The first Intel processor running at 4GHz on all cores, find out how good it is. There's a cogent argument to be made for Intel having the enthusiast end of the desktop PC CPU market sewn up to such an extent that it has little reason to innovate until AMD catches up in the distant future. The lack of competitive pressure has caused technological stagnation at the £150-plus price point, as the Core i7-4770K - primarily a CPU with a basic GPU baked in - isn't going to face renewed competition from AMD's FX processors anytime soon.

So what's Intel to do? The simplest method of partially reinvigorating this desktop space, which we're told is expanding year on year, is to offer desktop-builders a little more speed at the same price. Intel, therefore, has taken the year-old fourth generation Core (Haswell) architecture and selected three processors that could do with a sprinkling of extra performance. Core i7-4770K, Core i5-4670K and Pentium G32xx, your time is up. How and why, you might ask? Let's take the trio turn by turn by looking at their vital statistics.