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 ESTTotal War: Attila
The Total War franchise moves on to Attila, another The Creative Assembly development, and is a stand-alone strategy title set in 395AD where the main story line lets the gamer take control of the leader of the Huns in order to conquer parts of the world. Graphically the game can render hundreds/thousands of units on screen at once, all with their individual actions and can put some of the big cards to task. In our benchmark, the in-game scripted benchmark is used with the option for ‘unlimited video memory’ enabled.
For this test we used the following settings with our graphics cards:
| Total War: Attila Settings | |||
| Resolution | Quality | ||
| Low GPU | Integrated Graphics | 1280x720 | Performance |
| ASUS R7 240 1GB DDR3 | |||
| Medium GPU | MSI GTX 770 Lightning 2GB | 1920x1080 | Quality |
| MSI R9 285 Gaming 2G | |||
| High GPU | ASUS GTX 980 Strix 4GB | 1920x1080 | Quality |
| MSI R9 290X Gaming 4G | |||
For the integrated graphics, despite the difference between the APUs and Core parts, we can see the effect of 10% GPU frequency and a smaller L3 cache has on the i3-6100 (which has 3MB). The i3-6100TE is an oddball of the group, by actually having 4MB of L3 cache, which nudges it ahead of the regular i3-6100 by a small amout. Either way, the Intel GPUs aren't great for Attila gaming at 720p Low.
With the discrete graphics cards, the Core i3s again sit at the top or near the top in a regular staircase. Attila still seems to be a bit of a hog for frame rates at 1080p Ultra, barely scraping 30 FPS average on the GTX 980 with the Core i3 parts.
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jabber - Tuesday, August 9, 2016 - link
Yeah, unfortunately, a lot of IT guys assume that because they run quad cores at 100% all day long with 32GB of ram that Helen on the front desk or Mike in Sales needs the same. They don't. Similar to Ratman I sell a lot of recon Dell and HP ex corporate machines to my small business customers. 2010 spec machines with dual core 3GHz Pentiums with 4-8GB of ram. They can buy three of them for the cost of a 2016 model. They love them. If they need a real boost, a 120GB SSD gets slapped in. They pee their pants with excitement when that happens. Standard business computing was finally catered for many many years ago. It hasn't really changed.BrokenCrayons - Tuesday, August 9, 2016 - link
Decrepit Core 2 Duos are indeed perfectly acceptable for poking around on the internet and handling basic office workloads. I'm fairly happy using a T2310-based laptop (C2D@1.46GHz) with 2GB of RAM and a recently purchased 500GB 5400 RPM drive for most of my day-to-day computing tasks. I can feel the system's performance catching up when I ask the Intel x3100 graphics card to chug through anything higher than 720p video on Youtube. Most of my gaming is streamed through Steam so the box on the user end isn't as important as the computer that actually runs the game with reduces my concern pretty significantly when it comes to keeping my laptop up-to-date. I'm pretty sure I can squeeze another year or two out of it before handing it over to the electronics recycling center.Like jabber says, office work has long since been addressed by technological advancements and _most_ home computing needs aside from throwing around modern games have too.
Icehawk - Tuesday, August 9, 2016 - link
We have some C2Ds at work, and yeah for a regular office job they are fine IF they have 8gb of RAM, unfortunately these machines are so old keeping them running or upgrading is a hassle. And at least here, unless you are in IT or a programmer good luck getting a SSD. A newer i3 with 8gb and SSD is definitely enough for any casual user at work or home for sure.BrokenCrayons - Wednesday, August 10, 2016 - link
It depends a lot on the workload. 2GB is sufficient for almost everything I do on a home computer except for the occasional game. In an office setting 4-8GB would be better just because workforce users tend to leave a larger number of programs open at once. I do agree that in a workplace, computers should still be replaced every 3-5 years due to upgrade and maintenance issues that crop up as they age past that point even if the system performance is still perfectly adequate.lilmoe - Monday, August 8, 2016 - link
Do tell how to spread a select query (with a join or two) on multiple equally tasked threads when you only need to query a huge table (with the others being relatively tiny).i3s are my go-to recommendation for clients needing POS stations and others that only need a client/terminal for an ERP database.
lilmoe - Monday, August 8, 2016 - link
What's being multithreaded is the UI, almost exclusively. And that's for responsiveness rather than speed, in which 2 cores more than suffice.elbert - Monday, August 8, 2016 - link
Thats not how it works. This is like arguing against dual cores because there was no threaded software. Chicken and the egg is a fun game but the process has to come first.bug77 - Tuesday, August 9, 2016 - link
There's no chicken and egg here. We've had 8 thread capable CPUs for years. But we simply don't need them at home or for typical desktop usage.They're great for 3D rendering, video editing or programming, but they're not for everyone.
elbert - Tuesday, August 9, 2016 - link
Dual cores aren't for everyone so lets just agree they should moved to a tablet or watch. Intel needs to move on 6 core Kaby Lake for the main steam at the very least.bug77 - Wednesday, August 10, 2016 - link
No, we don't agree on that. Dual core is plenty for typical web browsing and occasionally writing a paper for school. I'm on an i5 for years and I rarely see all 4 cores put to use at the same time.You're entitled to your opinion, of course, but I don't agree with it.