The Intel Haswell Refresh Review: Core i7-4790, i5-4690 and i3-4360 Tested
by Ian Cutress on May 11, 2014 3:01 AM ESTFor our discrete GPU benchmarks, we have split them up into the different GPU configurations we have tested. We have access to both MSI GTX 770 Lightning GPUs and ASUS reference HD 7970s, for SLI and Crossfire respectively. These tests are all run at 1080p and maximum settings, reporting the average and minimum frame rates.
dGPU Benchmarks: 2x ASUS HD7970
F1 2013
Bioshock Infinite
Moving up to two AMD GPUs puts the i3 on the back foot with Bioshock Infinite average frame rates, with the i5/i7 pulling a ~30% lead.
Tomb Raider
Sleeping Dogs
Sleeping Dogs matches Bioshock Infinite in that as the GPU power increases, the demands on the CPU does as well. As the i3 has two fewer cores, frame rates are struggling to get above 60 FPS with an i3, and you really need an i5 or i7 for 60 FPS minimum.
Company of Heroes 2
Battlefield 4
Battlefield is known for taking advantage of all the resources available, and while the added threads of the i7 does not seem to make much difference, the two fewer cores of the i3 show a 50% lead to the quad core counterparts compared to the i3.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
130 Comments
View All Comments
ilkhan - Sunday, May 11, 2014 - link
With 9-series, Intel is enabling Rapid Storage Technology 13, allowing UEFI support, RADI 0/1/5/10Think you meant RAID.
Ian Cutress - Sunday, May 11, 2014 - link
Interesting, I remember correcting that a couple of days ago in an edit. Might not have saved. Updated :)ahar - Sunday, May 11, 2014 - link
I await your correction in the conclusion with bated breath. ;)Bugfree - Sunday, May 11, 2014 - link
Reading the conclusions I agree that Intel is somehow underperforming, since...well...they can. No real challengers or competition from AMD at this point. I really hope this changes soon...schizoide - Sunday, May 11, 2014 - link
Exactly. Intel doesn't _need_ to release anything. They essentially have no competitors at the high-end space. AMD's CPUs can't even compete with the i3.nandnandnand - Sunday, May 11, 2014 - link
It would take a miracle to inject competition into the CPU market: http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1322247Jaaap - Monday, May 12, 2014 - link
We need that miracle.This "Haswell Refresh" is total nonsense. It is just shuffling a bit with names and frequencies.
Where is the looooong overdue desktop quadcore with Iris Pro?
ReaM - Sunday, November 23, 2014 - link
"AMD's CPUs can't even compete with the i3"I think you've read some other article, because A8-7600 destroys the equally priced i3 in most tests.
The gaming benchmarks are skewed towards intel in this review because they've used 1280x1084 resolution on most gaming tests. Many of the games don't run well on full HD and intel.
John3000 - Saturday, November 28, 2015 - link
AMD CPU's like fx 8350 are beaten in some game by i3 by a very small margin but in most they are close to Core i5 and in many AAA Game are near to core i7 in performance.shorne21592159 - Thursday, May 15, 2014 - link
i have just changed to using amd apus after many years using intel chips .im really enjoying amd and what they are doing at the moment with lot of hope for the future and although not as fast as intels at moment they do the job at the moment well for me ,plus i seem to be able to overclock amd chips much more than an intel with less problems for some reason