Platform upgrade: Core i7-920 vs i7-3770 at 4.2GHz featuring ECS Golden Series Motherboard and Kingston
Game-related benchmarks
The synthetics
3DMark 11 and Vantage are useful tests to track changes within the same system and they are often used to give a rough comparison between platforms.
Vantage
First up we look at Vantage with a GTX 680 and i7-920 at 4.2GHz.
Very strange and it appears to be just driver-related to the impossibly low CPU score on ECS motherboard. The same Core i7-3770K on the Gigabyte mother board did well, scoring 38503 and just edging out the i7-920 at 4.2GHz
3DMark 11
Now we look at Futuremark’s latest DX11 graphics-heavy test. First up is Core i7-920 at 4.2GHz paired with a reference clocked GTX 680.
Now we look at Core i7-3770K at 4.2GHz paired with the same reference GTX 680:
In all cases, unlike with Vantage, Ivy Bridge is faster than Bloomfield in this synthetic graphics test. Now let’s check CPU graphics
Integrated CPU HD 4000 Graphics and Core i7-3770K Ivy Bridge – ECS Z77 vs Gigabyte Z77 motherboard – in gaming
This evaluation is focused on the Core i7-3770K in gaming. And since there are integrated HD 4000 Graphics built into the CPU, we will also bench it using it at low details and a low 720p resolution and compare it on both Z77 motherboards at the same (stock) settings.
The improvement over HD 3000 Graphics is significant. Finally, DX9 and DX10 games can play relatively smoothly at 720P and DX11 is a possiblity using HD 4000 graphics. However, we have no explanation for the differences in 4 games.
Now let’s compare our overclocked Core i7-920 versus our Ivy Bridge i7-3770K using a GTX 680 at both stock and also overclocked speeds.
The Game Benchmarks with the GTX 680 and the GTX 690
Here are the benches for the Core i7-920 at 4.2GHz versus Core i7-3770 also at 4.2GHz. All games have their setting completely maxed out and levels of AA are identified on the chart. The GTX 680 and the GTX 690 are run at their reference clock speeds.
The first 3 columns use the GTX 680. The first results column is the Ivy Bridge i7-3700K at 4.2GHz versus the Core i7-920 at 4.2GHz in the second column. The third column represents the Core i7-3700K at 4.8GHz to show Ivy’s scaling as it is overclocked further.
We now install our GTX 690 and the fourth column represents the Core i7-920 at 4.2GHz with 4GB of PC1800 at 1200MHz versus the same settings at 2000MHz in the fifth column.
The sixth column is the i7-3770K at 4.2GHz using DDR3 at 1333MHz versus using the same setup at 4.8GHz. The seventh column increases the RAM speed to 1867MHz while the last column compares that same 4.8GHz overclock with 4GB DDR3 but now with 8GB of RAM at the same speeds.
Main Summary Charts
As you can see, the Ivy Bridge Core i7-3770K at 4.2GHz pulls away from the older CPU in games that are not GPU-limited. The differences are not significant, but when we further overclock Ivy Bridge to 4.8GHz, it pulls even further away from Bloomfield which is forever stuck at 4.2GHz.
If you are a gamer, you can definitely “get by” with an older CPU. However, we saw the need to upgrade to Ivy Bridge more strongly indicated by most tasks other than gaming.
Let’s head for our conclusion.
No offense, but there are two main summary charts that are identical to each other. Is the second one supposed to show different games?
Don’t forget about the “[insert chart]” part! 😛
None taken. Thanks for pointing it out!
Fixed.
Never mind my previous comment, as it’s now fixed, thanks!
Of course, Civilization V does better with Ivy Bridge than with Bloomfield, all clocked the same. At 4.8GHz (IB), CivV is like 30% faster than Nehalem (Bloomfield) at 4.2GHz.
BUT what amazes me is that Nehalem still seems to be doing just as well as IB overall, clock-for-clock. In Crysis 2, Nehalem is like 15% faster than IB. At 4.2GHz, Nehalem still beats IB at 4.8 GHz in DX11 mode, by around 15%!! I was thinking of blaming it on the system memory bandwidth (with Nehalem using triple channel), but even at only 1200MHz, Nehalem still shines pretty much just as much as it does at 2000 MHz.
The case reverses in the favor of IB but only by a few percentage points for Crysis 1, LP2, HAWX2.
It goes to show that unless one is a serious Civilization V gamer, an overclocked Nehalem would be just fine for even a GTX 690. I would guess that Starcraft 2 and Skyrim (other CPU-limited games not tested here) are the only other games that show a noticeable improvement on the Ivy Bridge.
Thanks, apoppin for all of this benchmarking that pretty much nobody else on the ‘net have done with all of these games, on the still mighty Nehalem!!
Amazing work!
It would be one of these, but with an Athlon II X4 OC with maximum range and I7 3770K OC max.
Athlon X4 ~ 3.5Ghz vs 5Ghz i7 3770K for example
It would be interesting to see one of these with a single GPU both as a dual system which is where I think you will notice more.
Sorry for my English.
I have a 3770k and a I7 920. Its was a nice review because many people with older i7s are itching for an upgrade. I do think this review is biased in its language. The non scientific language of “Way Faster” vs saying its 8 percent faster is a dead give away. “What faster is subjective where a percentage is objective. Way faster to them seems to be any test that the Ivy beats the bloomfield in.
USB 3.0 ports are nice but can be installed in an older X58 board (they fail to mention)
For gaming its not worth the upgrade at all. For most windows tasks its not worth it.
For tasks that take hours then it might be worth it. Ie encoding, but here a 6 core would be better than a quad. So an upgrade to a 6 core might be cheaper on x58 than doing entire MB/RAM swap.
Not trying to rain on the parade but this review seems to want to justify the upgrade by using subjective wording rather than just stating the percentages.