Intel Ivy Bridge Core i7 3770k Reviewed
It seems AnandTech has an Intel i7 3770k for testing, which they have reviewed months before the NDA is to be lifted. As expected, the Ivy Bridge CPU’s performance is 5-15% better on average compared to Sandy Bridge, while GPU performance has increased 20-50%, which is a significant boost to say the least. Intel seems to have really focused on improving the GPU featured in Ivy Bridge, and this focus is obvious when looking at game performance where in Skyrim the Intel HD 4000 was roughly 50% faster then the Intel HD 3000 used in Sandy Bridge. This made Skyrim playable at medium settings up to 1680×1050 resolution. CPU performance, while not as large a jump, is still enough to push the i7 3770k past the Sandy Bridge-E 3820, which released just a short while ago. In many tests it even takes on the 3930K in applications such as Photoshop CS4 and 3DSmax 9. When it comes to discrete graphics performance in today’s biggest titles, Ivy Bridge offers a small performance increase, but nothing truly substantial when compared to previous generation offerings; however a few titles still see a nice improvement none the less.
Based on these early numbers, Ivy Bridge is pretty much right where we expected it on the CPU side. You’re looking at a 5 – 15% increase in CPU performance over Sandy Bridge at a similar price point. I have to say that I’m pretty impressed by the gains we’ve seen here today. It’s quite difficult to get tangible IPC improvements from a modern architecture these days, particularly on such a strict nearly-annual basis. For a tick in Intel’s cadence, Ivy Bridge is quite good. It feels a lot like Penryn did after Conroe, but better.
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