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MagyarTimeCheck | Intel's legendary Core i7-4770K is a decade old this year and mobile CPUs now run circles around it
TimeCheck - remembering tech's checkered past
Starting at the beginning, as one does, the Intel Core i7-4770K launched as an update to the previous year's Core i7-3770K, and it proved to be a worthy successor, delivering somewhere around 5-20% more performance, depending on your application. The quad-core CPU features hyperthreading, just like its predecessor, and it has a base clock of 3.5 GHz that boosts up to a modest 3.9 GHz.
Those base and boost clocks seem pretty reasonable by today's standards, but it's important to remember that every new CPU generation brings improvements to both efficiency and instructions per clock (IPC). The IPC improvements make it particularly difficult to compare CPUs across multiple generations, while the 4770K's overclocking support makes it difficult to draw direct comparisons to modern CPUs. Some particularly lucky talented individuals have managed to get their 4770K CPUs to over 5 GHz on simple AIO water cooling.
Even mobile Intel processors now make the 4770K look bad
Even in comparison to the modern processors with similar core count, the Core i7-4770K is left in the dust, with Intel's own mobile Core i7-1165G7 scoring significantly higher in both single- and multi-threaded benchmarks. This performance deficit is exacerbated by the fact that the out-of-the-box TDP on the 4770K is 84 W, while the 1165G7 tops out at 28 W.
Interestingly, despite the 4770K and its successor, the Core i7-6700K, both having been released at a time when Intel is now commonly thought to have been firmly resting on its laurels, the 6700K holds up well in comparison to the more recent 1165G7. While single-threaded applications still see the 1165G7 thrashing the 6700K, the higher power envelope and boost clocks see the 6700K pulling ahead by a few points in multi-threaded benchmarks.
| Cinebench R15 - Cinebench R15 CPU Multi 64 Bit | |
| Average Intel Core i7-1165G7 (553 - 1027, n=86) | |
| Average Intel Core i7-4770K () | |
| Cinebench R20 | |
| Cinebench R20 CPU (Multi Core) | |
| Average Intel Core i7-1165G7 (1060 - 2657, n=81) | |
| Average Intel Core i7-4770K () | |
| Cinebench R20 CPU (Single Core) | |
| Average Intel Core i7-1165G7 (442 - 589, n=81) | |
| Average Intel Core i7-4770K () | |
1st-gen AMD Ryzen was surprisingly bad when it came to core-count parity
As for the 4770K, things look even bleaker when you head to where the grass is redder. Sure, Ryzen was a return to form for AMD, but the 4770K still trades blows with the similarly-equipped Ryzen 5 1400 in certain multi-threaded benchmarks. Say what you will about Intel's lack of innovation, it's impossible to deny that the 4770K was an impressive chip, especially considering that it could still hold its own four years after its release.
Subsequent improvements to AMD's Ryzen architecture have obviously pushed things even further, with Zen 2 and onwards scoring massive gains over even their Intel contemporaries in some cases. Should you buy an Intel Core i7-4770K in 2023? Almost certainly not, even if they are only US$60 on eBay. That said, if you're still in possession of a 4770K, and it gets the job done, the only reason you might want to upgrade is to take advantage of Windows 11 or get ahead of the Spectre and Meltdown vulnerabilities we just can't seem to shake.
If you're looking for a budget CPU, the six-core, 12-thread Intel Core i7-12400 is surprisingly good value, and available on Amazon.
| Cinebench R15 - Cinebench R15 CPU Multi 64 Bit | |
| Average Intel Core i7-6700K (865 - 910, n=10) | |
| Average Intel Core i7-4770K () | |
| Average AMD Ryzen 5 1400 (682 - 692, n=3) | |
Source(s)
Notebookcheck, Intel Free Press on flickr
