The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim remains a popular title thanks to the modding community and official downloadable expansion packs. So, while it’s not necessarily a demanding title, we think it remains a valid benchmark. During playability analysis, I’ll often pick a fight within the City of Markarth to grab a worst-case look at system performance, but the Tom’s Hardware’s standard 25-second run through Riverwood is almost as demanding, and far easier to repeat amongst editors.


Despite official quad-core CPU recommendations, Skyrim doesn’t effectively utilize more than two cores. What’s important is that all of these processors are fully capable of playing at our benchmark settings.


Pointing out the obvious, no frame rates logged over time drop below 40 FPS using Ultra details. Yet Fraps reports a minimum of 38 FPS for the Core 2 Duo E8400.
Core i5-3570K leaves the other processors in its dust, though each one delivers a solid maxed-out Skyrim experience, which is important considering the muscular graphics pairing.
- Old Vs. New: Six Intel Processors, Benchmarked
- Test System Configuration And Benchmarks
- Results: Synthetics
- Results: Audio And Video
- Results: Adobe Creative Suite
- Results: Productivity
- Results: Compression
- Game Testing Methodology
- Results: Borderlands 2
- Results: Crysis 3
- Results: F1 2012
- Results: Far Cry 3
- Results: Hitman: Absolution
- Results: StarCraft II: Heart Of The Swarm
- Results: The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
- Results: Tomb Raider
- Overclocking: More Voltage, Higher Clocks
- Overclocking: 3D Game Performance
- Power Consumption
- Performance Summary
- How Do Five-Year-Old CPUs Hold Up Against Ivy Bridge?
Also, amoralman, did you read this? It's basically assuring you that your C2D is still awesome as a budget processor.
Also holy crap on 1.45 vcore on the C2D
I find it shocking that my E6600(which I still hold in high regard, is far far worse than a 50 dollar Celeron. My mind is blown.
That said, today's quads have a more efficient and better architecture than those of yesteryear, and the 3570K is a popular choice for enthusiasts.
intel made all their leaps forward with this architecture, and killed AMD in the process. And has never really moved past it... 6 years on and it still stands toe to toe with the latest and greatest.
I'm not that surprised really.
i have both and the 3570k is significantly faster than an e6600, i always had problems with the e6600 not being fast enough for my taste, its a night and day difference between the 2