Why an Overclockable Core i3 Might Not Exist: The Supermicro C7H170-M and Intel Core i3-6100TE Review
by Ian Cutress on March 17, 2016 10:30 AM EST- Posted in
- CPUs
- Intel
- Motherboards
- Core i3
- Supermicro
- Overclocking
Linux Performance
Built around several freely available benchmarks for Linux, Linux-Bench is a project spearheaded by Patrick at ServeTheHome to streamline about a dozen of these tests in a single neat package run via a set of three commands using an Ubuntu 11.04 LiveCD. These tests include fluid dynamics used by NASA, ray-tracing, OpenSSL, molecular modeling, and a scalable data structure server for web deployments. We run Linux-Bench and have chosen to report a select few of the tests that rely on CPU and DRAM speed.
C-Ray: link
C-Ray is a simple ray-tracing program that focuses almost exclusively on processor performance rather than DRAM access. The test in Linux-Bench renders a heavy complex scene offering a large scalable scenario.
C-Ray doesn't care much for the overclock, indicating that the bottleneck is elsewhere.
NAMD, Scalable Molecular Dynamics: link
Developed by the Theoretical and Computational Biophysics Group at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, NAMD is a set of parallel molecular dynamics codes for extreme parallelization up to and beyond 200,000 cores. The reference paper detailing NAMD has over 4000 citations, and our testing runs a small simulation where the calculation steps per unit time is the output vector.
The Molecular Dynamics module of the test certainly prefers more physical cores , with the overclock giving the result a small raise but still lagging behind the Core i5 parts.
NPB, Fluid Dynamics: link
Aside from LINPACK, there are many other ways to benchmark supercomputers in terms of how effective they are for various types of mathematical processes. The NAS Parallel Benchmarks (NPB) are a set of small programs originally designed for NASA to test their supercomputers in terms of fluid dynamics simulations, useful for airflow reactions and design.
Fluid Dynamics appreciates the overclock, and we sit in the middle of the Core i5 parts and well above the previous generation Core i7s.
Redis: link
Many of the online applications rely on key-value caches and data structure servers to operate. Redis is an open-source, scalable web technology with a strong developer base, but also relies heavily on memory bandwidth as well as CPU performance.
With Redis single thread speed as well as IPC is king, so with an overclocked Skylake it does rather well.
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Tunrip - Friday, March 18, 2016 - link
I began reading Anandtech long before I actually had a PC, let alone began overclocking.What was that Celeron everyone raved about back in the day? Celeron 200A or something?
I remember Anand used to make reference to it. These overclockable i3s remind me of that. A budget chip that could blow away the higher-performing (and costing) chips of the day when overclocked.
Simpler times... :)
ses1984 - Friday, March 18, 2016 - link
So Why Do We Not See an Overclockable i3 CPU? No competition from AMD.Macpoedel - Saturday, March 19, 2016 - link
Zo SuperMicro seeded you a slow Core i3 that you only got as vast as a regular Core i3. Basically what you showed Here is that a regular Core i3 6100 isn't !much slower than a regular Core i5 6500 but it is over $50 cheaper. Could it have hurt to mention that a Core IE 6100 runs at 3,7GHz?Couldn't you just get the Core i3 6100 yourself or is Anandtech not allowed to buy hardware? I get that you can't just go out and buy a Core i7 5960x or a GTX Titan X, but the company couldn't pay a $100 CPU? Funds can't be that tight. The only conclusion I can make is that you have some deal to only use seeded parts.
Honestly what is the point of this 15 page article if you don't get the relevant parts? Are you yourself satisfied about these results? I think you've done a lot of work completely in vain. It's good that you try to be a little more than just another promotion channel for Intel/SuperMicro/etc but you should have been a little more critical to yourself when reviewing the results and considering the parts you're using.
Macpoedel - Saturday, March 19, 2016 - link
Oops some words got autocorrected to Dutch in the first paragraph, but I guess it's clear what I'm saying, can't edit apparently.stardude82 - Saturday, March 19, 2016 - link
I don't see the value here when you are spending such a premium for a budget board. Just looking at Newegg, there is only a $10 savings going from an i3-6100 with this board to an i5-6500 with a H110 board.lagittaja - Monday, March 21, 2016 - link
What a pointless article. A 15 page long article which is completely pointless.Are you yourself satisfied with your article Ian?
What did this tell us consumers?
That if you take an unobtanium slow arse i3 and OC it, it performs about the same as the regular i3's which are widely available?
Great scott! I did not expect that! Mind blown!
Now run along to the store and grab a 6100/6300/6320 and do proper testing. We want to see that 4.5-5Ghz i3 go head to head against the OC'd i5..
LuxZg - Monday, March 21, 2016 - link
I'd like to say that part about BIOS obviously isn't true, as people have tried and succeeded to revert back to older versions. Example:"Assuming you can get your hands on the OC BIOS it is possible to flash back to the previous version to regain the base clock overclocking ability. Again the microcode isn’t written to the CPU and is kept at the BIOS level so rolling back isn’t a problem.
To confirm this, I updated my Z170 Extreme7+ motherboard to version 2.60 and sure enough the overclock no longer worked. After rolling back to version 2.16 the ability to overclock my non-K processors returned."
source: http://www.hardwareunboxed.com/current-state-of-in...
StrangerGuy - Monday, March 21, 2016 - link
Free lunch is: Abit BH6 + 300A, nForce 2 + unlocked Athlon XP, P35 + <$200 ConroeNot free lunch: Anything today thanks to incredibly restrictive CPU/chipsets lockdowns. With my 4790K already stock at 4.2GHz I'm not going to bother with OC. I'm not even going to mention the absurdity of pairing $100+ mobo just to hack-OC a $100 already at 3.7GHz CPU that would probably get locked down by Intel with a stealth microcode update.
Rob27shred - Tuesday, March 22, 2016 - link
Great read! Definitely gives a very clear explanation of why Intel has denied us a K SKUed i3. I was very excited when I first heard of being able to OC non K SKUed Skylake chips. I have an extra GB Z170XP-SLI mobo & was planning on getting an i3 6XXX to have a little fun with. Now I have to look into it further as I don't want to buy an i3 & not be able to OC it.It's a shame that Intel pulled the rug out from under this so quickly but I from a business point of view you really can't blame them. I got hopes that other ways around Intel's micro code update will be seen though. I heard ASrock released a mobo aimed squarely at getting around the new restrictions.
yhselp - Tuesday, March 22, 2016 - link
Sheeeit! That's the best damn AnandTech article in a long, long time. God bless you, Ian! Fantastic. Quintessential AnandTech! I'm thirsty for more.Maybe a super in-depth article on the effects of faster RAM on modern games? DDR4@3200 seems essential for a new build nowadays, and a DDR3@2133/2400 upgrade could potentially be a great upgrade for gamers stuck on 1333/1600. 16GB a must for Windows 10 gaming? Maybe an article on GPU overclocking, AMD GPUs driver overhead, achieving minimum frame-rates, etc.