*****Official Ivybridge Review Thread*****

[HeX]

To put it simply, we think that the term "blazing hell inferno" might be short-selling Ivy Bridge's heat problem once you cross a certain threshold. Past 1.30-1.35V temperatures skyrocket, so we're going to recommend that everyone on air-cooling, even high-end air-cooling, stay in the 1.25V-1.30V range. Most chips shouldn't have any problems hitting 4.5GHz with 1.20V or less, which is awesome for your average casual overclocker, but scaling gets progressively worse as you go above these levels.

Our overclock was stable, we threw every app we could at it and had four 2-3 hour gaming sessions, but we aren't going to hide the fact that during the one hour AIDA64 stress test at least one core hit a truly absurd 101°C, while the others routinely reached into the 90's. At least that proves that these new chips are resilient to short-term heat.

Oh dear oh dear.

2600K @ £209 is looking a bargain right now. I certainly won't be shifting from my 2500k for a fair while now.

 

[The Halk]

Have there been any reviews of motherboards with Ivy Bridge yet? I'm interested to see if there's differences between them, other than what we saw in the preview reviews.

 

[Rofflay]

Came across these charts in the Vortez review and came across these two charts.





IIRC, the main difference between i5 and i7 is HyperThreading, which seem to be giving BF3 a significant boost as shown above.

Will we be seeing this more often? Wanna know if I should get an i7 instead

EDIT: Just noticed the 2500k score in BF3, that seems kinda weird?

This is royally messed up surely? I mean just look at the weird numbers in Skyrm for a start.A 2500k to a 4.8 GHZ Ivy CPU gives 0 fps increase!?

And BF3 is just as bad they are basically saying that while all the other CPU such as 3770k gives nice frames the 3570K actually gets worse frames than a 2500k.And when it gets overclocked to 4.8GHZ the frames dont budge at all and it still reamins slower than a 2500k by a fair margin.

This to me seems like either the 3570k is bugged or thier benchmarks are simply wrong.It is not Hyperthreading as a 2500k does not even have HT just like the 3570k.

 

[James J]

I'm really confused by the benchmarks shown on all websites. Is this actually an increase or what for gamers? Looks like if you do transcoding and video editing, the top end part is pretty quick, but otherwise they don't appear that much faster than the current SB parts :S

 

[jwsg]

All these sites are experienced and should have had long enough to review and check, but using ES and hinting retail is worse is unsettling - we have to assume retail might be even worse.

Hopefully we'll get some more off-the-leach reviews next week (fom users) with retail parts and not those published today presumably done with Intel supplied ES and press kits all under the terms of NDAs.

 

[HeX]

Games for the most part are GPU limited these days, so getting an IB isn't really going to do much for you.

 

[hyperst]

Oh well, looks like I will go SB with my Z77 MB, IB doesn't seem to be worth it, only thing going for IB is faster memory? even that for a gaming system is pointless I should think.

 

[Krono5]

Oh well, looks like I will go SB with my Z77 MB, IB doesn't seem to be worth it, only thing going for IB is faster memory? even that for a gaming system is pointless I should think.

I'm sure I read somewhere IB and Z77 would provide greater gains for memory speed, but at present if it stays like SB then the extra 500mhz or so attainable would grant about 8-9% FPS gains, however you'll lose upto half of that from looser timings.

 

[Buckster]

I'm sure I read somewhere IB and Z77 would provide greater gains for memory speed, but at present if it stays like SB then the extra 500mhz or so attainable would grant about 8-9% FPS gains, however you'll lose upto half of that from looser timings.

8-9% perofmrance increase in games just by higher memory speed ? sounds unlikely ? any post to a review showing this please ?

 

[Buckster]

as good as ziltch improvement in games with higher memory speeds according to this:

http://www.anandtech.com/show/4503/sandy-bridge-memory-scaling-choosing-the-best-ddr3/6

 

[hyperst]

What I really want to see is a 2500k vs a 3570k, max over clocks on both on a Z77 board and then some gaming bench marks between them, only then can I decide what is really worth going for.

as good as ziltch improvement in games with higher memory speeds according to this:

http://www.anandtech.com/show/4503/sandy-bridge-memory-scaling-choosing-the-best-ddr3/6

That's what I thought, zero real world difference.

 

[sunama]

What I really want to see is a 2500k vs a 3570k, max over clocks on both on a Z77 board and then some gaming bench marks between them, only then can I decide what is really worth going for.

There was a video posted earlier.

The reviewer said that he has heard reports of the ivybridge 3570k. He said that he believes that his 2500k is a better cpu as it overclocks higher and goes faster at its highest clock speed.

Right now, I honestly can't see any reason to wait for Ivybridge to hit retail channels. Not even 1 reason.

 

[rossiboy001]

This is supposed to be an IB thread , but , it seems the thought process is turning it into a SB one , its all about should I go for 2500k, 2600k,2700k ? .
Going for one of these sounds the best bet , perhaps trading in for a later mature version next year . Unless your going for the top i7 , the rest i5"s are likely to be failed and rebranded i7"s whilst intel knocks em out .

 

[james_ati]

Reading the bittech review it mentions in all benches that their 3570 was at 5Ghz... maybe it is a much better OC'er than the 3770...

 

[nickeverett]

What I really want to see is a 2500k vs a 3570k, max over clocks on both on a Z77 board and then some gaming bench marks between them, only then can I decide what is really worth going for.

Not quite what you're looking for, but its a start

http://www.techradar.com/reviews/pc-mac/pc-components/processors/intel-core-i5-3570k-1077183/review

We liked

The new Intel Core i5 3570K has everything that made its Core i5 2500K such a winning CPU.
Per core performance is the best you can buy.
It overclocks like there's no tomorrow and it's relatively affordable. We're also pleased that it remains compatible with Intel's LGA1155 socket

We disliked

Intel has created a rod for its own back in recent years by delivering ever more performance.
The new Ivy Bridge generation basically puts on the brakes.
No more cores. No more clocks. And no more overclocking headroom.
The improved graphics don't make up for that.

Verdict

A great chip, but Core i5 2550K and i5 2500K owners have nothing to worry about.

 

[jwsg]

i5s arent failed i7s. Any complex chip is functionality selected and speed binned. It does what it says on the box and what you pay for.

One review did suggest it's easier to use faster memory with IB than SB but you'll pay a higher price for it of course.

IB should be the same price as SB but with a slightly higher default clock so part of the 10% or whatever gain for your money comes from that. The big gain with IB is from the HD4000 gfx - great for Apple etc but not so great for us overclockers as has been said many times already.

For a lower power ITX or HTPC situation IB is great and some of the yet to be released S and T variants may be even better. But for regular PC builds the dicsounted Sandy's look like bargains at the moment.

 

[Krono5]

8-9% perofmrance increase in games just by higher memory speed ? sounds unlikely ? any post to a review showing this please ?

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/memory/display/sandy-bridge-ddr3_7.html#sect0

Not quite 8-9%, but close between 1600Mhz and 2133Mhz at the same timings in some games. From that it's interesting to see that it appears that the 4.7Ghz overclock is having an impact. There was another benchmark floating around with more games tested and greater differences between timings but Ic can't seem to find it.

 

[hyperst]

Reading the bittech review it mentions in all benches that their 3570 was at 5Ghz... maybe it is a much better OC'er than the 3770...

I don't know what to believe now as lots have reported IB being unstable at 4.5Ghz and over and temps sky rocket past 4.5Ghz as they cannot handle the voltage, now if they had backed up there claim with an in depth review on over clocking the chip I might believe it.

Is there any in depth over clocking reviews? surely there should be now the NDA has lifted or is it the fact it's not worth doing?

 

[james_ati]

I don't know what to believe now as lots have reported IB being unstable at 4.5Ghz and over and temps sky rocket past 4.5Ghz as they cannot handle the voltage, now if they had backed up there claim with an in depth review on over clocking the chip I might believe it.

Is there any in depth over clocking reviews? surely there should be now the NDA has lifted or is it the fact it's not worth doing?

Most of the reviews are of the 3770k not the 3570k, Bit Tech are normally pretty reliable.

 

[Jokester]

Could be that HT pushes the core over the edge temperature wise.