the family needs my comp.

 

[jgyy1990]

Lets say intel desktoo performance have doubled. Can you really feel the difference?

 

[betadyne]

Lets say intel desktoo performance have doubled. Can you really feel the difference?

Yes you can. If 10x faster even better.

The reason for this is that software today (esp. games) is designed to run on current hardware w/o too much of an issue.

With better hardware, more realistic games can be made. Realistic as in AI, physics etc......

Btw, desktop CPUs also affect servers. Cause the architecture is the same. It makes even more impact on servers. Better performance, less CPUs needed. Lower cost, lower power consumption.

There is also HPC. Supercomputers are shifting to GPU because its much faster than CPU. Even with GPU, look at the size and power consumption of a supercomputer. Despite the word super, there are still many many things it cannot do.

There is no such thing as hardware is too powerful that software cannot utilise it.

Lastly, there is video encoding and 3D rendering.

 

[Assault]

Software that's written today has to work on both desktops and laptops. Given that laptop CPUs and GPUs are both much slower than their desktop counterparts.. it means that desktops would be grossly overpowered for the majority of applications.

If someone were to write a game or software that stresses a desktop, it would barely work on a laptop, and which developer really wants to do that?

 

[watzup_ken]

I suppose Intel is shifting their priorities to the mobile side since desktop sales have been on the decline in recent years. So they are moving where they think the money is. Haswell is built up with low power devices as priorities, thus, there is nothing really that attractive for them offer for the higher powered desktop chips. Thus, if you need higher performance, you will need to go for the more expensive chips from their perspective.

 

[Gattberserk]

Btw, including the 128MB as L4 cache will make i7 very expensive.

The nature with multi chip modules is that if a die is faulty (or even partially faulty) the whole CPU is useless. This reduces yield and increase production cost.

Also, the performance increase will be very small as well. If you want good improvement you need software to be able to take advantage of the L4 cache. If its just used to cache data from the RAM, its not much use.

I thought the 4770R already have 128mb of their L4 cache integrated? IS 4770R very expensive?

I would understand if power saving is more in favour of performance of notebook, but its funny that desktop didnt even receive that benefit.. It really feel like throwing all the thrash in the Desktop CPU side.


Gone were the days where ppl crave for something powerful... instead they crave for longer duration, it make enthusiasts feel stupid...


Its going to be a step back in technology for at least 10 years before notebook can be powerful enough to overtake current desktop performance level... It's feel so disappointing...


Until the day they design a notebook CPU stronger than current desktop best like OCed 3770K or 4770K, I doubt I will be interested in HW for long. Even if it did happen in future, it will be a long long wait, not to mentioned notebook will unlikely to feature OVERCLOCKING.

 

[Mem2003]

Haswell supports at least 6xTrue Sata3 6Gbps, more SSDs in Raid ... fast Read/Write Access.

Supports many USB 3.0 ports.

Desktop/Mobile: Low Power Consumption


Works better in Win 8 OS.



1150 for futher CPU upgrade and spare parts.

Info: Put max. memory the M/B can support, use some DDR memory as storage (4G-16G-24G etc), lighting fast Read and ultra-lighting fast write Access.


GPU build-in, Intel needs some more works to improve the performance.

 

[coyote]

I suppose Intel is shifting their priorities to the mobile side since desktop sales have been on the decline in recent years. So they are moving where they think the money is. Haswell is built up with low power devices as priorities, thus, there is nothing really that attractive for them offer for the higher powered desktop chips. Thus, if you need higher performance, you will need to go for the more expensive chips from their perspective.

Indeed... look at this ...

Asus 7" Fonepad powered by single core atom outperform dual core arm & underperform quad core arm. And whichever feature that Google did not want Asus to include in the Nexus 7, Asus made sure they are in the Asus 7" Fonepad.

 

[enenyi]

Haswell supports at least 6xTrue Sata3 6Gbps, more SSDs in Raid ... fast Read/Write Access.

Supports many USB 3.0 ports.

Desktop/Mobile: Low Power Consumption


Works better in Win 8 OS.



1150 for futher CPU upgrade and spare parts.

Info: Put max. memory the M/B can support, use some DDR memory as storage (4G-16G-24G etc), lighting fast Read and ultra-lighting fast write Access.


GPU build-in, Intel needs some more works to improve the performance.

Haswell support is still the same as Ivy Bridge, esp PCIe3.0 and native USB3.0 support (only 1 internal header). The only improvement is by OEM mobo makers who decide to include 3rd party support for more USB3.0 headers and more SATA3 ports. DDR4 support is there as well, but considering the prices of RAM for even DDR3 RAMs, i guess the 'support' is just on paper until they decide to push out DDR4 RAMs. iGPU is better for Haswell compared to Ivy Bridge, but i guess that's a granted else no one will buy anymore. Most of the boards come with more PCIe x16/x8 lanes, but wrong timing as multi-GPU configs are currently running into problems with SLI/CrossfireX driver issues, with many opting to settle for one single powerful card instead of 2 or 3 cheaper cards in multi-GPU config.

Conclusion: For Intel, Haswell is just an Ivy Bridge refresh. It's more of the OEM board makers that go all out to squeeze profits thru the supposedly 'better' features offered on their boards.

 

[devilwahaha]

I think probably I just don't understand why do they sort of handicapped the potential of Haswell...


They dun even need to tweak anything or improve anything. All those extra benefit can be done since they already exist in their current lineup...


I just dun see the point of delibrately crippled 4770K for eg.

Wait till you see what they have cooking in their labs that they are not releasing yet.

It simply makes no monetary sense to chut their powerful cards at this time when they are essentially leading the entire market alone, plus the DIY desktop market is not really as profitable or sizable chunk as you think it is, compared to say mobile.

I thought the 4770R already have 128mb of their L4 cache integrated? IS 4770R very expensive?

I would understand if power saving is more in favour of performance of notebook, but its funny that desktop didnt even receive that benefit.. It really feel like throwing all the thrash in the Desktop CPU side.


Gone were the days where ppl crave for something powerful... instead they crave for longer duration, it make enthusiasts feel stupid...


Its going to be a step back in technology for at least 10 years before notebook can be powerful enough to overtake current desktop performance level... It's feel so disappointing...


Until the day they design a notebook CPU stronger than current desktop best like OCed 3770K or 4770K, I doubt I will be interested in HW for long. Even if it did happen in future, it will be a long long wait, not to mentioned notebook will unlikely to feature OVERCLOCKING.

You sound like someone who overclocks just for the sake of overclocking and being called an "overclocker"

In the past overclocking CPU was such a big thing because back then the stock performance of CPU's were lacking and a very simple OC of 500-800MHz would give very visible increase of speed, but now with even a i5-2500k stock compared to OC'ed 4.3GHz you dont really get much significant performance bump for most applications except those very CPU dependent programs.

If you're still stuck in the days of chasing clocks, you're either gonna have to be very rich to run extreme clocks 24/7 or be disappointed down the road