i3-530 questions...

[aamsel]

With an i3-530, would it be better to ignore the integrated video and run them on a good P55 board for better overclocking?

How would an i3-530 perform compare to an E8600?

 

[jdjbuffalo]

You do get HT with the i3s. So you've got 4 threads. It's obviously not as good as 4 cores but does provide some improvements.

The i3-530 will out perform the E8600. They also overclock well (take a look at some Anandtech reviews).

I would get a H55 board so you at least have the video option with it. You could reuse the i3 machine later for some non-gaming tasks. Most everything available with the P55 is on the H55 boards. When you've got a discrete video card installed the onboard will be disabled.

If you are looking primarily for a gaming machine then I would lean towards an i5-750. This gives you 4 cores and will last longer as a good solid gaming rig.

 

[alyarb]

the i3's only make sense if you are going for 4.5 GHz or more and are pairing them with a discrete performance GPU. You would want to do this on P55.

 

[SunnyD]

the i3's only make sense if you want a small form factor HTPC with all of the requisite bells and whistles and impressive performance for a minimal price.

Fixed that for you.

You people are so one-track minded. I purchased an i3 530 and an H55 motherboard specifically for a low power (thermal) HTPC that has at least some capability to hit some games for the kids (younger kids, plus a mommy who only does web browsing) that will be fast, quiet and cool. In fact I'll probably end up undervolting it making it just that much cooler.

Other than that, OP, what the hell is this "big loss" that you're talking about? The i3 is the same thing as the i5 6xx series with the exception of turbo mode and maybe a couple other irrelevant items, and the 7xx series has 4 physical cores. Other than that, same thing. If you need the physical cores, you should be looking at an LGA1366 i7 anyway.

 

[alyarb]

a fully featured HTPC should be able to record and compress multiple video streams in the background during playback and/or gaming or other usage and you cant do that with clarkdale.

dual cores now comprise the entry level segment whether they have hyperthreading or not, and are only suitable as playback machines with light encoding duties that are not queued during usage. in this segment, AMD has dominated with their inexpensive CPUs and platforms.

If you read anand's article you'll find that an i3 on H55 consumes the same amount of power as a dual core K10 on 790GX, the minimal power savings coupled with the higher cost is only mitigated by the one thing intel consistently brings to the table, which is superior performance per thread and frequency scaling. I would not use an i3 for any machine that would be doing any encoding, transcoding, or RTS games. However, at very high frequencies with a powerful GPU, it would be great for FPS gaming and general multimedia playback and in general would be fun to overclock. If you want a fully featured HTPC, you will inevitably need 4 threads and an Athlon II X4+785G is very hard to ignore for the price. If you need more performance, lynnfield is the appropriate step up, not clarkdale. If you need lower power consumption, there are plenty of 65-watt denebs that will handle background video recording with more tact than an i3. Clarkdale is wedged right in between two sweet spots and until they can get a 4-threaded chip below $99 with $60-80 motherboards, they cannot compete with Regor on 785G in terms of value nor can they compete with Propus in terms of threadhandling, and they just aren't fast enough to be only $50 cheaper than lynnfield.


like i said clarkdale only has educational purposes in my opinion to discuss frequency scaling of the coming 32nm generation. Clarkdale does not represent the full breadth of 32nm capability, with it's hackneyed off-die low frequency memory controller (at 45nm) and not-much-improved power efficiency. Going from yorkfield to lynnfield, performance per watt went way up. However performance per watt has hardly budged going from E8600 to i5 661. I'm very meh about this chip but it does give interesting data at high frequencies. I think we'll be served best by this CPU on the arrandale platform in CULV devices.

 

[aamsel]

I don't have any huge demands for a desktop PC.
Not primarily for gaming, but I always like more than I need in a PC,
and appreciate speed.
Coming off E8600 @ 4.0 so that's why the comparison.

Want my PC to be at least as capable as high-end MMC or better but
no big-time 3D at this time, so from what you are all saying, the i3 is not in
that category.

The i7-860 would be my overall choice for single-GPU use, and I am trying one
now, but it only overclocks well with hyperthreading turned off, which makes it,
effectively an i5-750 with a higher multiplier, no more.

Generally, the 920/930 would be the new choice, but with hyperthreading enabled, they are going to be hot as hell near 4.0, are they not?

I really appreciate a powerful CPU that runs cool like the E8600's do!

Are there any early 930 batches that indicate substantially better binning than with the 920 D0's?

 

[alyarb]

930's do not appear to have any better binning than 920.

If you have an E8600 at 4 GHz right now, you will definitely be disappointed by an i3 at that same frequency. If you bought one just for laughs, I would keep it if it could do 4.5 GHz or higher because that would be a fun machine to use. If you don't do any video encoding or 3D graphics though, honestly I would keep your 860 or go down to a 750, but you'll definitely want 4 GHz or better otherwise for multimedia/gaming it just isn't that much of a step up.

whether it's an 860 or 920, though, most 4 GHz i7's can be cooled silently. All quads will get hotter than your E8600, but they can still be kept below 75 C (that's during linpack) without making any noise.

 

[aamsel]

...You people are so one-track minded. I purchased an i3 530 and an H55 motherboard specifically for a low power (thermal) HTPC that has at least some capability to hit some games for the kids (younger kids, plus a mommy who only does web browsing) that will be fast, quiet and cool. In fact I'll probably end up undervolting it making it just that much cooler.

Other than that, OP, what the hell is this "big loss" that you're talking about? The i3 is the same thing as the i5 6xx series with the exception of turbo mode and maybe a couple other irrelevant items, and the 7xx series has 4 physical cores. Other than that, same thing. If you need the physical cores, you should be looking at an LGA1366 i7 anyway.

I hadn't read enough about the chip when I posted that, since then I have more information, thanks!

a fully featured HTPC should be able to record and compress multiple video streams in the background during playback and/or gaming or other usage and you cant do that with clarkdale.

dual cores now comprise the entry level segment whether they have hyperthreading or not, and are only suitable as playback machines with light encoding duties that are not queued during usage. in this segment, AMD has dominated with their inexpensive CPUs and platforms.

If you read anand's article you'll find that an i3 on H55 consumes the same amount of power as a dual core K10 on 790GX, the minimal power savings coupled with the higher cost is only mitigated by the one thing intel consistently brings to the table, which is superior performance per thread and frequency scaling. I would not use an i3 for any machine that would be doing any encoding, transcoding, or RTS games. However, at very high frequencies with a powerful GPU, it would be great for FPS gaming and general multimedia playback and in general would be fun to overclock. If you want a fully featured HTPC, you will inevitably need 4 threads and an Athlon II X4+785G is very hard to ignore for the price. If you need more performance, lynnfield is the appropriate step up, not clarkdale. If you need lower power consumption, there are plenty of 65-watt denebs that will handle background video recording with more tact than an i3. Clarkdale is wedged right in between two sweet spots and until they can get a 4-threaded chip below $99 with $60-80 motherboards, they cannot compete with Regor on 785G in terms of value nor can they compete with Propus in terms of threadhandling, and they just aren't fast enough to be only $50 cheaper than lynnfield.


like i said clarkdale only has educational purposes in my opinion to discuss frequency scaling of the coming 32nm generation. Clarkdale does not represent the full breadth of 32nm capability, with it's hackneyed off-die low frequency memory controller (at 45nm) and not-much-improved power efficiency. Going from yorkfield to lynnfield, performance per watt went way up. However performance per watt has hardly budged going from E8600 to i5 661. I'm very meh about this chip but it does give interesting data at high frequencies. I think we'll be served best by this CPU on the arrandale platform in CULV devices.

Very informative post thanks!
So, what is your current CPU of choice, the 920?

 

[aamsel]

930's do not appear to have any better binning than 920.

If you have an E8600 at 4 GHz right now, you will definitely be disappointed by an i3 at that same frequency. If you bought one just for laughs, I would keep it if it could do 4.5 GHz or higher because that would be a fun machine to use. If you don't do any video encoding or 3D graphics though, honestly I would keep your 860 or go down to a 750, but you'll definitely want 4 GHz or better otherwise for multimedia/gaming it just isn't that much of a step up.

whether it's an 860 or 920, though, most 4 GHz i7's can be cooled silently. All quads will get hotter than your E8600, but they can still be kept below 75 C without making any noise.

Well, I currently have an i7-860 @ 4.0GHz, but with hyperthreading turned off only, so
it is basically an i5-750 with higher multiplier, I guess. Anyhow, I am not committed to keeping it.

The E8600 has a new home now, but are they simply among the lowest power and highest performing chips watt per watt?
If so, perhaps I should buy another one.
The heatsinks around it used to run almost cool @ 4.0 and the ones on this crippled i7-860 run like lava @ 4.0.

 

[alyarb]

the VRMs have to deliver more than double the power to run your i7 at that speed. They aren't lava-hot because they are inferior, but because of the laws of nature that oversee currents on conductors. On that same principle, quads get warm too. You could've put a Q9550 in your old computer, cranked it up to 4 GHz, and had a hotter machine as well.

Your setup you have now is much faster than your E8600. I would not spend the money and effort to go back to what you had simply because you don't like heat. If you want to step down to an i5 750, you will be able to save a little bit of money but your thermal situation will only be slightly improved (if at all). Welcome to owning a big fast CPU.


Moving over to X58 and a 920 will not make your machine faster (unless you get into 4.1-4.3 GHz), but it will have a lot more expandability. Your temperatures would not change though (in fact, a 30 watt QPI hub will be added into the mix). Not sure it's worth the money. I think what you really need is just a better i7 860 sample but that involves the risk of buying a new one, testing to see if it's any better, and then selling the lesser of the two.

 

[aamsel]

the VRMs have to deliver more than double the power to run your i7 at that speed. They aren't lava-hot because they are inferior, but because of the laws of nature that oversee currents on conductors. On that same principle, quads get warm too. You could've put a Q9550 in your old computer, cranked it up to 4 GHz, and had a hotter machine as well.

Your setup you have now is much faster than your E8600. I would not spend the money and effort to go back to what you had simply because you don't like heat. If you want to step down to an i5 750, you will be able to save a little bit of money but your thermal situation will only be slightly improved (if at all). Welcome to owning a big fast CPU.


Moving over to X58 and a 920 will not make your machine faster (unless you get into 4.1-4.3 GHz), but it will have a lot more expandability. Your temperatures would not change though (in fact, a 30 watt QPI hub will be added into the mix). Not sure it's worth the money. I think what you really need is just a better i7 860 sample but that involves the risk of buying a new one, testing to see if it's any better, and then selling the lesser of the two.

You make really good points, thanks, it is quite helpful.
Very few people have posted about "good batches" for the i7-860 as
they have for the 920's so it is hard to know what would be a better 860 sample.

The only other option is to get a Lynnfield Xeon of one model or another.
Again, there have been a few posts about these, but very few.

If staying with Lynnfield it would be nice to get a better sample, I agree.

 

[alyarb]

you do bring up an interesting point with the xeons, but you should know that 60% of the time your CPU is faster with HT off, so I dont want you to go through all this trouble just for that. just make a list of all the programs/games you use and i'll see if there are any of them that particularly love/hate HT. you still have a 4 ghz nehalem and that's worth keeping (what voltage / temps are you at?).

 

[aamsel]

you do bring up an interesting point with the xeons, but you should know that 60% of the time your CPU is faster with HT off, so I dont want you to go through all this trouble just for that. just make a list of all the programs/games you use and i'll see if there are any of them that particularly love/hate HT. you still have a 4 ghz nehalem and that's worth keeping (what voltage / temps are you at?).

I am running at 1.4v but with load line calibration off, so it is actually running at just below 1.35v at just under 65 degrees load per core. Not too shabby, again, this is with hyperthreading off, and running @ 20 x 200. It can certainly go faster, but not with hyperthreading, and not just without load line calibration. I read several places that this was not good to turn on, since it just boosts the voltages to "prevent" vDroop. Anyhow, it is off right now.

I would like to find a thread for settings on the P7P55D Deluxe, but haven't found a good one yet?