Overclocking: Get The Performance Of A Core i5 From Core i3

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Intel’s $115 Core i3-530 doesn't include Turbo Boost technology and it doesn't boast hardware-based AES-NI, but it overclocks like a fiend. We benchmarked this dual-core, HT-equipped chip at 4.4 GHz and determined the most power-efficient overclock.

Benchmark Results: Single- And Multi-Threaded Efficiency

Single-Threaded Efficiency

Runtime measurements and the total power used to complete this workload are intriguing. The 4.4 GHz overclock produced the shortest processing time and almost the same total power draw.

Multi-Threaded Efficiency

A look at the multi-threaded applications used in our efficiency run shows that the Core i5-750 quad-core CPU is faster than our highly overclocked Core i3. However, the latter still beats the Core i5-661 by a considerable margin.

Patrick Schmid and Achim Roos