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
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.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
107 Comments
View All Comments
kwrzesien - Friday, January 22, 2010 - link
When is that Gigabyte board going to be available? I've already bought two 530's from Microcenter for $99 each and one GA-H55M-U2H board from Newegg to go into Antec P180's. I'm really hoping to get the USB3 ports and triple-power USB that is on the -USB3 model. It's been announced since mid-December and is only Gigabytes website but absolutely no signs of it in e-tail yet.Rajinder Gill - Friday, January 22, 2010 - link
Hi,We'll ask about this first thing Monday morning and get back to you with an answer if possible.
regards
Raja
kwrzesien - Monday, January 25, 2010 - link
Raja,Thanks for looking into this! Still no sign on NewEgg as of this morning. I need to order by tomorrow to get my friend's build out, maybe I should just look for USB3.0 PCIe cards...
Thanks,
Kirk
Rajinder Gill - Tuesday, January 26, 2010 - link
Hi.I'll paste the response I got back from GB this morning:
We have 4 H57/H55 models on the NA marketing currently. The model name and selling price of Newegg are listed below:
"H57M-USB3: $10+ up than H55M-USB3, wait for posting from Newegg.
H55M-USB3: $109.99, http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N8...">http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a...&cm_...
H55M-UD2H: $104.99, http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N8...">http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a...&cm_...
H55M-S2H: $89.99, http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N8...">http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a...&cm_...
"
Hope this helps!
Raja
kwrzesien - Tuesday, January 26, 2010 - link
Raja,THANKS! Really I just couldn't wait so I ordered another UD2H and a $40 USB3 card, the second build can get upgraded with USB3 later. Looks like the H57M-USB3 would be a better price overall but then you do loose two USB2 ports from the back panel - I hope they include a 2-port slot adapter on the USB3 model because they sure don't in the UD2H model, which already has 2 internal USB2 headers.
Shadowmaster625 - Friday, January 22, 2010 - link
An AMD motherboard, with a northbridge and IGP is cheaper than an H55 motherboard that has no northbridge. I want to know why, and that should be the #1 question when it comes to i3, and yet you didnt even address this issue.Anand Lal Shimpi - Friday, January 22, 2010 - link
I mentioned this in an earlier comment. It's the same reason that AMD motherboard prices didn't go down when we moved from the K7 to K8 - chipset prices remained the same.The H5x chipsets, despite most of the logic being shifted onto the CPU package, are no cheaper than the previous generation G4x chipsets. Both AMD and Intel have made it very clear that as they integrate more functions onto the CPU, they aren't going to lower chipset prices. Instead, profit margins go up.
It's a fairly new platform so I'd expect average prices to drop as production ramps up, but that's the main reason the boards aren't any cheaper. I believe you can buy H55 boards for less than $90 on Newegg now, and then there's this ECS board that sells for under $80 (under $70 with MIR) - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N8...">http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a...cm_re=In...
Take care,
Anand
tno - Friday, January 22, 2010 - link
I have a Q9300@3/X48/4890 based system. I'm a pretty average user, and the hardest work my CPU does is the occasional HD encode, and the systems hardest daily toll is gaming on one screen with an HD video on the other. I have not seen any slow down or deficiencies in my system, and don't feel limited in the slightest. I haven't played the newest, most stressful games around, but on the whole, I don't see a big case for making the jump to Nehalem or Clarkdale. Indeed, I feel comfortable sitting on my rig till Sandy Bridge.So, am I nuts? Am I missing some hugely compelling reason to make the jump? Is it the efficiency? Or is this tock really not as big a deal as the last tock (Penryn)?
tno
Taft12 - Friday, January 22, 2010 - link
If you're a "pretty average" user, why did you buy a "pretty high end" motherboard and video card if you don't even play new games?? Shoulda gone for something half the price and upgrade twice as often :)tno - Friday, January 22, 2010 - link
My wife was on a bunch of away rotations and so I was home alone and bored. That lead to a series of purchases that were in tune with the lifestyle of a guy with time and cash to spend. Then my wife came home and suddenly the time and the cash went away. Don't get me wrong, I love my wife, but it was a fun time and had she been away much longer I'd be cruising with some wicked water cooled i7 rig.