The Intel Core i3 530 Review - Great for Overclockers & Gamers
by Anand Lal Shimpi on January 22, 2010 12:00 AM EST- Posted in
- CPUs
Final Words
I like the Core i3 530. It’s the first real alternative Intel offers to AMD’s Phenom II X2 and Athlon II X4 processors. And dare I say that it’s perfectly competitive? With Clarkdale I get the feeling that Intel is actually trying to compete with AMD, instead of run them into the ground.
If you need a fast dual-core processor, the Core i3 530 is right for you. If you need affordable threaded performance, the Athlon II X4 is a better option. Intel attempts to sweeten the deal with TrueHD/DTS-HD MA bitstreaming support, but ultimately what we have here is a chip that is truly competitive.
The i5s continue to be priced far too high, but that’s where they should be. Intel has a much larger sales and marketing budget than AMD, so put those sales folks to work. AMD (and Intel) offer better value than the entire dual-core i5 line, so it’s up to Intel's marketing to sell those more expensive chips. To those in the know, you'll ignore them almost entirely.
The i3 is the sensible solution. It’s not too perfect. You’re still better off with an Athlon II X4 if you are doing a lot of video encoding or offline 3D rendering, but it’s great for the rest of the market. You lose turbo mode but honestly, with only two cores, you don’t really need it. Instead, just be happy with the fact that you can push nearly 4GHz with minimal effort and without even swapping out the stock heatsink/fan. The lack of AES-NI support keeps the i3 from being the otherwise perfect chip for corporate use, a clever but unfortunate move by Intel.
The competitive angle is even more interesting when you realize that the majority of the dual-core CPUs that AMD sells today are all much cheaper than the Core i3. Maybe it’s Intel playing nice for the FTC, but it almost looks like the two companies have conspired to compete without stepping on each others toes.
Between $60 - $100 you have the Athlon II X2. Then at $100 - $130 you can go with either an i3 or an Athlon II X4. Between $130 and $200 you have a number of Phenom II X4 choices that make sense. And at $200 and above it’s all Lynnfield/Bloomfield. Everyone gets a piece of the pie, Intel just gets the more expensive price points (which to AMD’s credit, aren’t high volume sellers anyway).
AMD technically has the best product at one of the most important price points - $150. Maybe I’m reading too much into this but the competition here just seems...clean.
There you have it. If you want a dual-core processor at around $130, the Core i3 530 is as good as it gets. Competition without killing AMD. I like it.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
107 Comments
View All Comments
gfredsen - Monday, January 25, 2010 - link
I know this borders on thread crapping, but can someone tell me why Fry's is selling the newer 45 Watt AMD cpus and virtually no one else.I post this here, because for the price I still believe the AMD solution to be the best for how I use a computer, HTPC and SOHO.
Add in the price of a MB, DDR3 which I don't have and the Intel i3 still offers me no advantage that I can see.
I'll pass for now.
papapapapapapapababy - Sunday, January 24, 2010 - link
"From Intel the closest competitor is the Core 2 Duo E7600, which runs at 3.06GHz but with a 3MB L2 cache"lol my old retro E6600 runs at 3.2GHz also has 4MB L2 cache, and smokes my 3,2GHZ E7300 in photoshop... intel am fail.
smilingcrow - Sunday, January 24, 2010 - link
If you can't get more than 3.2 from your E7300 sounds like your motherboard = fail.papapapapapapapababy - Sunday, January 24, 2010 - link
diminishing returns, girl.smilingcrow - Tuesday, January 26, 2010 - link
Hi girl, I don't really need to know your gender and the fact that you aren't very good at over-clocking might reinforce in some peoples’ minds that the fairer sex aren’t so good with tech. Anyway, take a look at the forums at overclockers.com so you can get the best out of that CPU.Fjodor2000 - Saturday, January 23, 2010 - link
Anand, is there any way you could provide reliable measurements for the Core i3-530's Idle Power Consumption when only the IGP is used? One of your earlier articles (http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?...">http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?... indicated that it could reach as low as 27.6 W (!), however in that article there were no details on what Clarkdale CPU was used or other details of the system used.- Saturday, January 23, 2010 - link
Your going to need a mini-ITX board, some Gskill 1.35v memory, a SSD, a pico-PSU (probably with 100w brick) to have any chance of reaching 27.6w idle.I know for a fact that Intel used Gskill 1.35v memory (there was an article about it somewhere)and I'm sure they used every trick in the book to get the idle power down that low. I looked on Newegg for a mini-ITX board and couldn't find one so your probably going to have to wait if you want the ultimate power sipping HTPC.
smilingcrow - Sunday, January 24, 2010 - link
The G.Skill Eco RAM (1.35V) has a negligible impact on idle power consumption according to the only review I’m seen which isn’t surprising as a single RAM stick at stock voltage doesn’t consume much to start with. At load the test showed gains of between 3 and 5W.I’m not a fan of this site but it’s the only review I could find and probably even they couldn’t screw this up; on second thoughts…
http://www.fudzilla.com/content/view/16833/1/1/3/">http://www.fudzilla.com/content/view/16833/1/1/3/
Fjodor2000 - Sunday, January 24, 2010 - link
I see. It would be really interesting to see if it can be reproduced, and just how low it is possible to get the power consumption using such a system as you described.Also, I think it would be interesting to see the Idle Power Consumption with IGP Only, for a more "normal" system. I.e. uATX motherboard (without Idle power issues!), Intel i3-530 CPU, 4 GB RAM, ~1 TB low power HDD, and NO external GFX-card (the review for some reason currently only contains Idle power consumption when used with an external GFX card).
Anand, do you think it would be possible to run an idle power consumption test for the core i3-530 setup you used, but without an external GFX card? After all, I suppose that will be the common setup for most i3-530 based systems?
kwrzesien - Monday, January 25, 2010 - link
I just built a 530 system with the Gigabyte GA-H55M-UD2H board, Artic Freezer 7, a WD 640 GB Blue, LG BDROM/DVDRW, 4 GB Mushkin (2 x 2GB 1600 C9) RAM with an Antec 380D Green PSU in a P180 mini case (200mm, 120mm fans on low). Terrific build, everything works great except the Freezer is blocking the first DIMM slot so installing a second pair of sticks is going to be a problem.Idle power at Win7 desktop, all stock settings, no discrete video card, is 41W! I was expecting ~60W so I'm really surprised, this puts my Core i7 920 to shame - but that is also my 'everything' box. I highly recommend this entire setup except maybe the Freezer - it is just too bulky in the fan cage. Don't go bigger on the PSU unless you need more than one 6-pin PEG connector or are installing 4+ hard drives. Next build (ordering today) will be the same with an SSD and 1TB Green drive...