Currently we are on a “tock” with the Sandy Bridge architecture and later this month we will move back to a “tick” with Ivy Bridge. The last tick was the Westmere architecture which saw Intel move from the 45nm to the 32nm design process.

This is good news for consumers, as “ticks” do not generally require an entire system overhaul because the microarchitecture is largely the same. This is the case with Ivy Bridge, which will remain an LGA1155 socket solution.

This means Sandy Bridge and Ivy Bridge processors will share the same socket and that means those already using a Cougar Point (6-series chipset) motherboard can upgrade to an Ivy Bridge processor without having to junk their existing motherboard. The 6-series motherboard will require a BIOS update to work with the new Ivy Bridge processors, but other than that compatibility is guaranteed.

Unfortunately it will not be until the Haswell architecture makes its debut in the 2Q of 2013 that we will see a significant improvement on the GPU front from Intel. However for now Intel needed something better than what the Sandy Bridge architecture delivered to tide them over. Therefore Ivy Bridge has been upgraded to provide around 20–50% better GPU performance, which is the kind of performance improvement that we would expect from a tock release.

The new Core i7-3770K processor will give us our first look at the Ivy Bridge architecture and show us what it is all about. With that said, let’s jump into some benchmarks...

The memory bandwidth performance of the Core i7-3770K is similar to that of the i7-2600K and in fact the slight increase in performance can likely be attributed to the 100MHz bump in clock frequency.

Although the memory bandwidth wasn’t improved greatly when compared to the Core i7-2600K, the L2 cache performance does appear to be noticeably improved. The write performance in particular was much faster when using the Core i7-3770K.

When testing the performance of the Core i7-3770K in Excel 2010 we found that it provided similar performance to that of the i7-2600K. This meant that it was 9% faster than the Core i7-3820, yet 24% slower than the i7-3960X.

When testing with WinRAR the Core i7-3770K was just 3% faster in our 700MB compression test and 5% faster in the 400MB compression test when compared to the i7-2600K.

Again we see little difference in performance between the Core i7-3770K and i7-2600K processors, as the i7-3770K was just a fraction faster.

Fritz Chess 13 is the first really big win for the Core i7-3770K, as it was found to be 10% faster than the i7-2600K which also allowed it to overtake the i7-3820.

When testing with Hand Brake we saw a 16% performance increase favoring the Core i7-3770K over the i7-2600K. This meant that the Core i7-3770K was faster than the i7-3820 and FX-8150 processors, while it was still 13% slower than the mighty i7-3960X.

The Core i7-3770K performed well in the x264 HD Benchmark as it was 17% faster than the i7-2600K in the first pass test and 27% faster than the FX-8150. More over this impressive performance gain over the Core i7-2600K meant that the i7-3770K was just 1% slower than the i7-3960X.

The TMPGEnc 4.0 XPress test saw the Core i7-3770K complete the task 35 seconds before the i7-2600K making it 9% faster. This placed the Core i7-3770K between the i7-3820 and i7-3960X, which is an impressive result.

The Core i7-3770K was a fraction faster than the i7-2600K when testing in Dirt 3, making it the fastest processor tested in this game.

The Core i7-3770K was again the fastest processor tested, this time when looking at Just Cause 2 performance. The Core i7-3770K was a fraction faster than the Phenom II X4 980 and Core i7-2600K processors.

The last game we are going to look at when pairing the processors with a discrete GPU is The Witcher 2 and here you see that the Core i7-3770K delivered virtually the same performance as the i7-2600K, though it was a fraction faster.

Despite the various improvements the Intel HD4000 graphics solution found, the Core i7-3770K processor is still very underwhelming. The Core i7-2600K cannot be used for comparison in 3Dmark 11 as it does not support the required DirectX 11. With a score of 1486pts the Core i7-3770K was almost 20% slower than the AMD A8-3850, and 23% slower than a GeForce GT 430 graphics card.

The Core i7-3770K provided a 77% performance increase at 1280x800 in Splinter Cell Conviction when compared to the i7-2600K. This is an impressive performance gain, though it still meant that the Core i7-3770K was almost 40% slower than the AMD A8-3850.

When testing with Crysis Warhead the Core i7-3770K was 133% faster than the i7-2600K, yet despite this was still 22% slower than the AMD A8-3850.

This time when testing with Just Cause 2 we found that the Core i7-3770K was just 25% or 3fps faster than the Core i7-2600K. That meant that when compared to the AMD A8-3850 the Core i7-3770K was 48% slower.

This time the Core i7-3770K was 27% faster than the i7-2600K, though once again it was much slower than the AMD A8-3850 as it provided 24% less performance.

The Core i7-3770K provided a 64% performance boost over the i7-2600K in Civilization V with an average of 23fps. Though when compared to the 36fps of the AMD A8-3850 the Core i7-3770K was 36% slower.

Overclocking the Core i7-3770K processor to 4.90GHz allowed for an additional 21% performance in the first past test and 26% for the second pass test. This made the Core i7-3770K considerably faster than the i7-3960X.

When testing with CINEBENCH R11.5 we saw an additional 27% performance from the overclocked Core i7-3770K, though this was not enough to overtake the i7-3960X in this test.

The system power consumption figures when using the Core i7-3770K were amazing, as this processor consumed 11% less power than the i7-2600K. The idle consumption results remained much the same, as the Core i7-3770K configuration used just 75 watts at idle compared to the 76 watts of the i7-2600K. That said, the idle results look much more impressive when compared to the 98 watts of the Core i7-3820 and 100 watts of the FX-8150.

When under load the 147 watts consumed by the Core i7-3770K configuration meant that it consumed 14% less power than the i7-3820, 37% less than the Phenom II X6 1100T, and 42% less power than the FX-8150.

When compared to the Core i7-2600K the new i7-3770K wasn’t a great deal faster for the most part. Many of our real-world application tests saw very little difference in performance, such as Excel 2010, WinRAR and Photoshop CS5. That said, there were instances where the Core i7-3770K was around 10% faster, such as Fritz Chess 13. Where we saw the biggest gains was in our encoding benchmarks, here the Core i7 3770K was between 10–17% faster than the i7-2600K.

Gaming with a discrete graphics card such as the GeForce GTX 580 saw the Core i7-3770K provide slightly more performance than the i7-2600K. Where the Core i7-3770 did impress was in its power consumption, which was 11% less than the i7-2600K, and while that isn’t a huge figure it’s made more impressive by the fact that it was up to 17% faster.

The new Intel HD 4000 graphics engine was up to 2.3x faster than the HD 3000 graphics of the Core i7-2600K, so that was a notable performance increase. That said, saying an Intel HD graphics solution is up to 2.3x faster isn’t nearly as impressive as it sounds. By this we mean the new HD 4000 graphics was still almost 20% slower than the AMD A8-3850 in 3Dmark11 and roughly 40% slower on average in the games we tested.

Therefore those wanting to avoid the need for a discrete graphics card are still best looked after by AMD, and the Radeon HD 6550D integrated solution will even let users play a few games using modest visual quality settings.

The Intel HD 4000 graphics on the other hand is not fit for gaming, and while we did focus on medium quality settings rather than low, the results were still miserable when compared to the competition. Therefore while the Ivy Bridge graphics might be faster than Sandy Bridge’s, they are still not nearly fast enough.

That said, these integrated GPU solutions are not only targeting gamers but are also aimed at professionals as well. For video editing, web or graphic design the Intel HD 4000 will suffice, so the solution is not entirely useless, it simply depends on your requirements. Still, the power of this latest solution is underwhelming, there is simply no denying that.

For consumers the arrival of the Ivy Bridge architecture is only good news and for those already invested in the LGA1155 platform it is great news as it is possible take advantage of these new 22nm processors on existing LGA1155 motherboards.

For newcomers the Ivy Bridge architecture brings about an updated platform that provides more performance, better efficiency and a few new features at a similar price point to that of Sandy Bridge. With that said, we look forward to discovering what the new Ivy Bridge Core i5 and Core i3 range has to offer.