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 Intel’s HD Graphics - It Works...Very Well
The coolest part of my job is being able to work with some ridiculously smart people. One such person gave me the idea to try overclocking the Intel HD graphics core on Clarkdale a few weeks ago. I didn’t get time to do it with the Core i5 661, but today is a different day.
Clarkdale offers three different GPU clocks depending on the model:
| Processor | Intel HD Graphics Clock |
| Intel Core i5-670 | 733MHz |
| Intel Core i5-661 | 900MHz |
| Intel Core i5-660 | 733MHz |
| Intel Core i5-650 | 733MHz |
| Intel Core i3-540 | 733MHz |
| Intel Core i3-530 | 733MHz |
| Intel Pentium G9650 | 533MHz |
The Core i5 661 runs it at the highest speed - 900MHz. The rest of the Core i5 and i3 processors pick 733MHz. And the Pentium G6950 has a 533MHz graphics clock.
Remember that the Intel HD Graphics die is physically separate from the CPU die on Clarkdale. It’s a separate 45nm package and I’m guessing it’s not all that difficult to make. If AMD can reliably ship GPUs with hundreds of shader processors, Intel can probably make a chip with 12 without much complaining.
So the theory is that these graphics cores are easily overclockable. I fired up our testbed and adjusted the GPU clock. It’s a single BIOS option and without any changes to voltage or cooling I managed to get our Core i3 530’s GPU running at 1200MHz. That’s a 64% overclock!
I could push the core as high as 1400MHz and still get into Windows, but the system stopped being able to render any 3D games at that point.
I benchmarked World of Warcraft with the Core i3 running at three different GPU clocks to show the potential for improvement:
| CPU (Graphics Clock) | World of Warcraft |
| Intel Core i5 661 (900MHz gfx) | 14.8 fps |
| Intel Core i3 530 (733MHz gfx) | 12.5 fpx |
| Intel Core i3 530 (900MHz gfx) | 14.2 fps |
| Intel Core i3 530 (1200MHz gfx) | 19.0 fps |
A 64% overclock resulted in a 52% increase in performance. If Intel wanted to, it could easily make its on-package GPU a lot faster than it is today. I wonder if this is what we’ll see with Sandy Bridge and graphics turbo on the desktop.
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Suntan - Friday, January 22, 2010 - link
Then again, it may just be that those people do have better stereos (or more importantly, better rooms and speakers) then yours.In any case, 99% of this website’s existence is possible because of the tendency for people to try and get “just a little more” out of their electronics…
-Suntan
Suntan - Friday, January 22, 2010 - link
In a word, yes. If your room/components/setup is worth it, then it can make a big difference.Analog output (and no, what you are doing is not LPCM) can compete sound-wise with digital output (either LPCM or bit streaming) if you have a quality soundcard (think Lynx 2B, not anything that says soundblaster) but even then, you lose other digital signal processing capabilities that a good AVR can offer (namely Audyssey Multi-EQ room correction and Audyessey Dynamic-EQ.)
That said, I too think it is a little over exaggerated. Simply because most people really wouldn’t notice the benefit in their situations.
Lastly, I happen to believe that the big flap over LPCM vs. bitstream *is* completely overblown. Ymmv.
-Suntan
Anand Lal Shimpi - Friday, January 22, 2010 - link
I agree that 8-channel LPCM is pretty much good enough. There are issues with players downsampling audio when outputting 8-channel LPCM from TrueHD/DTS-HD MA sources, but to my ears I could never notice the difference.Also remember that the majority of users don't even have 8-channel audio setups. We're talking 5.1 at best, and honestly a huge advantage of these high def audio formats is the support for discrete rear surround channels.
That being said, it's still a valid option to want. Blu-ray players have been able to do it for quite a while, there's no reason we shouldn't demand the same out of our HTPCs. Some users do prefer to keep the decoding on their receiver/preprocessor and for them it's the only option.
Hopefully by the end of this year all platforms will offer it and we can just assume its presence as a checkbox feature.
Take care,
Anand
cmdrdredd - Friday, January 22, 2010 - link
The big problem is some players mess with the audio during the decode and don't output LPCM in a raw untouched format. Bitstreaming means nothing is meddes with, no volume normalization and the like.archcommus - Friday, January 22, 2010 - link
Thanks all for the info, helped clear things up. With my 5.1 system and onboard audio with Windows 7 these days the software decoding and analog output is fine. But I guess in the future with a possible 7.1 system I would at least want LPCM over HDMI. I couldn't imagine needing bitstreaming unless I was building a true home theater.Spivonious - Friday, January 22, 2010 - link
LPCM is decoding the channels and sending them digitally over HDMI.I don't understand the big hype either, unless the decoder in your AVR is much better than the one in software. Otherwise the sound would be the same. I guess it's fun to get the AVR to display "DTS-HD".
blckgrffn - Friday, January 22, 2010 - link
Can we see what the 4ghz power consumption looked like? Was speed step still active? How about the OC'd graphics power consumption?Thanks :)
Anand Lal Shimpi - Friday, January 22, 2010 - link
At 4GHz the i3 530 used 129W under load, up from 101.4W :)I don't remember if speedstep was still functioning when I adjusted the clock multiplier, I believe it was but I'll need to double check.
Take care,
Anand
blckgrffn - Saturday, January 23, 2010 - link
Thank you!I guess it doesn't matter if speedstep was functioning if you could provide the idle power consumption of 4ghz as well.
The information is very much appreciated.
Deaks2 - Friday, January 22, 2010 - link
So were the the overclocking tests done on the Asus or MSI mainboard? Also, would the use of a P55 or H55 chipset affect o/c'ability of this CPU?