Why does the i3-8100 feel so slow, relatively-speaking? My R5 1600 under heavy load still spanks it.

[VirtualLarry]

Maybe there was something to the ramblings of a certain member here, comparing the Winzip + Prime95 benchmarks, between the FX 8-cores, and the i5 Intel CPUs.

The i5, according to those tests, did not multi-task nearly as well..

Maybe I've got the back-story mixed up.

But fast-forward to today, or when the i3-8100 was released.

It's "adequate", but honestly, it doesn't "feel" any faster than my G4560 CPUs, for desktop usage. In fact, in some ways, it feels slower.

I'm sure that it will be a popular choice for business systems, for the Intel-conscious consumer that ignores that AMD Ryzen 2200G and 2400G APUs, but I can't help but feel a bit ... underwhelmed... when I use my i3-8100 rig. It has a Z370 ITX board, and DDR4-2800 RAM running at 2800, too. Along with an M.2 PCI-E SSD, it shouldn't be "slow", by any objective means, but my Ryzen R5 1600 just "feels" much faster, even when the CPU is loaded up to 90%. Hard to describe, I guess.

I do have TWO RX 470 / RX 570 cards in the R5 1600 rig, too, and it's hard-wired Gigabit, whereas the ITX board is running off of the iGPU (dual-channel though), and wireless AC.

It's not really slow-slow, it's just kind of... not really inspiringly snappy.

Maybe it's the cache memory size. Ryzen CPUs have 16MB L3 cache, the i3-8100 has what, 4MB?

Edit: Mostly comparing, just browsing these forums.

 

[frozentundra123456]

Four threads, no turbo, vs 12 threads with turbo? Really an apples to oranges comparison, the cpus arent even in the same price class. And, no offense, but how fast a system "feels" is subjective. Obviously though, in any heavily threaded benchmark the 1600 would be faster.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Well, yes and no. I've seen plenty of comments from people that the i3-8100 is faster than the 2200G and 2400G, and quite frankly, the R5 1600 isn't hugely ahead of the 2400G, it's just got six cores, rather than 4.

And the price difference isn't much. i3-8100 is $110 on sale, R5 1600 is $150 on sale.

 

[IEC]

R5 1600 is actually $130 after $20 MIR at Microcenter (in store only) right now...
http://www.microcenter.com/product/...AM4_Boxed_Processor_with_Wraith_Spire_Cooler#

 

[whm1974]

R5 1600 is actually $130 after $20 MIR at Microcenter (in store only) right now...
http://www.microcenter.com/product/...AM4_Boxed_Processor_with_Wraith_Spire_Cooler#

Not bad at all. I would be temped to buy if I was building a new rig.

 

[Kenmitch]

Four threads, no turbo, vs 12 threads with turbo? Really an apples to oranges comparison, the cpus arent even in the same price class. And, no offense, but how fast a system "feels" is subjective. Obviously though, in any heavily threaded benchmark the 1600 would be faster.

He said he feels it just browsing these forums so I doubt the issue really is a 4 vs 12 thread issue.

My money is on the inferior iGPU that's in the i3. Throw in a cheap dGPU and I'd imagine it would solve the issue.

 

[Herr Kutz]

Could it be the infamous Intel microstutter? It's well known that AMD systems are smoother.

 

[Kenmitch]

Well, yes and no. I've seen plenty of comments from people that the i3-8100 is faster than the 2200G and 2400G, and quite frankly, the R5 1600 isn't hugely ahead of the 2400G, it's just got six cores, rather than 4.

And the price difference isn't much. i3-8100 is $110 on sale, R5 1600 is $150 on sale.

Have you tried benching the 8100 and comparing results yet? Maybe it's just your imagination.

Kidding aside it's probably just the crappy iGPU that's in the 8100 causing your issue.

 

[Kenmitch]

Oops

 

[Burpo]

Wired vs wifi..

 

[VirtualLarry]

Wired vs wifi..

That's easy enough to fix and test, I think I've got a spare ethernet connection next to the ITX box.

BTW, I have a 2400G coming my way, so I may have some 2400G / i3-8100 head-to-head soon.

Edit: $150 with a $20 MIR? $130? Phenomenal deal. Sadly, that's a clearance fire-sale, and not MSRP.

Much like those $120-150 fire-sale RX 470 cards (in the past), grab em while they're hot!

I paid $220 for my first R5 1600, and I think that it was worth that (then, before CFL released).

 

[xblax]

Too bad there are no benchmarks for system responsiveness, or does anybody know one? Most benchmarks are only measuring throughput but not the response time for short tasks like rendering websites.

 

[killster1]

my head always hurts when you list all the diff rigs you have. Either you review hardware or you have big dreams of always selling someone a prebuilt pc not sure. Why not just buy 1 nice pc and 1 nice laptop and throw the rest away! why bother with i3 8100? why bother with ryzen 1600 and 2400g? I personally still use 2 identical pc's. Assrocks with 980 ti sli with 3770k. i have been dying to upgrade but i really dont play games anymore dont encode so the 1 hour a month game play is all my rig see's. Really wanted to buy 8700k but keep waiting to see what comes next.

from a quick google search the 8100 was 100$ and the ryzen 1600 was 180$. Both priced for the budget oriented person.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Well, this situation may not last long.

Once the supply of R5 1600 CPUs dry up, the 2600 is going to be $200 MSRP (or maybe that's the 2600X?).

Whereas, there will soon be a "flood" of H,B 300-series chipset boards for the i3-8100, so they may get more popular.

But I'm personally hoping that the 2200G catches on as the de-facto "standard budget build" CPU.

Been hearing rumors that only the X470 will allow OC, that the B450 won't. (of course, B350, X370 still will, but may not be able to take full advantage of "Precision Boost 2").

 

[epsilon84]

How exactly is it unresponsive? Or, at least, relative to the R1600.

At the end of the day you are comparing a 4C/4T to a 6C/12T CPU. That's (almost) like saying a 2200G or Ryzen 3 1200/1300X feels slow next to a 8700/8700K

What would be interesting is if you did a BLIND test, with say, a 2200G and i3 8100, with identical setups, fresh windows install etc, and see if you can pick out which system is which on a consistent basis.

 

[whm1974]

How exactly is it unresponsive? Or, at least, relative to the R1600.

At the end of the day you are comparing a 4C/4T to a 6C/12T CPU. That's (almost) like saying a 2200G or Ryzen 3 1200/1300X feels slow next to a 8700/8700K

What would be interesting is if you did a BLIND test, with say, a 2200G and i3 8100, with identical setups, fresh windows install etc, and see if you can pick out which system is which on a consistent basis.

Personally I would expect the R5-1600 to more responsive then the i3-8100 anyway due to more cores and threads, and not mention Larry is using an dGPU with the 1600.

 

[VirtualLarry]

How exactly is it unresponsive?

Well, after logging in here, the profile / message / alert squares with the drop-down menus, in the upper-right corner of the menu.

Hovering over them, drops down the menu. On the Ryzen R5 1600, they drop-down basically instantly, or nearly so. On this i3-8100, there's a definite lag to them.

Also, on this i3-8100 I can type into this edit box almost faster than the text actually appears. Granted, I'm on Wifi right now, and using a wireless keyboard / mouse combo (what I had available). But still, there's a typing lag that isn't there on the Ryzen R5 1600 desktop box.

Edit: It should be noted that both boxes are using the newest Firefox 60a1 Nightly 64-bit browser, and the one on the Ryzen rig, has like nearly 200 tabs open, whereas the i3-8100 has maybe less than 10. Yet, the Ryzen is still more responsive.

Is that down to the wireless LAN, wireless keyboard / mouse, and iGPU alone? Or could the i3-8100 have something to do with it.

 

[Burpo]

Is that down to the wireless LAN, wireless keyboard / mouse, and iGPU alone?

Alone? You named 3 things right there..

 

[Kenmitch]

Larry....Change the power profile from the default balance to performance and see if it helps. I have to do this on my 7700HQ laptop or I can't really tolerate the user experience. I think it's just that the load is so low that it throttles all the way down and goes into derp mode surfing the web.

 

[xblax]

Alone? You named 3 things right there..

Wireless LAN and iGPU cannot slow down typing in a textbox. Website rendering however could profit from a dGPU.

 

[.vodka]

Have you enabled speed shift in the BIOS? It should help with the snappy feeling that you're missing from that 8100.

 

[Burpo]

Wireless LAN and iGPU cannot slow down typing in a textbox. Website rendering however could profit from a dGPU.

Did you not see where he said it has a wireless keyboard/mouse?

 

[Indus]

I thought you knew.. Ryzen >= Intel in anything except gaming fps. Most multi threaded workloads are going to favor Ryzen. Only in legacy apps where clockspeed matters over threads will intel really shine.

There are times I think about going 8700k but then I see 180+ FPS in CS GO with the ryzen 5 1600. Then I think.. why should I bother.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Larry....Change the power profile from the default balance to performance and see if it helps. I have to do this on my 7700HQ laptop or I can't really tolerate the user experience. I think it's just that the load is so low that it throttles all the way down and goes into derp mode surfing the web.

Winner! Still not 100% as responsive as Ryzen, but noticeably better overall.

Weird, that my G4560 / G4600-based Deskmini rigs don't really have that issue.
Edit: I think that I have "Speed Shift" enabled on my DeskMini units.

Edit: I didn't see "Speed Shift" in the 1.20 UEFI of my ASRock Z370 ITX/ac, so I flashed (Internet Flash) the newest BIOS, which was UEFI 1.90, with the ME fix.

Then I discovered it was in a different menu tree than I thought it was. So it could have been there before.

Anyways, it defaults to Enabled.

I set my Windows 10 Power Plan back to Balanced.

Responsiveness seemed better than without SS, with Balanced plan, but not quite as good as "High Performance" power plan, regardless of SS setting. Which I guess makes sense?

Edit: Oh yeah, on Gigabit wired LAN now. (Not sure that it makes all that much difference, my internet connection right now is 15/2.)

 

[kwalkingcraze]

It's "adequate", but honestly, it doesn't "feel" any faster than my G4560 CPUs, for desktop usage. In fact, in some ways, it feels slower.

When you upgrade to full four cores, the frequency speed number is lower (single-thread) and will be slower than Core i3-7320. DDR4 RAMs also have increased CAS latency timings. I found any DDR3 RAMs with CAS Latency 8 or less are faster than any DDR4s I put in.