14 DAY TRIAL // Pretty much all of Intel's motherboard partners have released a host of platforms based on the Z97 and H97 chipsets, the so-called 9-Series, but you don't need them if you own an 8-Series one.
You see, BIOS updates are or soon will be available for them, so the new CPUs from Intel will work on them just fine.
And by new Intel CPUs we mean the new Core-Series, Celeron and Pentium processors that got formally revealed back in April. It's finally time for retail availability.
Before we go any further, let us just say that you probably don't need to pay too much attention if you're just looking for something you can overclock like mad.
While some of the processors, most notably the Core i7-4790, do have some OC headroom, they aren't very well suited for tweaking.
They lack unlocked multipliers, you see. Something that only chips with the K suffix at the end of their names possess.
The codename for the 2014 generation is Devil's Canyon, but the line will only ship sometime this summer.
If you only want to make a strong PC that can last you for a few years, though, even after new games get launched, the Core units from the Haswell refresh series is just right.
First off, the Core i7-4790 mentioned before is a quad-core with a base clock frequency of 3.60 GHz and a turbo boost state of 4 GHz. It also boasts 8 MB cache memory (L3) and, of course, Hyper-Threading technology.
Which is to say, the four physical cores become eight logical cores/threads in Windows, maximizing the computing power.
The Price of the Core i7-4790 is of $320 / €320, quite a bit more than that of the Core i5-4690, which is just $224 / €224. Then again, this one does lack Hyper-Threading, and runs at 3.3 GHz and 3.9 GHz, respectively, while the L3 cache memory is of 6 MB.
It's not so different from the presumed specs of the aforementioned Devil's Canyon really. Those, too, are divide into a Core i7 Hyper-Threading and a Core i5 without it.
Anyway, the rest of the Haswell refresh line sells for $189 / €189 to $224 / €224. The i5-4690S is the one with the highest tag, because it offers 3.2 GHz and 6 MB L3 cache for a low TDP (65W or so). All in all, the prices are just a bit higher than those provided back when the products came out.