Intel Core i5 3470 - microprocessor based on Ivy Bridge. Ivy Bridge Microarchitecture is an advanced Sandy Bridge microarchitecture based on a 22 nm process. It is also the first microarchitecture in which Intel uses three-gate transistors for commercial purposes.
Tick-to-Tack Strategy
In 2007, Intel adopted the Tik-Tak processor manufacturing strategy, according to which, after each change in the microarchitecture (“tak”), the technological process of the previous microarchitecture (“tik”) should be reduced. In other words, at one stage, a new architecture is built on the basis of the reduced technological process, and at the next stage, the technological process for the new architecture is reduced. Each stage lasts from 1 to 1.5 years.
The Tic-Tac strategy was adopted by Intel. A similar strategy for the K10 microarchitecture is used by AMD.
Microarchitecture
The Ivy Bridge microarchitecture has a number of improvements over Sandy Bridge:
- faster Quick Sync engine;
- improved integrated graphics;
- lower power consumption due to more advanced architecture and the use of 22 nm process.
Supported Technologies
Turbo Boost 2.0 technology - dynamically increasing the frequency of the processor. As the load on the Intel Core i5 3470 3.2 GHz processor increases, its clock speed increases in regular increments of 100 MHz. The increase in clock frequency imposes restrictions on power, current, the number of simultaneously used cores, the maximum frequency of active cores and thermal restrictions. If the limits are exceeded, the frequency will automatically be reduced by discrete values of 100 MHz, until the processor is again within the specified limits.
Built-in memory controller. Increases the performance when reading (writing) data from the memory of the Intel Core tm i5 3470 processor through the use of effective prefetching algorithms, less latency when accessing memory and higher memory bandwidth.
Technology Quick Sync Video - the use of a dedicated kernel for encoding and decoding video.
Clear Video HD Technology - Improves image quality and color fidelity when playing HD video. This provides a clearer, smoother and more saturated image.
InTru 3D Technology - reproduces stereoscopic 3D Blu-ray images with high sound quality and full 1080p resolution via HDMI 1.4.
Intel HD Graphics delivers advanced 3D performance for presence and casual games.
Extension of the Advanced Vector Extensions (AVE) command system - a set of new instructions for improving the performance of intensive-floating-point programs, such as audio processing programs, audio codecs, and audio and video editing applications.
Intel Smart Cache Technology - Shared cache is dynamically allocated between the processor cores of the Intel Core i5 3470 processor, depending on the load. Significantly reduces latency and increases performance.
Expanding the AES New Instructions (AES-NI) instruction set provides hardware acceleration when running AES algorithms and speeds up the execution of AES applications.
Intel Virtualization Technology allows a single hardware platform to function as multiple virtual platforms. Provides improved manageability by limiting downtime, and also improves productivity by dividing the computing process into separate parts.
Characteristics
As the CPU-Z utility shows, the Core i5-3470 has a quad-core processor and can process 4 threads simultaneously. The main processor clock speed is 3.2 GHz. It has a L3 cache of 6 MB. TDP TDP is 77 watts. The Intel Core i5 3470 3.2 GHz processor is equipped with an integrated Intel HD 2500 graphics processor that has only 6 executive devices, like the old HD 2500 series processors. For example, the HD 3000 has 12 executive devices, and the HD 4000 has 16. The main frequency of the HD graphics chip 2500 in this processor is 650 MHz. However, it can be dynamically increased to 1.1 GHz.
System configuration before processor testing
You must enter the BIOS or UEFI, install in each tab, optimized (Optimized) or improved (High performance Defaults) performance. These settings are saved, after which the BIOS is re-entered and the DDR3-1600 memory is selected. Then a solid-state drive is formatted, and a 64-bit Windows 7 Ultimate operating system (OS) is installed on it. When the installation of Windows is fully completed, you must completely update the OS, install all the necessary drivers. After that, the automatic update function is disabled, as well as Windows Defender, the software for testing is installed, the disk is cleaned up, temporary data is deleted and tests are run.
Performance Testing with PCMark 7
The tests of the PCMark program contain sets of loads and measure system performance during normal computer use.
A set of performance tests for entertainment applications (Entertainment test) is designed to measure system performance parameters when running the most common multimedia applications and games. Its separate tests include recording, viewing, streaming and encoding television programs and videos, as well as importing and viewing new music and gaming applications. If the DirectX 10 driver is required to run the application, but it is not installed in the OS, testing of such an application is canceled. Upon completion of the test, a control report is displayed with the results of testing the system and the Intel Core i5 3470 processor.
A set of tests of "creativity" is designed to measure the characteristics of the system when processing graphic and video images. Separate tests from the kit include viewing, editing, encoding and saving photos and video images. The test result is also a control report.
A set of “productivity” tests is designed to measure the characteristics of the system when processing office and web applications. Some tests from the kit include loading web pages and using office applications. The test result is reflected in the control report.
Testing was conducted for two versions of the i5-3470 processor: using the integrated graphics processor (iGPU) Intel HD 2500 and using a discrete graphics card (dGPU).
As you can see from the graphs, the i5-3470 has significantly better characteristics for a number of tests when using iGPU due to the fact that the Quick Sync engine is built into the processor. Despite the fact that a discrete card can improve graphics processing performance, the overall result of “creativity” tests is worse when the Quick Sync engine is disabled.
If we compare the characteristics of the Intel Core i5 3470 processor with other Intel processors, it can be noted that this processor has similar parameters with the i7-3820.
Energy consumption
We will test the power consumption of the entire computer system (rather than a separate processor) without load and under load.
Compared to the i7 3770K, the i5-3470 processor has lower power consumption under load, while in idle mode it consumes a bit more power.
CPU overclocking
Let’s figure out how to overclock the Intel Core i5 3470 processor. The i5 3470 processor name does not have the K suffix, which means that it is not completely unlocked for overclocking. It is only partially unlocked. It can be dispersed only 4 points above the set maximum value of the multiplier in Turbo mode.
Since the base frequency of the clock generator is 100 MHz, and the maximum frequency of the processor in Turbo mode is 3.6 GHz, the maximum value of the multiplier in Turbo mode is 36. Using overclocking, you can increase this multiplier to 40, and the maximum frequency in mode Turbo - up to 4.0 GHz. By changing the base frequency of the clock, you can achieve an increase in productivity by another 5-7%.
Thus, using a standard Intel air cooler, with a modest increase in voltage by 1 V, you can raise the clock speed of the Intel Core i5 3470 processor to 4.2 GHz with a 40 multiplier and a base frequency of 106 MHz.
Testing the processor in multi-threaded mode with Cinebench 11.5 shows that overclocking has significantly improved its performance. And although the i5 3470 could not catch up with the i7-2700K with support for hyper-threading, it stopped nearby. The power consumption of the overclocked i5 3470 increased by 47 W (from 141 W to 188 W).
Brief analysis of the characteristics and conclusion
Despite the fact that the Intel Core i5 3470 processor is not aimed at the ultra-high-end market, it has excellent characteristics. Slightly lower clock speed, smaller L3 cache, lack of hyper-threading (Hyper-Threading) reduce its performance compared to the flagship processor Ivy Bridge i7-3770K. But its lag in processing single-threaded applications is relatively small. It becomes noticeable when the question is about multi-threaded processing.
At the same time, the HD 2500 graphics processor, integrated into the Intel r Core tm i5 3470 processor, proved to be much worse. It is possible that its capabilities will be enough for most users. For example, it provides only half the performance of the HD 4000 GPU, which is equipped with higher-end processors. It cannot compete even with low-level discrete graphics cards from AMD and NVIDIA.
However, the Intel Core i5 3470 is a good mid-range processor. It is not fully unlocked, so experienced overclockers may have to look for another option for overclocking. But for those who want to build a system based on a processor with Ivy Bridge architecture, the i5 3470 will be a great option.
Advantages and disadvantages
Pros:
- good characteristics;
- quite low power consumption;
- Quick Sync 2.0 technology;
- competitive price.
Minuses:
- partial unlock only;
- weak integrated graphics processor;
- lack of hyperthreaded processing.