Technical > PC Hardware Discussion/Reviews > Haswell vs Ivy Bridge Benchmarked Compared Clock-for-Clock

reply to Octavean

Re: Haswell vs Ivy Bridge Benchmarked Compared Clock-for-Clock

reply to Octavean
We've seen changes before in the industry,....

The race to 1GHz and overall raw speed gave way to dual cores / quad cores / oct core with speed-step / turbo. Smarter processors and so on,....

Right now it looks like Intel is very concerned with competition from ARM, which, necessitates focusing on the efficiency that the industry shift towards mobile computing requires.

So performance gains look like they are being sacrificed for efficiency gains or at least that has been my prediction for a while now. With little to no competition from AMD it makes sense for Intel to go after the ARM threat. The problem with that though is that its an approach similar to Microsoft's approach with Windows 8,...that is to say going in a direction that not everyone cares to go in.

Its still a little too early to say what the performance of Haswell will be.

However, if Ivy Bridge wasn't a significant performance increase over Sandy bridge then Haswell really should be IMO.

reply to jchambers28

reply to Octavean
Performance gains in CPU maybe are not as big, but performance gains in the GPU are increasing significantly. More and more die space is being used for GPU instead of CPU (percentage wise).

I wouldn't say the direction is similar to Microsoft's at all.....
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"We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us.... We are far too easily pleased." C.S. Lewis

reply to Octavean
I think what Octavean is saying is right and reasonable. Has Intel backed off because they don't have competition? Are we reaching a wall already in the tech? I should think that expecting 30% performance gain in the CPU for the dollar should be reasonable. I realize a wall is approaching with lithography, but we're not there yet, are we?
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30% gains in any product are not reasonable year on year. Especially in a mature market.

And I would venture to say Intel is *not* slowing down on CPU performance - but if you look at the general computing market, for the *vast* majority of users, there is no need for huge jumps in performance. So where the huge volumes are, there is no need to spend a bunch of money to increase basic desktop/laptop CPU performance by huge leaps and bounds. So in the volume products, other areas are likely being focused on. In the performance markets, Workstation, Server, high-end desktop, etc - there is plenty of new horsepower coming.

Keep in mind Intel is a publicly traded company, with a huge advantage in their old market, but is a nobody in the market that most people care about these days - tablets and phones. As a company, they *have* to become a major player in that market, or be moved into irrelevance. So don't be surprised when much of the company's energy is being sent that way - it is vital for the survival of the entire company.
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"We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us.... We are far too easily pleased." C.S. Lewis

Show us a provable significant drop in PC and laptop sales that will support them backing away from those consumers.

A new Win OS is out. With every new rollout of OSs there has been a need for more "horsepower" or the new OS meant a slower system. There IS a need to provide hardware that will work up to the OSs ramp up.

You don't slough off a hand that feeds you because you see another hand in the distance. Sure, Intel NEEDS to get on the ball with the new industries, but this is hardly the time to back away from their loyal consumer base that got them to where they are, they have a responsibility to their consumers.

But debate aside. What percentage performance increase IS reasonable?1/10 of 1%? or something measurable? When AMD failed to give noticeable increases, they were slammed badly. Why shouldn't Intel taste the same medicine from critics?

OR at least a reasonable explanation of what is going on.

Just a more electrically efficient processor after years of more power is not going to settle well with the cognoscenti out there. There needs to be justification to spending a whole, what, $150-$600 on a new mainboard, plus $100-$300 on RAM, plus $100-$1000 on a new CPU, or even more.

To remain relevant you need to keep your customers, and give them a reason to buy something new over something old. Not taking risks, not pushing the envelope, shifting resources significantly away from established consumers? If that is what is happening, AMD might have a chance at a comeback...

I think Intel is jumping the gun if they are already backing out of the PC business. Are they? Are they partly?

Over reacting to the infancy of a shift in consumer attitudes, walking away from a bread basket, that certainly doesn't bode well for the new base.
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Join Teams Helix and Discovery. Rest in Peace, Leonard David Smith, my best friend, you are missed badly! Rest in peace, Pop, glad our last years were good. Please pray for Colin, he has ependymoma, a brain cancer, donate to a children's Hospital.

But WEI moved up even so. I'm not so sure that Win7 wasn't a new challenge to hardware on some levels. And Win8 is something of a significant change under the hood and in interface.

Even so, if a new OS flately and absolutely doesn't justify a measurable increase in performance, there is still software, games, apps, more demanding web use...

The bottleneck hasn't been the CPU in countless years, I hope it won't be in the coming years.

If Win8 would mean my aged Phenom Quad would deliver more performance, maybe I need to get it? What measure of increase in performance is there? I've heard nothing of this, so I have to ask.

Furthermore: if the only improvements are a better iGPU and less power used, why must consumers have to live in yet another socket change? Is intel expecting they have the right to force people into a new socket and new mainboard chipset because of those reasons?

Sounds more like change for changes sake as I reflect on this. I guess it's good since I cannot afford a new build anyways. My old Phenom II Quad will remain adequate then, so why bother getting an Intel system? Better I put any money I have into SSDs perhaps?
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Join Teams Helix and Discovery. Rest in Peace, Leonard David Smith, my best friend, you are missed badly! Rest in peace, Pop, glad our last years were good. Please pray for Colin, he has ependymoma, a brain cancer, donate to a children's Hospital.

Aren't we only talking about basic benchmarks here? We've not seen numbers from real-world applications. So really we can't say what is going on here.

reply to ccallana

Haswell introduces AVX2,FMA3,BMI2, and TSX. Don't expect much from legacy programs but it should give a big increase to optimized programs.

reply to signmeuptoo
*nobody* is saying here that Intel is backing away from the general PC business. What *I* am trying to say, is that the analysts, you know, the ones who basically make the stock market move up and down (it has very little to do with the actual performance of the company) - say something to the effect, "we think that the general computer PC business is dead, and the only area that means anything for a CPU company is making Tablet and Phone processors, and if a company doesn't, they are crap, and we won't invest in them"

So those people, who may or may not know *anything* about a PC, or even the PC business, have a say so in how things happen, and companies *have* to respond.

Intel is investing *heavily* in the standard user base. True, the market for PCs is shifting. The plain black/beige desktop box is sliding away, laptops have been out pacing desktops for a *long* time. I think in the "normal" user environment you will see 2 types of systems leading the way: The "ultrabook" type systems - super thin, super light, but not lacking in performance; and the "All-in-one" desktop system, a PC in a Monitor basically. (which really is just an ultrabook with a 27" screen as far as the hardware is concerned.) Sure, the build-your-own crowd will frown upon both of these options as non-expandable, non-configurable - so there is still a market for individual components, but I think your standard user will shy away from such systems.

As has already been said, Haswell doesn't even go on sale for *months* and many people here are already writing it off as a loser part. Perhaps we can wait until real units, and real numbers are available.... I do not believe for one moment that the architects and design engineers for Haswell said, ever, "you know, we don't really *need* to make this CPU any faster, so let's not". That is *never* part of the conversation. But there are tradeoffs that have to be made - so *if* (and I say that because we don't really know at this point) the CPU gains are not as large as perhaps was expected by the know-it-alls who do *not* design chips for Intel, it is only because it was deemed more important to put effort elsewhere.

As far as I know, nobody here is an actual chip designer for Intel here in this thread - if you are, and you know more about this than I do, please, correct me.

(btw - for those who don't know, I *am* an Intel employee. Currently Software testing for tablet graphics drivers, but formerly a CPU and Chipset validation engineer. My comments are my own, based on public information - I do not speak for the company in any official or unofficial way, and nothing here should be construed as such)
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"We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us.... We are far too easily pleased." C.S. Lewis

reply to koitsu

reply to Octavean
Ok, and it doesn't actually affect me anyways because I can't afford it. But why a new socket?

New sockets are usually driven by some new external technology - DDR3 to DDR4 for instance, or the need for more power/ground connections. While I can't say for certain, some changes are made just to physically prevent older parts from getting plugged in - usually for a good reason, like the voltages are different, etc - because even though a package says "this isn't supported" - if it fits, somebody will plug it in, and then claim no fault. What I can say, is that the reason is never "oooh, oooh, here is a way we can screw the system builders and make them buy more parts, let's change the socket!"
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"We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us.... We are far too easily pleased." C.S. Lewis

Then why has AMD stuck with the same socket for years?

That's one of the things that annoyed me about Intel for years but I overlook it because Intel has been pouncing on AMD for years ever since the Core 2 Duo came out and AMD has yet to really come back with an answer to Intel's dominance.
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Tom
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