Devils Canyon at 4.5GHz on passive cooling, how far can DC go?

[WYP]

In recent years Intel seems to be focusing more and more on lower power consumption rather than maximum performance, which in truth is the right move for them. With the march of ARM based solutions into the low end market and AMD having lost grasp on any of the high end CPU market why should Intel bother to make any major advancement?

Now with Intel's Z97 chipset hitting the store shelves, and Devils Canyon only being a minor refresh, is there any reason to upgrade? Well if overclocking is your thing Devils Canyon may well be you next dream CPU if Intels Computex results are anything to go by.

While intel were trying to show off the potential of low powered systems, I noted that their low powered Devils Canyon based system was running on surprisingly high clocks for a system with only passive cooling.

The above system is running at 4.5GHz with passive cooling solution. While intel did note that the system required a little time to cool down between benchmarking runs, a 4.5GHz passively cooled i7 is still impressive, especially at the voltages Intel were using.

With other reports from Computex finding overclocks of up to 5.5GHz on air, an even as high as 6.4 on LN2. While these are far below overclocking world records, this can confirm the good overclocking potential of the chips.

So Devils Canyon may be an interesting CPU after all, even if it isn't a Intel Tick or Tock release. It will also be interesting to see how the other Devils Canyon CPUs perform, especially the Pentium G3258 for budget overclockers.

I for one cannot wait to see reviews on these chips, being a fan of overclocking and otherwise tinkering my system I personally hope that Devils Canyon will be the return to the Golden age of Overclocking.

I guess we will see when OC3D eventually gets a sample for review.

As always please post your thoughts below and thanks for reading.


Source - sweclockers

 

[Dicehunter]

DigitalStorm reports differently, Not worth swapping out from a nicely clocked 4770K at all.

 

[WYP]

DigitalStorm reports differently, Not worth swapping out from a nicely clocked 4770K at all.

Indeed, if you have a golden haswell there is no need to change for a while. Similar to golden chips form Sandy and Ivy bridge. There has never been a point in upgrading every generation with Intel

DC will be the choice for those building new rigs, not those currently on haswell. There are simply no gains to be made other than temps. As i said this isn't a tick or tock release, so no improved IPC, just thermals (and hopefully higher average overclocks).

It remains to be seen if the silicon lottery favors the Devil, hopefully it does but it may just be the same old haswell.

All reviews out now have had rather meh overclockers , but all report a good improvement in temps. This temp improvement may make Water Cooling DC worthwhile as well as allow some higher voltages to be used for longer.

I kinda now miss my 1090T, it had so many things to mess with while overclocking; Multi, mem bus, Northbridge, Hypertransport. Intel is much simpler, but I miss my 1090T's complexity

 

[barnsley]

Its probably a cherry picked sample.

 

[Cru]

Its probably a cherry picked sample.

1.34v seems a bit high and not really cherry picked imo

 

[SieB]

1.34v sounds like SB voltages, the average voltage for 4.5ghz on a 2500k and 2600k is around 1.34v. Sounds high for Haswell though, which is what the DC chips are.

 

[WYP]

1.34v seems a bit high and not really cherry picked imo

Yeah, 1.34v is rather high. I wouldn't think that it is a cherry picked sample, but perhaps Intel purposefully use high volts to reduce the chance of a BSOD in their demonstration.

Most Haswell CPUs can do 4.5GHz on around 1.25v on average, with golden samples being able to do 4.8GHz at those same volts.

If Devils Canyon can't get higher clocks at similar volts on average, at least it can be more comfortably put under higher voltages if you have good cooling.

 

[vorticalbox]

by "passive" they mean engineering a case that will act as the heat sink.

 

[WYP]

by "passive" they mean engineering a case that will act as the heat sink.

Yes exactly that, I imagine heatpipes will conduct heat to the walls of the case, which will then lose heat to the outside of the case via convection.

It is quite amazing that a OC'ed Haswell PC at 1.34v can be cooled by such a small case with no fans.

 

[Dicehunter]

I'm waiting on Z107 Anyway, Started saving about 2 months ago so when the Asus Maximus VIII Formula, 5770/5790K and some nice memory hits they will be mine on release day next year ^_^

 

[vorticalbox]

Yes exactly that, I imagine heatpipes will conduct heat to the walls of the case, which will then lose heat to the outside of the case via convection.

It is quite amazing that a OC'ed Haswell PC at 1.34v can be cooled by such a small case with no fans.

yeah it is pretty cool (see what i did there), though dumping the heat into the case like that would heat up everything attached to it.

 

[MacLeod]

Yeah Intel Tweeted that a 4970K hit 5.5 on "air". Turns out it was with a tray of LN2 sitting in front of the rad super cooling the air the rad was drawing thru it.

Still it was over all 4 cores so its still not too shabby and I think it bodes well for what these things are going to be able to do. Im going to wait for Tom and HardOCP's review before making the final decision but Im 90% sure this is the chip that makes me finally jump ship to Intel after about a decade of AMD fanboydom.

 

[Dicehunter]

Yeah Intel Tweeted that a 4970K hit 5.5 on "air". Turns out it was with a tray of LN2 sitting in front of the rad super cooling the air the rad was drawing thru it.

Still it was over all 4 cores so its still not too shabby and I think it bodes well for what these things are going to be able to do. Im going to wait for Tom and HardOCP's review before making the final decision but Im 90% sure this is the chip that makes me finally jump ship to Intel after about a decade of AMD fanboydom.

That would help HUGELY, After seeing benchmarks and reviews from non biased/non sponsored sources I think I'm going to stick with my 4770K, Just not worth the jump.

 

[SieB]

Yeah Intel Tweeted that a 4970K hit 5.5 on "air". Turns out it was with a tray of LN2 sitting in front of the rad super cooling the air the rad was drawing thru it.

Lol, nice of Intel to exaggerate things and make them out to be more than they are

From what I have seen so far it looks like the DC chips are back to Sandy Bridge standards in terms of overclocking and temps. Haswell has around a 10% performance increase over Sandy Bridge though, plus the extra 100mhz base clock on the DC chips, so there should be a small bump in performance. Not much of one though, but being able to overclock without thermal throttling and much lower temps are the main things DC has to offer.

 

[WYP]

Lol, nice of Intel to exaggerate things and make them out to be more than they are

From what I have seen so far it looks like the DC chips are back to Sandy Bridge standards in terms of overclocking and temps. Haswell has around a 10% performance increase over Sandy Bridge though, plus the extra 100mhz base clock on the DC chips, so there should be a small bump in performance. Not much of one though, but being able to overclock without thermal throttling and much lower temps are the main things DC has to offer.

yeah that's pretty much DC in a nutshell. It won't be worth upgrading to from a current Haswell chip, especially if it clocks well.

People who are about to build new rigs and want to overclock should definitely go DC and low budget rigs should try out the new unlocked Pentium. I'm really looking forward to seeing how the Pentium performs Overclocked!

 

[barnsley]

People who are about to build new rigs and want to overclock should definitely go DC and low budget rigs should try out the new unlocked Pentium. I'm really looking forward to seeing how the Pentium performs Overclocked!

I saw some info by an etailer ( I think it was overclockers) which claimed they got a few of them to do 4.5ghz and that the performance wasn't that far off an i5. I'm presuming they're talking out of their ass unless they just played games which only used a couple of cores.

-edit- it was scan and as usual, the graph should be taken with a pinch of salt.

 

[WYP]

I saw some info by an etailer ( I think it was overclockers) which claimed they got a few of them to do 4.5ghz and that the performance wasn't that far off an i5. I'm presuming they're talking out of their ass unless they just played games which only used a couple of cores.

-edit- it was scan and as usual, the graph should be taken with a pinch of salt.

OC3D need to get right on this and see how this thing performs. TOM Please sort this out!!!

Perhaps the unlocked AMD FM2 Athlons are not the best thing budget builds anymore? Perhaps the time is coming for New OC3D recommended builds?

 

[barnsley]

OC3D need to get right on this and see how this thing performs. TOM Please sort this out!!!

Perhaps the unlocked AMD FM2 Athlons are not the best thing budget builds anymore? Perhaps the time is coming for New OC3D recommended builds?

I dunno if that'd be true. I've had an FM2 athlon (750k) and most games actually use 4 cores now so it did admirably with a 650ti. You can OC the balls off them as well. Its nice to see that ultra budget cpus are OC able now though tbh.
Decent budget cases and now decent budget cpus. The world of budget has not looked this bright in such a long time ^_^

 

[Dicehunter]

From what I've seen nothing is different from a 4770K apart from the name.

PCPER did a review and benchmark and they could only get 4.50GHZ using 1.38v.

Now they did say they might of gotten a bad CPU, But come on, If it's an enhanced 4770K it's meant to be better out of the box overclocking wise not worse.

From everything I've seen so far it's a pointless release and a waste of resources.

Best bet is to wait for Broadwell even if your still on Sandybridge.

 

[MacLeod]

From what I've seen nothing is different from a 4770K apart from the name.

PCPER did a review and benchmark and they could only get 4.50GHZ using 1.38v.

Now they did say they might of gotten a bad CPU, But come on, If it's an enhanced 4770K it's meant to be better out of the box overclocking wise not worse.

From everything I've seen so far it's a pointless release and a waste of resources.

Best bet is to wait for Broadwell even if your still on Sandybridge.

Thats why I think its wise to wait for some reviews before buying one because it could very well be a dud. I dont think it will be though. I dont think Intel would be dumb enough to tout the overclocking, built for enthusiast Devils Canyon chips only to have them perform no better than a 4770/4670 could. Im still betting that we're going to be impressed with them. Im not banking on 5.5 GHz overclocks but if I had to lay a bet, I would expect 4.9 to a cool 5.0 with standard (H100/D14) cooling when Tom's review comes out. If its 4.7 or below, then its a total waste and no better than the 4770/4670. If its a 5 GHz monster then Im almost certain Ill be investing in a new CPU/mobo. If its 4.6 or 4.7, Ill just buy a 8350 and wait til Haswell-E or something like that.