Intel Core i7-4770K Review: Haswell Has Landed

Intel is officially launching Haswell today, their 4th Generation Core processor technology for the desktop market, with a follow-on release of dual core and mobile Haswell offerings coming up quickly on June 3rd. Haswell marks a number of firsts for Intel, including leading-edge technologies like on-chip voltage regulators, eDRAM, and their first graphics engine that fully supports the DX11.1 specification and OpenGL 4.0. With these new features alone, Haswell is primed to offer significant performance and feature enhancements. That said, Intel’s 4th Generation quad-core desktop variant, the Core i7-4770K that Intel showcased today honestly feels a little tepid, in terms of its modest gains over previous generation Ivy Bridge performance. Haswell currently feels like its biggest play will be in the mobile space, at least until higher-end Haswell desktop CPUs come to market. Haswell mobile CPUs with Iris and Iris Pro Graphics engines, will undoubtedly shine even brighter, especially when you look at performance-per-watt and battery life metrics. That said, Haswell is the proverbial foundation for Intel’s next round of products and product life cycle. Intel’s 4th Generation Core processor technology has been enabled with new functional blocks and features that will provide much-needed platform hooks for future generation enhancements and performance gains.