Haswell-E - Intel's First 8 Core Desktop Processor Exposed

[Naito]

You're going to tell me that three years on a platform is insufficient? Socket 1155 ran from January 2011 to June 2013. 29 months as opposed to 36 from LGA 2011.

^This. A majority of people probably upgrade every two to three years anyway, which is the lifespan of the current sockets.

 

[radrok]

1st gen LGA 2011 really didn't appeal to me at all considering the current chips are now two generations behind the mainstream ones.

Agreed,

I'm so damn pissed about the fact that Z87 Haswell is such a better platform than X79 SB-E that it was about time Intel did something for its flagship.

 

[Jorge]

Sort of...

By pretty much all reviewer accounts Haswell brings almost no performance gains over IB which brought almost no perfomance gains over SB - other than the GPU section. Intel does continue to lower power consumption which is useful for laptops but it really means nothing for desktop unless you are paying some astronomical rates for electricity which most folks aren't. Using a toaster or other common household device would consume way more than any power saving from Haswell. AMD has also lowered their power consumption on laptop Trinity and Richland APUs so Haswell really has no advantage there and is woefully inadequate in GPU performance.

For Intel to release an 8-core consumer desktop CPU, you know they are feeling the heat of poor performance from IB and now Haswell, especially with AMD about to launch Kaveri and Steamroller in Q4. It's all good for consumers because you can pick your poison be it best performance and value or over-priced exploitation. The choice is completely yours.

 

[cadaveca]

By pretty much all reviewer accounts Haswell brings almost no performance gains over IB which brought almost no perfomance gains over SB - other than the GPU section.

I don't hold that opinion myself. The performance gains of today aren't as large as they have been in years past, but the difference in actual performance(not benchmarks) between SandyBridge and Haswell is very noticeable for me personally. Is there reason to upgrade through that series of CPUs? No, not really. But processing requirements by software has hardly increased, so the actual performance benefits are not noticed when they do exist.


Haswell is exciting for me for other reasons. Not one single reviewer has touched on why. I fully understand why most are un-impressed. They lack vision. I hate to say that, because I respect a lot of these guys, but really...total lack of vision. Haswell-E isn't going to magically change that.

 

[Jstn7477]

I don't hold that opinion myself. The performance gains of today aren't as large as they have been in years past, but the difference in actual performance(not benchmarks) between SandyBridge and Haswell is very noticeable for me personally. Is there reason to upgrade through that series of CPUs? No, not really. But processing requirements by software has hardly increased, so the actual performance benefits are not noticed when they do exist.


Haswell is exciting for me for other reasons. Not one single reviewer has touched on why. I fully understand why most are un-impressed. They lack vision. I hate to say that, because I respect a lot of these guys, but really...total lack of vision. Haswell-E isn't going to magically change that.

One of the reasons why I have upgraded through the last two generations was first for the nice power consumption decrease with Ivy, but the supposed 10% performance increase clock for clock for each generation was nice in my opinion. I know people are probably tired of me saying this, but I need every ounce of CPU performance for many games at 120Hz, and I can easily see the difference in TF2, even though it is relatively old. That game sees big differences with clock speed, as someone with a 5.2GHz 2500K beats out my 4.3GHz 4770K by a good 30 FPS (164 vs. 134 on the same recorded timedemo). Nobody seems to understand that maintaining 120 FPS even in some older multiplayer games is difficult though so I can't really argue with the "Phenom/FX people" who only play at 60 and don't see the CPU bottlenecks I see on my setup.

 

[eidairaman1]

well it would appear Intel is not worth the point of going to if the Skt 2011 isnt supported for Haswell, Considering Haswell isnt any better than ivb or sb.

 

[Filiprino]

This hardware could be my next upgrade. Or the server version with 10 cores in dual configuration. AVX2 is just too much improvement to resist
PCIe 3.0 certified, DDR4, tons of USB 3.0 and SATA ports, integrated VRM, 6.5 W TDP on the southbridge. Great.

The motherboard manufacturers won't have much room for their gimmicks, like fans or heatpipes.

As for the DDR4, there's hope for the memory to rise up to 4266 Mhz (MT/s), with starting speeds on 2133 Mhz. Tons of bandwidth random access latency times in absolute figures we know haven't decreased nor increased, just the ability to chain/interleave accesses or put more GBs without impacting performance. This must be challenging for the new instructions in Haswell that do gathering.

http://www.realworldtech.com/haswell-cpu/2/

 

[Dent1]

hell even Steamroller is meant to fit AM3+ right?

Steamroller can fit in a AM2 or AM2+ board providing their is a bios update. I've seen a few boards from 2007 ish which are AM3+ compatible.

 

[Aquinus]

Steamroller can fit in a AM2 or AM2+ board providing their is a bios update. I've seen a few boards from 2007 ish which are AM3+ compatible.

Please find them because to my knowledge AM3+ CPUs no longer have a DDR2 controller in the IMC. AM3 was the last set of chips that could drive DDR2.

 

[Am*]

One of the reasons why I have upgraded through the last two generations was first for the nice power consumption decrease with Ivy, but the supposed 10% performance increase clock for clock for each generation was nice in my opinion. I know people are probably tired of me saying this, but I need every ounce of CPU performance for many games at 120Hz, and I can easily see the difference in TF2, even though it is relatively old. That game sees big differences with clock speed, as someone with a 5.2GHz 2500K beats out my 4.3GHz 4770K by a good 30 FPS (164 vs. 134 on the same recorded timedemo). Nobody seems to understand that maintaining 120 FPS even in some older multiplayer games is difficult though so I can't really argue with the "Phenom/FX people" who only play at 60 and don't see the CPU bottlenecks I see on my setup.

There is only so much expensive hardware you can throw at poorly optimized engines/games, do not waste too much money trying. I have several other games that suffer the same fate (Chivalry: Medieval Warfare, L4D and most other Valve games especially), and I do not ever intend to upgrade for them because they are released either with ancient development kits and never updated or when single cores were the only/main way to go (so devs were expecting 7GHz+ P4s by now, I presume, which of course never happened). Don't be too quick to blame your CPU though, I don't think TF2 is that CPU limited (it is poorly threaded, but shouldn't run that slow with such an OC'd processor), best way to be sure it is a CPU bottleneck is to run it at 1024x768 or another ridiculously low resolution and see the framerate then. If it goes up, it's a GPU bottleneck.

 

[newtekie1]

Steamroller can fit in a AM2 or AM2+ board providing their is a bios update. I've seen a few boards from 2007 ish which are AM3+ compatible.

Besides the fact that no AM3+ CPU has a DDR2 memory controller, and hence will not work in an AM2 or AM2+ motherboard, AM3+ CPUs are not even supposed to work in AM3 motherboardS. AMD didn't change the pin layout, but they did change the pins to allow more current, and AM3+ CPUs do not officially support AM3 motherboards.

 

[Jstn7477]

There is only so much expensive hardware you can throw at poorly optimized engines/games, do not waste too much money trying. I have several other games that suffer the same fate (Chivalry: Medieval Warfare, L4D and most other Valve games especially), and I do not ever intend to upgrade for them because they are released either with ancient development kits and never updated or when single cores were the only/main way to go (so devs were expecting 7GHz+ P4s by now, I presume, which of course never happened). Don't be too quick to blame your CPU though, I don't think TF2 is that CPU limited (it is poorly threaded, but shouldn't run that slow with such an OC'd processor), best way to be sure it is a CPU bottleneck is to run it at 1024x768 or another ridiculously low resolution and see the framerate then. If it goes up, it's a GPU bottleneck.

It's okay, I use all of my systems for distributed computing and I replace old/dead ones with new ones, so I have no problem upgrading my main rig and passing down the parts to work in my farm. TF2 is CPU bottlenecked because I can literally turn down the CPU multiplier and my framerate goes down accordingly. My 7970 usually sits at around 15-40% utilization. Borderlands 2 is close to being CPU bottlenecked but my GPU gets maxed out first. I've seen CPU thread utilization as high as 90% for 1-2 threads in that game as well. Probably one of the worst performing games I have played is Planetside 2, but that's pretty much a given because there are tons of players on each server.

 

[BorisDG]

It's funny how all of you are controversing about LGA1155 and LGA2011, but you are forgetting the real king - LGA1366 - may be the biggest leap in Intel's history. Also this is the chipset with longest life. Even till now, this is kick ass platform. So, looking forward for Haswell-E. Everything else (LGA1150/2011) is just a joke.

 

[eidairaman1]

It's funny how all of you are controversing about LGA1155 and LGA2011, but you are forgetting the real king - LGA1366 - may be the biggest leap in Intel's history. Also this is the chipset with longest life. Even till now, this is kick ass platform. So, looking forward for Haswell-E. Everything else is just a gimmic.

what sucks is Intel ditched it too fast- despite it being faster in certain tasks than 1156/1155.

 

[BrainCruser]

Yea I know and i thought that to be crazy as the difference between the two was near nothing I guess im just used to using AMD and having many CPU choices from even three gens back to use in my current mobo unless there is some major major difference, hell even Steamroller is meant to fit AM3+ right?

To me Intel is just making it confusing with all these new sockets, but that's just me.

I can under stand I guess with this new 8 core as its intels first and all, but i just don't get it with socket 1150, that socket is going to be very short lived?

We are talking about a new memory type, that alone changes a lot of stuff on the mobo. Also you are paying 500+ $ for CPU you can fork out half of that for a new platform.

 

[Hilux SSRG]

It's funny how all of you are controversing about LGA1155 and LGA2011, but you are forgetting the real king - LGA1366 - may be the biggest leap in Intel's history. Also this is the chipset with longest life. Even till now, this is kick ass platform. So, looking forward for Haswell-E. Everything else (LGA1150/2011) is just a joke.

LGA1366 was awesome. Nice to see Intel throw an eight core bone *next year* to the performance category but I'm waiting on Skylake in 2015 if I can.

 

[Vlada011]

Like most of people probably, and I decide to wait that Haswell 8 cores Black Box.
That worth waiting for people who have everything almost latest.
Now only DDR4, SATA Express and more than 6 cores is important.
This platform worth waiting 100%. Even to everybody leave 50e every month it's enough for
8 cores Intel Black and one Black motherboard.
IB-E is to similar with SB-E, Haswell is same as my 4 cores, DDR3, 7%, SATA III same speed, little better performance,
20% worse OC. Motherboards are much better but for Haswell than for IB but X99 will be even better.
We must attack on Intel and press them to make that monster like people deserve, with 1000MHz OC possible on AIR and good performance difference.
At least 15% clear from IB-E/

 

[Aquinus]

We must attack on Intel and press them to make that monster like people deserve, with 1000MHz OC possible on AIR and good performance difference.

Haha. What? Consumers don't disserve anything. It all comes down to what Intel can do and how many resources they devote to improving their platform. They have the market and there is absolutely no reason for them to keep pushing performance; there is no reason to. Any software that your average consumer runs will work fine on hardware that has been out for the last 3 years. Also my 3820 has a stock clock of 3.6Ghz (3.8Ghz boost) and it can overclock to 4.75 before needing too much voltage. Last time I checked that's just about 1Ghz and I'm running on air. I'm pretty sure that's my motherboard holding it back too because I've seen people with ROG boards pushing the 3820 to 5Ghz.

 

[jihadjoe]

They realy should of just kept skt 1155 for Haswell and Broadwell as well, that would of been a realy good socket to keep then? Not like there is a huge difference between them all is there?

I would imagine integrating the VRM onto the chip would make the old socket incompatible, no matter the pin-counts. It's obviously a mobile-focused decision that unforunately affects all of us.

Question for all of us hold-outs is when does this actually release? If it comes out next year then Ivy Bridge-E could very well be the shortest lived product ever.

 

[Random Murderer]

A little disappointing for us X79 owners who were actually looking forward to IVB-E, but at the same time I don't see myself hopping on the X99 bandwagon. The first generation of new RAM is generally pretty slow for its own generation. When DDR3 just came out, there was only a slight jump in speed over high-end DDR2(DDR2 was at 1200+, DDR3 launched at 1066 and 1333).
I'll take my quad channel, high speed DDR3 over that quad channel, same speed or only slightly faster DDR4 that requires a new board and CPU.
Besides, 32GB of DDR3-2800+ and a six-core IVB-E should be powerful enough for a few more years and by then X119 or whatever they plan on calling the next HEDT platform should be out and I'll be ready to upgrade again. Hell, X58 is just now starting to lag behind a little, and it's been around for what, nearly 6 years?
I suppose my point is this: I can justify an upgrade to IVB-E and some new RAM in six months, but I can't justify building an all-new system just for DDR4 and a slight CPU performance boost in a year and a half. To those that don't already have an HEDT platform, this may be appealing, but DDR4 needs time to mature on the open market before I'll consider going there...

EDIT: Another point is that with any of the SB, SB-E, IVB, and Haswell i7 chips, you put a slight OC on them and you'd be hard-pressed to find a real-world application(not benches or crunching/folding) that actually stresses all cores, much less stresses all cores to 100%. Why waste time with four more threads that run a little slower when eight/twelve threads aren't being fully utilized? E-peen, that's all I can figure...
Looking back, I should have built an X58 rig when they were new. I would just now be looking to upgrade, lol. That being said, with this X79 rig I don't even need to upgrade to IVB-E and it should last a few more years. I'm really just looking forward to IVB-E for higher RAM speeds and a new overclocking adventure. I'm sure a lot of people will love their X99 rigs, but the appeal to me is really just getting a look forward.

 

[Hilux SSRG]

Consumers don't disserve anything. It all comes down to what Intel can do and how many resources they devote to improving their platform.

What? Consumers pay for product, if the product isn't up to snuff *Haswell or Ivy-E* then consumers will not buy, switch to AMD possibly or wait until the next upgrade cycle.

You can't deny Intel is innovating [performance wise] at a slower pace than enthuisiasts or early adopters would like.

 

[CrAsHnBuRnXp]

This might actually be worth upgrading to.

Still no Thunderbolt? Come on Intel, you're going to let it go the way of firewire.

All the cool sounding names always go the way of the dodo rather quickly.

So you need to once again replace your motherboard, its not a drop in replacement? and im guessing the price will be around $1500?

Even if the CPU was drop in, they are going DDR4 which would require a motherboard upgrade anyway.

 

[riffraffy]

So much bitching about new motherboards/sockets here, but clearly none of you noted that the new platform supports DDR4 which is highly likely the main reason for the socket change. Considering Intel would have to make major changes to the memory interface of the CPU, it's easy to see why they had to change the CPU socket.
If you don't want to pay for it, no-one's going to be forcing you to upgrade, so there...

I'll bet Intel could make DDR4 work on a 775 socket if they were incline to all they have to do is move around the furniture so to speak.What I'll like to know is why would they promote more motherboard sales if thats a business they are leaving, is it to sell more bridge-chipset and the like . When I buy a new CPU I pair it with a new mobo because of advances in both technologies (Like thunderbolt maybe) but it wound be nice if it were my choice .

 

[Aquinus]

I'll bet Intel could make DDR4 work on a 775 socket if they were incline to all they have to do is move around the furniture so to speak.

Yeah, if they wanted to redesign and replace the MCH and every DIMM slot on every skt775 board, then maybe, but that's ridiculous and stupid. It's not as easy as it sounds to just move a platform from what type of memory to another. Wherever the IMC is, it has to support it. So for the example for Haswell-E, they don't just have to re-do the circuitry for the DRAM, they have to redo the IMC in the Haswell-E chip itself to process DDR4.

It's astonishing how people think that it's so easy to change a CPU or how a modern computer works, it's completely outstanding and blows my mind. The reality of it is that it isn't that easy and the more changes you make the more money, time, and effort it will cost.

What? Consumers pay for product, if the product isn't up to snuff *Haswell or Ivy-E* then consumers will not buy, switch to AMD possibly or wait until the next upgrade cycle.

You can't deny Intel is innovating [performance wise] at a slower pace than enthuisiasts or early adopters would like.

Just because Intel hasn't improved performance doesn't mean that they're not innovating. I see a number of changes to Haswell that aren't CPU performance related that are worthy of note.

 

[jihadjoe]

I'll bet Intel could make DDR4 work on a 775 socket if they were incline to all they have to do is move around the furniture so to speak.What I'll like to know is why would they promote more motherboard sales if thats a business they are leaving, is it to sell more bridge-chipset and the like . When I buy a new CPU I pair it with a new mobo because of advances in both technologies (Like thunderbolt maybe) but it wound be nice if it were my choice .

It's easy to make stuff work on a 775 socket because stuff (like the memory controller) was still on the north bridge and not integrated into the CPU. In fact, they could probably get DDR4 to work with an old Core2 on Socket 775, but they sure won't get it to work with any current Nehalem, Sandy or Ivy.