In the recent years Intel has pretty much dominated laptop
and desktop markets starting with the Intel Core Duo (codename Conroe) platform,
which increased performance by more than 100% compared to the previous
generation called Pentium D 800/D 900.
In the desktop sector the next three generations came with
modest improvements.
First the LGA1156 chips were made from two separate IC units:
the processor cores manufactured on 32nm technology and the other unit, made on
45nm technology, which included the memory controller and graphics processor.
The Sandy Bridge processors were the first completely
unified (CPU+GPU+memory controller) chips from Intel, completely manufactured
on 32nm technology. They also needed a new socket called LGA1155, just one pin
less than the LGA1156, but with a completely different pin layout. The
improvement in performance was around 50%.
Ivy Bridge processors were launched in 2012 and they are
here to stay at least until the end of 2013. They are about 10% faster than the
previous generation and they (quad core processors: Core i5 and i7) also
consume less energy, just 77W instead of 95W (55W instead of 65W for dual core
processors: Celeron G, Pentium G and Core i3), thanks to the improved 22nm manufacturing process.
While in these three generations the integrated graphics
processor got a bit faster with every generation (especially with the introduction of
QuickSync technology for video compression), the newly announced Haswell
processors will have twice as many space allocated inside for the integrated
graphics.
Theoretically this should mean an impressive increase in
graphics performance, but unfortunately it’s not that simple, mostly because of
the slow system memory the new platform still uses - DDR3. For truly fast
graphics the integrated GPU needs its own high speed memory, so all that GPU potential
built into the Haswell chips means nothing with shared memory, as the tests
bellow will show.
TomsHardware.com got their hands on an unlocked version of
the Haswell flagship, the Intel Core i7-4770K. After some serious testing the
picture became quite clear.
Two synthetic tests done with the popular SANDRA benchmark
utility returned impressive results:
…while other tests revealed modest improvements:
Popular games with the least demanding 3D engines run reasonably well:
Unfortunately these test results came at a cost, as Haswell processors have a higher power requirement - 84W instead of 77W for Core i5 and i7 Quad Core chips (dual core Celeron, Pentium and Core i3 chips haven’t been announced yet). For processor specs click this link.
The official launch of the 4th generation Intel Core processors is just months away (June 2?), but so far I haven't seen any serious reason why someone would upgrade an Ivy Bridge or even Sandy Bridge platform to a Haswell one. Let's not forget that while Sandy Bridge and Ivy Bridge processors use the same LGA1155 socket, the Haswell processors need LGA1150 motherboards and also consume more energy.