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The benchmarks were performed by OBR-Hardware using a C0 stepping engineering sample of Core i7 3770K, clocked at 3.5 GHz with 3.9 GHz turbo - identical clocks to the current Core i7 2700K. A Z68 chipset motherboard was used, using a new UEFI/BIOS to include Ivy Bridge support. Of course, Ivy Bridge CPUs will ship alongside 7 series chipset motherboards at launch, including Z77.

The benchmarks performed were a mix of heavily multi-threaded and single-threaded. In most cases, the result was clear - a ~9% increase in performance over Core i7 2600K. Considering the 3% boost in clocks, Ivy Bridge brings a ~6% boost in IPC over Sandy Bridge. This also means Core i7 3770K will beat the current top Sandy Bridge Core i7 2700K by about 6%-7% as well.

Of course, Ivy Bridge is a "tick" step, with the focus on die shrink, power efficiency and graphics performance. While Core i7 3770K may not appreciably improve on the performance of its Sandy Bridge predecessors, it will do so at a low TDP of 77W - a full 18W down on outgoing i7 2600/2700 parts. This 77W will also include an improved IGP - HD 4000 - now featuring 16 EUs. Low-power 65W SKUs will see greater increases in clock speeds over Sandy Bridge 65W parts thanks to the increase power efficiency.

This is not the first time we have seen Core i7 3770K benchmarks leaked, with the first leaks showing very similar results. However, both show numbers are a tad lower than Intel's in-house projections. The first Ivy Bridge quad-core CPUs are still on course to hit retail in the first or second week of April.

Source: OBR-Hardware