Intel Haswell Refresh Processors Codenamed Devil’s Canyon – Launching in Mid 2014 With Unlocked Desi

UTmaniac · 11 Jun 2014 at 12:14

As always with pc upgrades, I'm sitting firmly on the fence, part of me is tempted to go with an AMD 83xx machine for now and then see what the Intel X99 generation brings (passing the AMD to better half).

Maybe it is because I'm watching this space a little more closely, but there seems to be new Z97 mobos being announced almost on a daily basis, for instance the "flagship" Asrock Z97 Extreme 6 is already the understudy to the Extreme 9.

It does not feel like a good time to be doing pc upgrades at all, due to the uncertainty of issues like...
Devils Canyon is yet to convince us of o/c benfits, albeit the stock speed is better
6/8 core Intel cpus around the corner
DDR4 around the corner, albeit early models will be expensive and not much better than the best DDR3
Is Mantle going to really take off, or it it just going to give DirectX a firm push
Are m.2 SSDs going to become an affordable, super-fast, large storage solution
Is pCARS going to give a significant fps boost to AMD owners
etc. etc.

JamesM · 11 Jun 2014 at 12:25

Trust me, if your itching for an upgrade don't go down the AMD route.

You'd be better off waiting and waiting

Mantle is rather decent, especially in BF4

McstylisT · 11 Jun 2014 at 12:30

A 4790K at stock 4.4ghz will give you much better gain than any AMD clocked cpu. So if you must buy, then at this moment with your budget buy Intel.

altrewin · 11 Jun 2014 at 12:49

It's a shame the TIM is still bad, but I'll probably still go for a DC chip over a normal one unless the prices drop further. Either way it'll be a nice upgrade over my old Athlon

Boomstick777 · 11 Jun 2014 at 14:19

altrewin said:
It's a shame the TIM is still bad, but I'll probably still go for a DC chip over a normal one unless the prices drop further. Either way it'll be a nice upgrade over my old Athlon

Yeah if you're building new, def go for the 4790K over the 4770K.

I doubt I will go 4790K as already on 4770K, but for anyone building now 4790K is a better bet.

stulid · 11 Jun 2014 at 16:56

http://www.guru3d.com/articles_pages/core_i7_4790k_processor_review,21.html

4.7-4.8 again.

delpy8 · 11 Jun 2014 at 17:08

stulid said:
http://www.guru3d.com/articles_pages/core_i7_4790k_processor_review,21.html

4.7-4.8 again.

Nothing special I expected more to be honest, as the reviewer said maybe a bios update???

Ash0787 · 11 Jun 2014 at 22:37

Not sure if i7-4790K is going to be worth it for me then, my i5-4670K seems to be able to do 4.8GHz at 1.36v on the custom watercooling, without going over 90 degrees in tests, for games I think it will probably stay under 70.

Edit - make that 1.385 and spiking to 95 degrees +

Boomstick777 · 11 Jun 2014 at 23:46

Review: Intel Pentium Anniversary Edition G3258

Hexus > http://hexus.net/tech/reviews/cpu/70977-intel-pentium-anniversary-edition-g3258/

The overclockers' favourite

Remember the days when you could take a cheap processor, overclock it to rude levels using basic air cooling, and then achieve the kind of performance normally reserved for far more expensive chips? Those days are largely gone, more's the pity, because AMD's base CPU performance isn't great while Intel limits overclocking on cheaper non-K processors by locking the maximum all-core multiplier and base clock ratio to the chip's default level. Want to go faster, spend the extra and buy a K-series chip.

The overclocked chip does a very good impression of a Core i7-4770K - there's very little difference in real-world games run at 1080p. Sometimes numbers can be misleading, but the game(s) felt smooth and fluid to play. We'd challenge anyone to tell the difference between the overclocked Pentium G3258 and the 5x dearer Core i7-4770K in these games. Really, the standard chip is good enough for 1080p gaming.

wazza300 · 11 Jun 2014 at 23:59

ahhh budget ocing

remember intel??

JamesM · 12 Jun 2014 at 09:08

tbh i'm properly tempted to grab a Pentium K just for a laugh.

it looks to be a cracking chip

Boomstick777 · 12 Jun 2014 at 12:33

JamesM said:
tbh i'm properly tempted to grab a Pentium K just for a laugh.

it looks to be a cracking chip

Weird thing about the Pentium K is that it's up there with the other high end Haswell chips in gaming, even in games that are supposed to be multi threaded and not work well on dual cores. Crazy performance for a £50 CPU.

CAT-THE-FIFTH · 12 Jun 2014 at 13:08

Boomstick777 said:
Weird thing about the Pentium K is that it's up there with the other high end Haswell chips in gaming, even in games that are supposed to be multi threaded and not work well on dual cores. Crazy performance for a £50 CPU.

No,BF4 MP and BTW as many people on Hexus stated the GPU is the bottleneck anyway. Someone was getting the same 3DMark score with a Phenom II X4 920 and a GTX750TI.

All the people saying the Pentium is great for multi-threaded games have Core i5s and Core i7s.

We have had these arguments for years.

E8400 vs Q6600. Guess which one won that one??

A Core i3 is having significantly better performance in some newer titles.

Plus the Pentium G3258 is limited to 1333MHZ RAM instead of the 1600MHZ with normal Pentiums for some daft reason.

Martini1991 · 12 Jun 2014 at 13:16

The Hexus review did almost nothing to tell us about the overclocking pentium with a discrete GPU.

You need something like a 7870, 10 modern titles, and a bigger comparison of CPU's.

BigDools · 12 Jun 2014 at 13:17

YOUR BASKET
1 x Intel Core i5-4690K 3.50GHz (Devil's Canyon) Socket LGA1150 Processor - Retail £189.95
1 x Intel Core i5-4670K 3.40GHz (Haswell) Socket LGA1150 Processor - Retail £173.99
Total : £373.54 (includes shipping : £8.00).

Im struggling to hold out for the DC as i have all my bits for my new build just sitting here , i know the haswell is a proven cpu that will do what i need and i will be happy with an overclock of 4.2. would anyone say i should just wait or are we not going to see much difference between the two ?

CAT-THE-FIFTH · 12 Jun 2014 at 13:25

Martini1991 said:
The Hexus review did almost nothing to tell us about the overclocking pentium with a discrete GPU.

You need something like a 7870, 10 modern titles, and a bigger comparison of CPU's.

Agreed,plus perhaps the Athlon II X4 CPUs overclocked too(similar price range),since I have seen people do a few builds with them.

But you can see with Watch Dogs and Thief,whether the Pentium dual core even if overclocked might not have as good minimums and frametimes in a number of modern games compared to say a Core i3. In the techspot review the difference is over 40% it seems just with a slight clockspeed bump and HT.

This is quite an old review,but TR tested the G2120 a while back:

http://techreport.com/review/23662/amd-a10-5800k-and-a8-5600k-trinity-apus-reviewed/10

The FPS compared to say an equivalent Core i3 looks good,until you look at frametimes in BF3 and Crysis2.

We do need some reviews with frametimes in them too.

It could be that the Pentium dual core overclocked might help a lot,but I am not convinced.

However,for something like WoT this could be the de-facto CPU for that game IMHO.

JonSmith · 12 Jun 2014 at 13:33

Those particular benchmarks aren't too helpful since they were mostly GPU limited (except for the thief one). The BF4 one is clearly from the campaign where it makes no difference what CPU you have.

The thief one in particular is demonstrating that Mantle loves multiple threads, look at the difference in minimums between a core i3 and the Pentium.

Basically what people want is an unlocked core i3.

CAT-THE-FIFTH · 12 Jun 2014 at 13:43

An unlocked Core i3 would have been awesome. I bet overclocked it could get close to the locked Core i5 CPUs too.

OTH,we saw what happened with the Core i3 530. People bought them instead of Core i5 CPUs instead and overclocked them.

Intel are no fools.

However,you can see what Intel is doing here. The Pentium dual cores will look OK in a number of games now,but will progressively start to struggle more and more quicker than say a Core i3 or a FX6300. Then the only way to improve performance is to buy a Core i5 sooner rather than later,meaning Intel gets more money from people overall.

Considering that we are starting to shift from the older consoles to the newer ones as main development platforms(Watch Dogs does seem to be quite CPU intensive for example) and together with Mantle and DX12 trying to reduce single thread bottlenecks and new generation engines coming online,the next 6 to 18 months are going to see a lot of changes IMHO.

Boomstick777 · 12 Jun 2014 at 14:20

I'm not sure what Cat is saying no to in his post above, as opinions are subjective and can't be argued as it's individual lol, but yeah my opinion is that for £50 the Pentium K is an absolute bargain. High IPC, massive overclocks, most getting 4.5Ghz > 4.7Ghz on the stock cooler. Pair that with something like a GTX 750Ti or AMD 265, and you have a decent budget PC that can would be ideal for a budget gamer / overclocker to play with.

Blinding lil chip for the money. Nothing not to like there.

Boomstick777 · 12 Jun 2014 at 14:39

Martini1991 said:
The Hexus review did almost nothing to tell us about the overclocking pentium with a discrete GPU.

You need something like a 7870, 10 modern titles, and a bigger comparison of CPU's.

Just for you, some links below. Various CPU's with GTX 780 Ti.

-------------------------------------------------------

I think people need to remember context here as well. Have highlighted the K VS the FX for a quick comparison of what £50 will get you gaming wise. The Intel Dual Core Haswell K chip (2 Threaded) VS AMD's FX 8350 (8 Threaded)

For typical a budget PC: gaming / browser / general PC use this chip is awesome. The FX 6300 is ok as well at around the £70 mark. Personally the K chip paired with a newer motherboard (Z97) for future upgrade options would be preferable. Ideal first PC for someone who may be able to upgrade it in the future. Whereas AMD AM3 stuff is very much EOL at this point.

Also more importantly, the price..

Intel Pentium K £50
FX 8350 £135

For £50 surely this is impressive even to most pessimistic of individuals?