The Skylake Core i3 (51W) CPU Review: i3-6320, i3-6300 and i3-6100 Tested
by Ian Cutress on August 8, 2016 9:00 AM ESTGrand Theft Auto V
The highly anticipated iteration of the Grand Theft Auto franchise finally hit the shelves on April 14th 2015, with both AMD and NVIDIA in tow to help optimize the title. GTA doesn’t provide graphical presets, but opens up the options to users and extends the boundaries by pushing even the hardest systems to the limit using Rockstar’s Advanced Game Engine. Whether the user is flying high in the mountains with long draw distances or dealing with assorted trash in the city, when cranked up to maximum it creates stunning visuals but hard work for both the CPU and the GPU.
For our test we have scripted a version of the in-game benchmark, relying only on the final part which combines a flight scene along with an in-city drive-by followed by a tanker explosion. We record both the average frame rate and the percentage of frames under 60 FPS (16.6ms).
For this test we used the following settings with our graphics cards:
| Grand Theft Auto Settings | |||
| Resolution | Quality | ||
| Low GPU | Integrated Graphics | 1280x720 | Lowest |
| ASUS R7 240 1GB DDR3 | |||
| Medium GPU | MSI GTX 770 Lightning 2GB | 1920x1080 | Very High |
| MSI R9 285 Gaming 2G | |||
| High GPU | ASUS GTX 980 Strix 4GB | 1920x1080 | Very High |
| MSI R9 290X Gaming 4G | |||
Integrated Graphics
![Grand Theft Auto V on Integrated Graphics [Under 60 FPS]](https://images.anandtech.com/graphs/graph10543/83071.png)
The APUs take a large, almost double FPS lead for average frame rates, and again the Core i3 staircase shows that the L3 cache makes a difference. On the Low FPS graph, we see that none of the Intel CPUs make it above 60 FPS at any point, whereas the APUs can expect to see 15-30% of their time at or above 60 FPS.
Discrete Graphics
![Grand Theft Auto V on ASUS R7 240 DDR3 2GB ($70) [Under 60 FPS]](https://images.anandtech.com/graphs/graph10543/83079.png)
![Grand Theft Auto V on MSI R9 285 Gaming 2GB ($240) [Under 60 FPS]](https://images.anandtech.com/graphs/graph10543/83087.png)
![Grand Theft Auto V on MSI GTX 770 Lightning 2GB ($245) [Under 60 FPS]](https://images.anandtech.com/graphs/graph10543/83095.png)
![Grand Theft Auto V on MSI R9 290X Gaming LE 4GB ($380) [Under 60 FPS]](https://images.anandtech.com/graphs/graph10543/83103.png)
![Grand Theft Auto V on ASUS GTX 980 Strix 4GB ($560) [Under 60 FPS]](https://images.anandtech.com/graphs/graph10543/83113.png)
It's an onslaught of data, but clicking through to each graph will expand it in finer detail.
Again, with a discrete GPU, the Core i3s sit very pretty at the top of our graphs. In most cases, against similarly priced AMD CPUs, they can be from 5% to 20% quicker in average frame rates - the higher power the GPU, the more that it matters.
An interesting graph is the final one, with the GTX 980 and lookng at the percentage of frames over 16.6ms (i.e., the percentage time the game spends under 60 FPS). With the Core i3 parts, the game spends at least 50% of its time above 60 FPS running at 1080p Very High settings, however with similarly priced AMD APUs, this drops down to 15-25%. While running at V-Sync, this will be noticable. The FX CPUs get a better showing with the GTX 980, with the FX-6350 and the FX-8350 straddling the Core i3s for average frame rates and the 60 FPS metric.
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DonMiguel85 - Monday, August 8, 2016 - link
I remember in Eurogamer's i3-6100 review, just using 2666 or 3200MHz DDR4 gave a significant performance boost in pretty much all games, especially Ryse whose maximum FPS almost doubled from 59 to over 100FPS. And this was at the stock CPU clockspeed. Minimum frames improved substantially too.wintermute000 - Monday, August 8, 2016 - link
Problem is the price premium for 3200Mhz, you're already halfway to the cost of a dGPU like a GTX950 or R460 that will blow the doors off any iGPUwintermute000 - Monday, August 8, 2016 - link
whoops I guess I was looking at the expensive stuff, realised that not all 3200 is priced that much higherbeginner99 - Tuesday, August 9, 2016 - link
exactly. If you go Skylake, buy 3200 mhz RAM. For 16 GB it's only $20-30 more than 2133 mhz RAM and totally worth it.fanofanand - Monday, August 8, 2016 - link
Fantastic article Ian, you are definitely doing a great job of filling in the "lull" period between major GPU reviews. I have been wanting exactly this review to be done, as I would love to be able to build my kid a cheap computer for school that could do a bit of light gaming. I was really hoping the APUs would give adequate performance, but it looks like I will be waiting for Zen. I really don't want to get a dGPU for his computer and with Intel it doesn't look like there is much of a choice. Zen it is! Please don't disappoint us AMD!BrokenCrayons - Tuesday, August 9, 2016 - link
I'm keenly interested in seeing what Zen brings to the table too. However my next desktop PC upgrade is going to be a GPU of some sort and even that's probably a good 6+ months away if not more. Zen will be another CPU+Mobo+RAM swap and I'm not looking forward to anything of the sort right now...unless Zen can more than double the performance of my 860K, at which point I'll be very interested.Achaios - Monday, August 8, 2016 - link
Bought a brand new laptop today with an Intel Core i5-6200U Skylake onboard (which you have failed to include in your table) clocked at 2.3 GHz which turbos to 2.8 GHz.The thing I wanna say if you try to install Windows 7 on a Skylake machine without making a little in-depth research, you're screwed.
One way to install Windows 7 on Skylake machines is described by the following ASROCK article:
http://www.asrock.com/microsite/win7install/
(Thank you ASROCK).
I am not ashamed to say I spent the better part of day fighting off the dreaded "A required CD/DVD drive device driver is missing" before I had my Windows 7 Pro 64 Bit slipstreamed and updated by ASROCK's app.
Perhaps you should consider adding a couple of words on the subject as there are many ppl who will stay on Windows 7 for several years to come and are not very familiar with the Skylake platform.
DonMiguel85 - Monday, August 8, 2016 - link
Well, of course it's not on the table - that's a mobile chip. Plus unless you have some specific business need to use Windows 7 I don't see why you would go through the hassle of putting it on there. It's an almost 7 year old OS.fanofanand - Tuesday, August 9, 2016 - link
LOL "failed to include" I love it. "I bought it so you should review it, even if it's not even in the same segment as the other products you are reviewing". Classic snowflake narcissism.Meteor2 - Tuesday, August 9, 2016 - link
1. I wish you'd calculated price/performance and power/performance for us, rather than leaving us to guesstimate2. The game benchmarks need 95th (or whatever) percentile frame rates and minimum frame times, as that's where the performance difference between i3 and i5 truly lies.