There has been a lot of noise about Intel's Haswell platform, for both desktop and mobile markets, but in the end it has not brought much except for better graphics, as performance is quite similar to previous Ivy Bridge CPUs. Based on a 22nm Tri-Gate 3-D Transistor arhictecture, the Haswell line is far from impressive but still an improvement.

The current flagship desktop offer is the Core i7-4770K, a quad-core hyper-threading enabled CPU with new HD Graphics 4600 part with 20 EUs, 8MB of L3 cache, dual-channel DDR3 memory support, 20-lane PCI-Express 3.0 as well as unlocked base-clock multiplier, three BClk ratios and iVR (integrated VRM). The Core i7-4770K works at 3.5GHz base, 3.9GHz Turbo Boost, has 84W TDP and should hit retail with a $350 price tag.

In the mobile market, Haswell will certainly do great as it will bring much needed battery life improvements as well as much better graphics, with versions that will feature on-board 128MB L4 cache. On the desktop side, despite being a "tock", it is not that great as performance improvements range anywhere from single digits up to 20 percent depending on the actual workload and scenario and can easily be considered as an update Ivy Bridge, as Intel's promises of 5 to 15 percent over Ivy Bridge is pretty much all that you'll get. Even the overclocking is quite similar to the Ivy Bridge which will not sit well with the overclocking community.

You can check out some reviews below as well as Intel's full desktop lineup.

- Anandtech.com
- Techpowerup.com
- Xbitlabs.com
- HotHardware.com
- Tweaktown.com
- Ocaholic.ch
- eTeknix.com
- Hardwareheaven.com
- Review links can be sent to roundup(at)fudzilla.com.