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The new go-to gamer's chip, but is it a Sandy Bridge upgrade?

This is it. The biggie. The replacement for our favorite CPU of the past year or so. The new Quad-Core Intel Core i5 3570K, one of two shine processors from Intel's new 22nm Ivy Bridge family of CPUs, has plenty to prove.

We'll be measuring this new chip against our old favorite, the Intel Core i5-2500K from the Sandy Bridge generation. This is the best all around gaming CPU ever, and all the chip most will ever need. Or maybe that should be the Core i5-2550K, which was very minor clockspeed bump over the 2500K. In truth, they're much of a muchness.

At first glance, you might wonder whether Intel Core i5 3570K is actually a new chip, so similar are the headline specs to its predecessor. With four cores and no Hyperthreading support, there's not a lot of extra CPU hardware. The clockspeeds and cache haven't budged an inch, either. As before, we're talking 3.4GHz nominal, 3.8GHz Turbo and 6MB of cache.

Dig a little deeper and the differences emerge. For performance enthusiasts, the most important upgrade is the shrink from 32nm to 22nm process technology and the introduction of Intel's 3D Tri-gate transistors. The upshot is what Intel is calling a 'tick-plus'.

A tick in Intel speak means a die shrink of an existing architecture, where as a tock is a new design using the old manufacturing tech. So the existing Core i5-2550K is part of the Sandy Bridge tock family and the new Intel Core i5 3570K is an Ivy Bridge tick. Got that?

Anyway whether or not the tick-plus label makes any sense, it'll be Intel's own CPUs that Intel Core i5 3570K will have to beat. AMD's FX Bulldozer chips, like the AMD FX 8150, simply can't compete when it comes to per core performance, and that's what you need for a great gaming CPU. That's what the old 2500K and 2550K were all about, and is what Intel Core i5 3570K will have to deliver to take over where those two left off.

Intel Core i5 3570K old and new

So, the new Intel Core i5 3570K is intriguing mix of old and new. What does it look like when you life the bonnet?

The CPU cores themselves are pretty much the same as before, barring a few minor changes. It's the process tech that promises the most. Intel reckons the new 22nm 3D Tri-gate transistors are more than just your typical process shrink. They offer much better current control, less leak and improved flow.

In theory, that give Intel lots of options. Firstly, with each core consuming less power and taking less space, it could add more cores. But it didn't. Alternatively, Intel could have ramped up the clocks. But it didn't. Finally, the new Intel Core i5 3570K could be more power efficient than the old 2550K. Here, finally, we have some tangible evidence that the new process deliver as billed. Where the 2550K is rated at 95W, Intel Core i5 3570K has a 77W TDP. That said, with the core count, clocks and 6MB cache carried over, one thing is clear: if Intel Core i5 3570K is to deliver improved performance, those minor core revisions will have to do the work.

Shift your attention to the graphics, however, and things look a lot more interesting. If you care about integrated graphics, that is. The Intel Core i5 3570K gets the full fat HD Graphics 4000 core, which means 16 execution units where the old 2550K had just 12. Each unit gets an upgrade too, with more power and an upgrade from DX10 to DX11 support.

The final change of note is the addition of PCI Express 3.0. As before, the main PCI Express controller is integrated into Intel Core i5 3570K's die and as before you get 16 lanes to play with regards discrete graphics cards. But with double the bandwidth of PCI Express 2.0, Intel Core i5 3570K and other Ivy Bridge chips make a more robust platform for multi-GPU graphics.

We've established that the CPU side of the Intel Core i5 3570K is little changed, but big things have happened with the graphics. How does Intel's new mainstream crowd-pleaser perform when you fire her up?

"As For The Graphics, Intel Has Indeed Upped Its Game With This Chip"

With the clockspeeds and cache staying mostly steady and the cores revised rather than redesigned, we didn't have high hopes for a dramatic boost in performance. That's pretty much how it plays out. In the Cinebench 11.5 professional graphics rendering test, the 3570K edges the old 2500K 1.6tps to 1.49tps. Factor in the 100MHz clockspeed advantage of Intel Core i5 3570K and it's clear Ivy Bridge isn't doing anything dramatic.

It's similar story of very modest performance gains in x264 HD video encoding and the CPU -intensive World in Conflict game benchmark. Intel Core i5 3570K is quicker, but the difference isn't nearly enough that you're ever going to feel it.

That said, we have been expecting some showbiz moves when it comes to overclocking. After all, Intel has been bullishly bigging up is fancy new 22nm transistors in all their 3D Tri-gate glory. Oh, and as before, that 'K' suffix indicates a full unlocked CPU multiplier for easy overclocking. Time for them to deliver. What you make of the 4.9GHz result depends on the angle you're coming form.

On the one hand, that's 1.5GHz higher than the Intel Core i5 3570K's guaranteed clockspeed for four loaded cores, which is one hell of an overclock with a simple air cooler. On the other, it's just 100MHz higher than the old 2500K manages. So much for that fancy 22nm tech, then?

Perhaps, but what's really interesting for existing Sandy Bridge owners is that Intel's new Z77 platform seems to release more overclocking potential from the outgoing 32nm generation. We reckon the Z7 is worth a good 200MHz to 300MHz with Sandy Bridge chips, which is intriguing even if it undermines the attraction of the new Intel Core i5 3570K and its Ivy Bridge brethren

Intel Core i5 3570K game on

As for the graphics, Intel has indeed upped its game. World in Conflict at 1,280 x 800 jumps from a sluggish 19 frames per second on the 2500K to a borderline playable 27 frames per second on the new Intel Core i5 3570K, for instance. Skyrim performance is up from 21 frames per second to 25. In reality though, you still need a discrete graphics card for enjoyable gaming.

It's hard to know what to make of the QuickSync video transcode core though. Performance i sup by roughly 10 percent. It's certainly impressive to observe a whole hour-long HD episode of a TV show crunched down for smart consumption in just a few minutes, but with application support remaining somewhat limited, QuickSync still isn't the killer feature it could (and indeed should) be.

The new Intel Core i5 3570K has everything that made its Core i5 2550K such a winning CPU. Per core performance is the best you can buy, it overclock like there's not tomorrow and it's relatively affordable. We're also pleased that it remains compatible with Intel's LGA1155 socket. Intel has created a rod for its own back in recent years by delivering ever more performance. The new Ivy Bridge generation basically puts on the brakes. No more cores, no more clocks, and no more overclocking headroom. The improved graphics don't make up for that.

Intel Core i5 3570K technical analysis

With AMD not really turning up to this party, the comparison is with Intel's Sandy Bridge chips, most notably our old favorite the 2500K. We've ticked our usual boxes with Cinebench rendering, x264 HD video and gaming on the CPU side. Overclocking is a key competence for the Intel Core i5 3570K, and we're pleased to note it's another 5GHz chip. We've also had a look at the integrated HD Graphics core, both in games and its QuickSync transcode engine. It's a decent step forward compared to the previous core, but it's still not a great gaming solution.

Single-threaded CPU performance

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Multi-threaded CPU performance

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CPU encoding performance

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QuickSync encoding performance

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CPU graphics performance

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Overclocking performance

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