Intel Core i7 4770K and Z87 chipset review [Guru3D.com]

I just like there fans I have 2 types of case fans Scythe Gentle Typhoon and Noctua both are damn near silent but the Noctua runs at higher rpm, Both these fans put the Fan in my Zalman HSF for CPU to shame tho noise wise.

Got to admit tho the zalman has been locked at 1200rpms for ever and it never lets the cpu go past 62c usual mid 55 and high 20c on idle

I do want to see what you say bout the upgrade , pretty similar build other then the fact you OCe and I dont. That and I torn on what MB to buy

 

Should get my stuff tomorrow

 

I don't think it bottlenecks my HD7970 GHz, i'm maxing GPU usage in various games at 1080p.

CFX/SLI sure, but single GPU not yet.

 

I'm so tempted to buy it but I know my future wife(getting married this sunday) would be pretty annoyed with me if she knew exactly what I did. I need a new case bad, this is the only aftermarket case I ever had and from my first build til now, almost 11 years or so. I think I need a new case and think I can slip in the upgrade, lol. If I can sell my old parts quick she wont be mad though.

 

You want to spend money now on the case rather than use all your upgrade money up on the honeymoon hey?

EDIT: Forgot to mention, congrats by the way!

 

Congrats too your new marriage! I'll be right behind you soon. My house is closing this weekend. So much going on, so many moving parts.

 

I guarantee you are cpu bound at times. Crysis 3 would certainly run faster if you had a quicker cpu.

You are probably getting decent fps but a haswell running at 4.x ghz would definitely speed things up.

 

Thanks guys, sadly I'm not having a honeymoon, were having a small thing. Anyways gonna try and put my stuff up for sale first. Probably wait til next week cause busy.

 

Man some of this MB cost almost as much as the damn CPU. Asus Sabbertooth is like 250+ dollars. That is like 3/4th he price of the CPU. Tho I do like the idea of the Whole Board having HS cover Short of the the actual slots for the devices...


Been looking at Z87-G45-GAMING or the EVGA Z87 FTW Both use Realtek Audio though sadly, one is Killer NIC VS Intel NIC Would bought Evga classified but I not gona pay the 250$ + Evga gona want for the classified with the Creative core3d Audio even if I would love to get away from realtek audio due to there headphone out have nasty feedback and static in them at 70% or higher volumes Gona have to see what Evga prices are

Newegg i7 4770 350$
Microcenter i7 4770 289$ That and Microcenter give your 40-50$ off the MB if you buy both at same time.

100$ or so for 16gb ram 1600mz 9cas

I bought my last pc build from Microcenter looks like it same plave I gona buy stuff from again even with the 2.5% sales tax they have (even though state 8$) Im saving money as opposed to newegg or Tigredirect unless you get it from them when that have one of the sales.


Though the Noctua u14s one expensive HSF infact it one the most expensive setup I wanted to get most all the other setups where 40$ and from zalman it seem to even hard to find seeing I found only 3 places that sell it online. But then buy the time i actual get around to getting the parts all this might be cheaper and next gen be out, and I windup wating again haha

 

Finally back on Windows with my new gear.

Sadly enough i had to return the Corsair Dominator Platinum 2400 MHz. I ran into a compatibility issue with the Noctua NH-U14S. It's sooooo large that i could only orientate it with the fans facing up (sucking from the back of the videocard) else i couldn't install my videocard because the Heatsink and Fans hang over the first and only PCI-E 16x slot. Not a big issue, but as a result i couldn't fit the memory cuz it is very high profile.

So i sorted a RMA service to trade it with some Gskill ARES 2133 MHz, the Blue kit which is CL9.

For now i'm on my old 1600 MHz memory. Also wont be OCing untill i got my new Memory. Somewhere next week.

So far so good, there is like no BIOS post at all. Boots lightning fast

 

aw man, I don't know how you can be so patient! I'm dying to know what you can do with that Noctua

 

Is there a new noctua cooler?

I'm loving my Scythe kama cross so far, it exceeded my expectations. :3eyes:
28c idle, 53c on load.
Too good for what it costs.

Be using it also when my 4770k arrives.
Currently using FX-6300@4,5ghz.

 

I can't see that happening since gpu is 100% usage and cpu 70-80%.

Plus there are some scenes that CPU is 50% and gpu is 50% proving that Crysis 3 is badly optimized, anyway i wouldnt upgrade for one game.

I would need much more titles using my cpu to the max.

 

No point in upgrading for a lousy 5 hour campaign either. Just watch someone playing it maxed on youtube or something

 

I'm very happy with my CPU right now even it's soo old , but it's running cool max 70C ( Scythe Mugen 2 cooler ) , and stable for almost 4 years now.

All test i made sugest that my gpu isnt bottlenecked in anyway ( all scores comparable to review here in Guru3D ).

Maybe next generation of gpus will bring this cpu to its knees.

 

Well, it does happen Don't rely on usage numbers, they aren't necessarily accurate and don't sample fast enough to tell the whole story all the time. There are plenty of reviews showing the benefit of faster cpus and more cores in Crysis 3:

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/crysis-3-performance-benchmark-gaming,3451-8.html

http://www.techspot.com/review/642-crysis-3-performance/page6.html

Anyway, like I said, I'm sure you're getting decent framerates and for now, the argument to upgrade isn't compelling. As games become more demanding over the next couple of years, you will definitely see the benefit of a Haswell @ 4.x over your current cpu.

 

Of course, but then there will be something more appealing than haswell
Right now i'm playing not much damanding games ( Path of exile, League of legends ) , i finished Crysis 3 FPS was 45-90FPS maxed out 1080p, so i can't really complain even if haswell would improve few fps there and there.

 

Depends if you want to go 6 core or not. I think next year might be the time to jump onto that ship

http://techlogg.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/haswellroadmap.jpg

 

In gaming, other than Crysis 3 and the few games that may utilize more than 4 cores/threads, there is not that much difference between the i5-750 and SB/IB/HW when they are running at same clock speeds.

http://semiaccurate.com/2011/01/02/intel-core-i7-2500k-review/

I had a 760 @4ghz and would have stayed with it if not for some motherboard, SATA controller issues I was having.

 

Here is an interesting read I came across on why Intel had to use TIM instead of Solder for 22nm process and below:

http://iweb.tms.org/PbF/JOM-0606-67.pdf