Intel 3rd Generation Core i7-3770K CPU (4 x 3.50GHz, Ivy Bridge, Socket 1155, 8Mb L3 Cache, Intel Turbo Boost Technology 2.0)

The Intel i7 3770K is a fantastic processor, I wanted to build a workstation PC for 3D graphics, but I couldn't afford a proper Intel Xeon CPU, so I opted for this instead. I was a little apprehensive about using an i7 instead of a Xeon for professional level work, but so far I have been pleasantly surprised. Admittedly it isn't as fast as a Xeon, it was never going to be, but its not as far off as I had first thought.

I haven't tried overclocking this yet, but it idles at 1600mhz for most tasks, it only every changes when I start animating or modelling in 3D applications. The Intel Turbo Boost feature confuses me slightly, the CPU never seems to run at its described 3.5ghz, always shooting up to its 'Turbo Boost' levels of 3.9ghz, which I thought would have been reserved for only the most intense of operations.

Ultimately, you can't go far wrong with this CPU, unless you work for Pixar and need the most powerful machine known to man, this will be more than good enough for anybody's needs, especially if you don't want to fork out for the i7 extreme or Xeon CPU's.

As of 04/29/2012, this is the current top-end "premium" tier Intel chip - about 5-10% faster than the i7-2700K which it replaces. The current top-end "extreme" tier is and will remain the six core i7-3960X until the second half of 2013, when the Ivy Bridge-E is released.

It overclocks nearly as high as Sandy Bridge and heats up more with voltage. This means 4.4 to 4.7 GHz will be around the limit on air. Note that if you do not plan to overclock and/or intend to run virtual machines, the plain 3770 is the cheaper and better choice as it has Intel SIPP, vPro, VT-d and TXT enabled (the K has these disabled).

At its official retail price, three hundred and thirty two dollars, it is currently one of the best values for a high performance chip in the market. The next steps up are 2-3 times this price. At time of writing (the morning of release), it is marked up 5% above retail and has the wrong list price.

The GPU performance compared to the 2700K is about 50% faster, which is equivalent to a $40-60 video card. This is enough to play most games at mediocre quality with a mediocre framerate or run Quick Sync very fast (Intel's custom medium-quality h264 encoder; about 300 frames per second on 1080p video).

If you do not have much use for the GPU, most i5 and i7 owners will have a hard time justifying the Ivy Bridge upgrade. All other slower chips will see a substantial improvement. Another good value is the Ivy i5 3570K which is something like 0-15% slower and 30% cheaper.

The new motherboard lineup consists of the Z77, Z75, H77, Q77, Q75 and B75 chipsets. The major improvements over the Sandy Bridge generation is native USB 3.0 support, PCIe 3.0 (with Ivy chips only) and SSD-HDD hybrid caching. Z/H/X all have CPU overclocking. The 77s have the SSD caching. Most owners of this chip will probably get a Z77 which is feature rich and nearly the same price (about ninety dollars for the cheapest board currently).

[Sources: AnandTech, TomsHardware, overclock.net; see comments for some minor extra detail]

Bought this after deciding to build myself a new monster PC with as much top hardware as i could.

Firstly, it comes in a nice little box with a stock cooler heatsint and fan and an instruction manual. Very simple. Come build day after dropping it in, I decided not to use the stock cooler because I'd heard these babies can run hot under load and that stock cooler doesn't look upto much, so I decided to buy a Corsair H60i water cooler to run the cooling side of things while I'm powergaming or whatever.

Finally got to my new windows and the performance of this thing (at stock speeds even) is still staggering, I've been on the PC all night doing things and it hasen't broken a sweat once. Very impressed. Having the 'K' version is also an added bonus that if in the future it does start getting tierd for whatever reason (can't see it), then you can open the taps for more horses. Sweet.

Temps: Right now it's chilling at 27C with the Corsir H60i...It's maximum I've seen so far was 38C although I haven't been really pushing it yet so can't give any top-end temps. But yeah it runs sweet.

Very happy with the purchace.