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The Intel Core i3 530 Review - Great for Overclockers & Gamers

 by Anand Lal Shimpi on January 22, 2010 12:00 AM EST
107 Comments | Add A Comment
107 Comments

Overclocking the i3 - 4GHz with the Stock Cooler

I’ve become a fan of stock voltage overclocking over the past few years. As power consumption and efficiency has become more important, and manufacturing processes improved, how far you can push a CPU without increasing its core voltage appears to be the most efficient way to overclock. You minimize any increases in power consumption while maximizing performance. You really find out whether or not you’ve been sold a chip that’s artificially binned lower than it could have.

With Bloomfield, Intel hit a new peak for how far you can expect to push a CPU without increasing voltage. AMD followed with the Phenom II, but Lynnfield took a step back. Thanks to its on-die PCIe controller, Lynnfield needed some amount of additional voltage to overclock well. Clarkdale is somewhere in between. It lacks the crippling on-die PCIe controller, but it’s also a much higher volume part which by definition shouldn’t be as overclockable.

The Core i3 530 runs at 2.93GHz by default, with no available turbo boost. Without swapping coolers or feeding the chip any additional voltage, the most I got out of it was 3.3GHz (150MHz BCLK x 22). Hardly impressive.

I added another 0.16V to the CPU’s core voltage. That’s just under 14%. And here’s what I was able to do:

That’s 4GHz, stable using the stock heatsink/fan. Part of the trick to overclocking this thing was lowering the clock multiplier. Despite always keeping the QPI and memory frequencies in spec, lowering the clock multiplier on the chip improved stability significantly and allowed me to reach much higher frequencies.

I could push beyond 4GHz but that requires more voltage and potentially better cooling. With a stable 4GHz overclock, I was happy.

If you’ll remember from my review of the processor, my Phenom II X2 550 BE managed 3.7GHz using the stock cooler and a pound of voltage. Unfortunately it’s not enough to challenge the overclocked 530.

CPU x264 HD 3.03 - 2nd pass 7-zip KB/s Batman: AA Dawn of War II Dragon Age Origins World of Warcraft
Intel Core i3 530 @ 4GHz 18.4 fps 2822 192 fps 62.7 fps 115 fps 92 fps
AMD Phenom II X2 550 @ 3.7GHz 10.4 fps 2681 170 fps 50.9 fps 63 fps 60.8 fps
AMD Phenom II X4 965 (3.4GHz) 22.2 fps 3143 196 fps 54.3 fps 109 fps 74.1 fps

 

Even an overclocked Athlon II X4 630 isn’t going to dramatically change things. It’ll still be faster in multithreaded applications, and still the overall slower gaming CPU.

If the Core i3 530 is right for you, overclocking is just going to make it more right.

Overclocking Intel’s HD Graphics - It Works...Very Well Final Words
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  • vol7ron - Saturday, January 23, 2010 - link

    You increased the power .16V AND decreased the multiplier.

    It's nice to see the overclock that got, but could you be consistent in what you present us? I'd like to really know what made the overclock beneficial.


    Please, be aware of your control group in your tests and at least give us one of the following:

    1. (Stock Power + Stock Multiplier) vs. (Stock Power + [Lower] Multiplier)
    2. (Stock Power + Lower Multiplier) vs. ([Higher] Power + Lower Multiplier)
    3. (Stock Power + Stock Multiplier) vs. ([Higher] Power + Stock Multiplier)


    Notice: in each test there is only one thing that changes (in the brackets).

    That will help answer my question: Can the i3 530 overclock to ~4000MHz at a lower multiplier on stock power?


    vol7ron

  • Minion4Hire - Sunday, January 24, 2010 - link

    I think it was implied (or just directly stated) that he was unable to overclock the 530 past 3.3 GHz in any manner until more voltage was applied. That could just be an "anomaly" of sorts with their 530 so it's probably best not to dwell on it. If you actually intend to buy and overclock the 530 you'll figure it out then. The small details and mindless minutiae really don't matter. It can hit 4 GHz with relative ease; What more could you ask for?

  • vol7ron - Sunday, January 24, 2010 - link

    I took that to mean 3.3GHz was the highest he got at a stock multiplier. If what you say is correct, it'd be nice to see the highest overclock out of the box (stock power/multiplier) -- a benchmark is needed.

    "If you actually intend to buy and overclock the 530 you'll figure it out then."
    - I will give you time to retract this statement, since it is the most ignorant thing I've heard regarding a review site. After all, AnandTech.com's subtitle: "your source for hardware analysis and more." If overclocking CPUs is not part of hardware analysis, then I invite you to leave. When determining an i3 vs i7 buy, overclocking makes a big difference, especially on stock power.

  • AssBall - Monday, January 25, 2010 - link

    If you think comparing a 300 dollar cpu to a 120 dollar one is relevent, then I also invite your egotistical ass to leave. It was a good article, and you are just trolling.

    Set up your own multinational hardware site, then come and spout your anal retentive horse shit.

  • jigglywiggly - Friday, January 22, 2010 - link

    anandtech, you want to give me one

  • lanvince - Friday, January 22, 2010 - link

    ???????~~I would like to own one frankly

  • formulav8 - Friday, January 22, 2010 - link

    Anand, I'm not sure why you keep saying Intel has better integrated graphics than nvidia, and even amd.

    Your own results shows the AMD graphics besting both the i3 and the i5 660. AMD wins 3 and Intel wins 2. 1 is a tie.

    Also it appears where the i660 loses, it loses by quite a lot. AMD loses one test up to 20% and the other is about 15%. Intel loses up to 30% and almost 30% in another.

    So whats the deal? Am I simply reading your graphs wrong? And when you think about it, Intels graphics having direct mem controller access and still can't truly beat nvidia/amd is pretty sad you have to admit.


    But one thing is for sure. AMD cpu's is now behind in the lower midrange area in quite a few areas. The best thing is you can get $50 mobo's for AMD. Intel boards still cost more even including rebates, unless things has changed recently...



    Jason

  • Penti - Sunday, January 24, 2010 - link

    He's not saying that. He just implies it's a better platform and that it's better for HTPC. It's really good enough if you don't game, so why the fuss? No IGP is really gameable. He has already implied that it might change with 880/890 integrated graphics.

  • 0roo0roo - Tuesday, April 20, 2010 - link

    I just find that the more cores feels much more responsive to general system use while doing such encoding tasks compared to a core 2, so i have doubts they can be compared so simply/synthetically.

  • Ronstar - Thursday, May 20, 2010 - link

    Hi

    I bought a PC with an I3 2.93ghz 1GB CPU and would like to upgrade the Graphic card. I do not know if their is a correlation between the power if the CPU and what graphic card would work well, but I assume that a bottleneck could happen at the CPU in which case I would not benefit from a very high powered graphic card capabilities. then maybe I am wrong......

    Could someone please advise what the best graphic card is that would be worth upgrading too?

    thank you plenty
    Ron
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