Haswell vs. Ivy Bridge. Duel of two ultrabooks

In the post dedicated to the launch of Haswell in Russia, we promised that the new generation of Intel processors will remain in the spotlight for a long time. At the same time, it was decided that as soon as the hands of the first samples of devices on Haswell will reach us, we will immediately test them and compare the figures with the previous generation. Ultrabooks were expected to be the first available samples, so we began to study consumer properties of the new platform on them.

So again, the battle for performance, one on one, old versus new. Naturally, the test results would have looked more beautiful if the devices on similar processors were compared. Unfortunately, we failed to do this - there are very few products at Haswell, we have to work with what we have. And we have this.

Ultrabook based on Intel Core i7-3667U processor (Ivy Bridge)


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And ultrabook based on Intel Core i5-4350U processor (Haswell)



In addition to the processors and graphics cores (in the first case, Intel HD Graphics 4000, in the second - Intel HD Graphics 5000), the ultrabooks are identical: 4 GB of memory, system SSD at 120/180 GB. The operating system is Windows 8.

As you can see, the “old” ultrabook (we will use this terminology) has a more powerful platform, and if we were talking about one generation, the comparison would have no meaning - the result is clear in advance. Will the new processor be able to counter the skill number? It is even wondering if Haswell’s technological advantages will be enough to compensate for the lower processing power.

Let's start with the PCMark complex test, which shows the overall performance of the system.



Almost a draw, however, Haswell's slight superiority in terms of handicap is very significant. It turns out that with the change of generations, the performance indicators shifted by one position - the old i7 is in something equivalent to the new i5. And even a little worse.

Now let's see the processor tests. Here are the results of the “thresher” in its pure form - CPU Queen integer chess test.



Everything is clear here - there is no reception against scrap. i7 grind i5 clean. However, if you take a more multifactorial test, for example, archiving speed using the ZLib library, which also takes into account the speed of data exchange between the processor and memory, the results look much smoother.



A completely different picture emerges when we compare the graphic subsystem of two ultrabooks. As we remember, it was the graphics core of Haswell that its developers were most proud of. Now there is an opportunity to visually show that it’s not for nothing that these are the results of 3DMark tests.



A 53% gain on a real synthetic test is, you see, a good indicator. For an additional study of the gaming capabilities of the graphics core, we used the Unigine Heaven graphics benchmark, which focuses on the advanced features of DirectX 11.



Testing was performed with two picture quality settings - high and medium. In both cases, the increase was about 25% - also not a trifle.

And finally, we could not ignore the issue of autonomy - after all, two ultrabooks are competing. As a test load, HD video playback was selected.



Here Haswell put the enemy on both shoulder blades. More than 6 hours against 3 and a half! A convincing victory, even if we consider that the Ivy Bridge processor is more powerful and voracious.

And finally - about the first impressions of Haswell. In our opinion, the processor justified the high rank of “so” in the “tick-such” classification of Intel. It turned out to be more powerful (especially in the graphic part) and more energy efficient than its predecessors.
In the future, we are ready to return to the experiments on Haswell, if you have any questions or suggestions.