Tech Buzz: About Haswell, Intel’s 4th generation of Core CPUs

About Haswell, Intel's 4th generation of Core CPUs:

Performance vs previous generation of Intel CPUs:
Intel new fourth generation of Core CPUs, known under the codename Haswell is here.

1. Replacing Intel's LGA1155 Ivy Bridge (known as Core ix 3xxx) CPUs, the LGA1150 based Haswell CPUs (Known as Core ix 4xxx) bring in on average a 8% performance improvement.
2. Compared to the 2nd generation of Intel CPUs, Sandy Bridge (Core ix 2xxx), the LGA1150 based Haswell CPUs (Known as Core ix 4xxx) bring in on average a 17% performance improvement.
3. Compared to the 1st generation of Intel CPUs, Nehalem (Core ix xxx), the LGA1150 based Haswell CPUs (Known as Core ix 4xxx) bring in on average a 44% performance improvement.

Power consumption:

When you compare the whole system power consumption, the Haswell platform consumes about 11W less at idle compared to Ivy Bridge. At load, the power consumption increases by about 12W but if you consider that it completes workloads faster than Ivy Bridge, it's about as power efficient under load and more efficient at idle.

Overclocking:

Non-K series CPUs:
Either fully locked (no OC possible) or mostly locked (very little overclocking possible)

To overclock a non-K series CPU, you'll want to raise the CPU multiplier:

• If you have a CPU that offers no Turbo mode (e.g. Celeron/Pentium/Core i3), then you can't raise the multiplier at all and thus can't overclock. In short: Your CPU is completely locked.
• If you have a CPU with Turbo modes (e.g. Core i5-4570), you can overclock, but just a tiny bit, using a motherboard equipped with a Z chipset. You are limited to an overclock of to the highest available Turbo one core frequency.

Let's use a Core i5-4570, which runs at 3.2GHz by default, as an example:

• When one or two cores are active, the chip can turbo up to 3.6GHz. You cannot change that turbo state to go any higher.
• When three cores are active, the chip can turbo up to 3.5GHz. You can change that turbo state to go as high as 3.6GHz.
• When four cores are active, the chip can turbo up to 3.4GHz. You can change that turbo state to go as high as 3.6GHz.

Overclocking the non-K Core i5/i7 chips relies entirely on turbo however. In the case above, the fastest your chip will run is 3.6GHz. Not exactly exciting, but better than nothing.

- See more at: http://www.hardware-revolution.com/best-cpu-processor-october-2013/#sthash.p9UwFqqC.dpuf