Benchmark Results: Applications And Archiving
The 4.4 GHz Core i3 dual-core is fast enough to compete with the Core i5-750 quad-core. Once again, the Core i5-661 delivers greater performance than the Core i3-530 at the same nominal clock speed. This stems from the Turbo Boost feature not supported on Core i3 CPUs.
Cinebench on one thread scales nicely with every megahertz of clock speed.
Once Cinebench is switched to multiple threads, the Core i5-750 comes out on top. The other results scale with their clock speed.
Photoshop users clearly need a multi-core processor. The image editor benefits more from additional execution cores than from increased clock speeds.
The chess software Fritz scales best with additional processing cores, but the clock speed increases lead to linear performance gains, as well.
7-Zip is very computing-intensive if you run LZMA2 and medium or higher compression.
nice article
The most impressive part, IMO, is the low idle power consumption. I don't care if the CPU drains my power socket during the 0.5% of the time it's at 100% load as long as it doesn't hog too much power at idle.
Always like these reviews, and glad they finally did this cpu. I bought this and a MSI board when these first came out for $200 on a combo deal, and it is a great little o'clocker. I am running at 3.8ghz and idle at 74 watts (MSI's boards are more energy efficient). I had to add .10V for stability. Runs rings around my C2D E8400 at 3.8.
We took the board from a 133 MHz base clock all the way past 200 MHz. In earlier overclocking tests, we learned that this board can actually go higher, so we know that the processor is acting as our frequency, not the motherboard.
I think you meant to type "bottleneck" not frequency.
Will this work with cheaper mobos as well? Having a budget CPU and a expensive mobo makes little sense by my book.
Can similar results be obtained on a mid-range mobo, i.e. can those on a budget hope to achieve similar results?
just a quick question..
if 530 when overclocked performs and drinks power similar to other chips like 750 and 661, leaving aside the fact that it is cheap which will last longer before giving way.
A overcloacked 530 or stock 661 or 750
Great article, can't wait to see an overclocking efficiency test with the AMD X6 CPUs.
so you could in essence power this rig with an old 200W PSU.
Not bad
Would have really liked to have seen how this pumped dual compared to a similarly OC'd Core 2 Duo.
i'd like to see how much of overclocking this chip is capable of with ordinary motherboards sub $130 H55 motherboards
very nice article, but what about overclocking on stock cooler ? because i've heard that it could reach almost 4Ghz using the stock heatsink/fan.
Now let's see those charts with the i5-750 @ 4Ghz compared to those OC'd i3's.
Just to keep things in perspective.
This article oc´s the i3 with premium mobo and fan, wich rises the costs very close to a i5-750 with stock fan and a cheap mobo wich as we have just seen is almost the same in performance, but you have 2 more cores. It would be interesting if you can get the same oc with a more common (cheap) mobo and the stock cooler
Nice article. Shows the immense potential of i3. But one more thing I would like to know is what were the temperatures like?? I live in Delhi, India and the ambient temperatures easily go over 40C in summers. Would I be able to get that kind of overclocking here??
X3's don't get anywhere near 4.4, lol
The phenomII's can hit 4.0
The Athlons top out at 3.6~ Check out the reviews with the new c3 stepping 440's. Heres a suicide run, and try doing that with cheap m/b like others are suggesting would be a good idea ? lol. An o/c needs to pick a quality m/b. Nothing new here.
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Doesn't the use of a $280 MOBO completely negate the $80 savings of buying a cheaper CPU and then some?
I question the validity of any value conclusions from this article.
Is the stock cooler capable of properly handling the 3.33GHz overclock? Or is an aftermarket cooler necessary?
i agree with these other people. A comparison of these processors (all the ones you've dialed in efficiency on) is in order. and a core 2 of similar level should be compared with this i3 processor as well. and use a budget motherboard with a budget cpu next time!