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 ESTReal World Performance
The dynamics of CPU Turbo modes, both Intel and AMD, can cause concern during environments with a variable threaded workload. There is also an added issue of the motherboard remaining consistent, depending on how the motherboard manufacturer wants to add in their own boosting technologies over the ones that Intel would prefer they used. In order to remain consistent, we implement an OS-level unique high performance mode on all the CPUs we test which should override any motherboard manufacturer performance mode.
All of our benchmark results can also be found in our benchmark engine, Bench.
Dolphin Benchmark: link
Many emulators are often bound by single thread CPU performance, and general reports tended to suggest that Haswell provided a significant boost to emulator performance. This benchmark runs a Wii program that raytraces a complex 3D scene inside the Dolphin Wii emulator. Performance on this benchmark is a good proxy of the speed of Dolphin CPU emulation, which is an intensive single core task using most aspects of a CPU. Results are given in minutes, where the Wii itself scores 17.53 minutes.
Skylake saw a good boost with our Dolphin benchmark, and it remains a single-thread driven event. The 100 MHz difference between the i3-6320 and i3-6300 amounts to just over a second difference, but one step back to the i3-6100 is another 42 seconds. This is one of the few instances where the 3 MB of L3 cache on the i3-6100 makes a significant difference. The i5-6600 sits in the middle of our i3 parts due to its lower CPU frequency but higher cache.
WinRAR 5.0.1: link
Our WinRAR test from 2013 is updated to the latest version of WinRAR at the start of 2014. We compress a set of 2867 files across 320 folders totaling 1.52 GB in size – 95% of these files are small typical website files, and the rest (90% of the size) are small 30 second 720p videos.
WinRAR is a variable thread test, so the CPUs with more threads all pull ahead of the i3 parts. Again, we see a crescendo from the i3-6320 to the i3-6300 and the i3-6100, with the i3-6100 being slightly further out due to its reduced L3.
3D Particle Movement v2
The second version of this benchmark is similar to the first, however it has been re-written in VS2012 with one major difference: the code has been written to address the issue of false sharing. If data required by multiple threads, say four, is in the same cache line, the software cannot read the cache line once and split the data to each thread - instead it will read four times in a serial fashion. The new software splits the data to new cache lines so reads can be parallelized and stalls minimized. As v2 is fairly new, we are still gathering data and results are currently limited.
The updated 3DPM benchmark likes good cache management and a high frequency with lots of threads. As from our Carrizo review, the AMD X4 845 does really well here, beating the i3-6100TE which has a much lower frequency. For the i3 parts, we see a regular staircase between the three, outpacing the much older FX-6350.
Web Benchmarks
On the lower end processors, general usability is a big factor of experience, especially as we move into the HTML5 era of web browsing.
Mozilla Kraken
Kraken also enjoys Skylake CPUs, with a preference for high frqeuency parts as well. The regular staircase is in effect between the three, showing how L3 cache makes little difference here.
Google Octane v2
Octane has a similar performance to Kraken, with the Skylake CPUs out in top with the staircase results. The i5-6600 sits in the middle, despite having four physical cores, but restrained to four threads. Because of this and our regular staircase, we can see that the L3 cache plays little role here and the threads are very lightweight. The resources on the FX CPUs unfortunately do not do well here.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
94 Comments
View All Comments
junky77 - Tuesday, August 9, 2016 - link
No DX12 comparison?Meteor2 - Tuesday, August 9, 2016 - link
Another good point!BrokenCrayons - Tuesday, August 9, 2016 - link
Ian mentioned in the article that they're still using their 2015 game benchmark suite for this review. I would expect AT's 2016 benchmark list, once finalized, will include more DX12 titles. I'm not sure when those benchmarks are normally confirmed since I've never really given it much thought, but as we're wading into August, one would hope that the 2016 list will be as forward-looking as possible. However, they'll probably need to keep something from the 2015 list in order to have a comparative basis for new and old products. It's also important to retain a DX11 title or two as the older version of the API is very much alive and well at the moment.jeffry - Tuesday, August 9, 2016 - link
I think if your running an oced Sandy-Bridge (2500K) and you use your pc for gaming, its not worth the upgrade cost. Perhaps its worth to upgrade for the very high-end games with maxed out resolution and graphics features, but then id not pick an i3 (-> i7 instead).If you run simulations or any kind of HPC, you most likely have another setup anyways.
jeffry - Tuesday, August 9, 2016 - link
95% of all pp are shopping on a budget anyways, so i would spend my bucks on a new GPU instead of CPU, eg AMD Polaris or Nvidia Pascal GPU.Death666Angel - Tuesday, August 9, 2016 - link
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=frNjT5R5XI4 You can get quite a few frames more with a modern, equally overclocked CPU. If you have the budget or get a good deal, an i7-3770k seems to be a good upgrade without having to get a completely new system with motherboard and RAM. Can be the difference between 45fps and 60fps.Voldenuit - Tuesday, August 9, 2016 - link
Thanks for the review Ian.A bit perplexed at the choice of GPUs and CPUs and game titles tested in this review.
The Core i5-2500K is a natural point of comparison since so many people are still on it. Though they are unlikely to switch to an i3 Skylake, still a useful comparison for a data point.
Those GPUs are really old. Someone building a new Skylake system would most likely be getting a 480 or 1060. Also, it would be useful to know if the i3 is bottlenecking games from reaching high framerates on 120/144 Hz monitors.
Which brings us to the choice of games. Following (in my opinion, somewhat dubious) claims by various youtube reviewers that even a skylake i5 is not sufficient for 144 Hz gaming, I'd like to know if an i3 is a bottleneck on games where framerates matter: Overwatch, DOOM, Crysis 3, Battlefield 4, etc. As well as games that stress the number of CPU cores like AOTS, TW:WH, etc.
Icehawk - Tuesday, August 9, 2016 - link
They run their benches w/o V-sync... so monitor Hz doesn't matter, you can see the maximum frame rates.I agree, some slightly newer GPUs would be good - at least a 470 or something.
leopard_jumps - Monday, August 15, 2016 - link
i3 6100 + RX 470 4GB ($200) will make $550 gaming PCleopard_jumps - Monday, August 15, 2016 - link
PCPartPicker part list: http://pcpartpicker.com/list/gfHsXHPrice breakdown by merchant: http://pcpartpicker.com/list/gfHsXH/by_merchant/
CPU: Intel Core i3-6100 3.7GHz Dual-Core Processor ($110.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Motherboard: ASRock Z170M Pro4S Micro ATX LGA1151 Motherboard ($77.98 @ Newegg)
Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws V Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR4-2800 Memory ($40.98 @ Newegg)
GPU Asus Strix RX 470 4GB - $200
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($47.49 @ OutletPC)
Case: Deepcool TESSERACT SW ATX Mid Tower Case ($39.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Power Supply: EVGA 500W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply ($43.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Total: $561.42
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2016-08-15 13:01 EDT-0400