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.
We decided to compare the Core i3-530's results with a Core i5-661 dual-core (one of the fastest i5 models) and a Core i5-750. The latter is Intel’s entry-level quad-core model, and one of the SKUs we most commonly recommend to power users on a budget.
It's impressive to see how much faster AES data encryption can be when the processor supports AES-NI. Even our 4.4 GHz overclock didn’t make too much of a difference compared of the impact of hardware-based encryption acceleration.
The overall encryption score favors the AES-NI-enabled Core i5 dual-core. But the Core i5-750 quad-core also delivers sufficient computing power to be faster than the highly overclocked Core i3-530.
Memory bandwidth most significantly depends on DDR3 memory speeds. These vary depending on the selected DMI speed and memory multiplier selection. We intentionally did not overclock the memory at this time, as this involves much higher costs for premium, high-speed DDR3 DIMMs.
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