The Intel Core i3 530 Review - Great for Overclockers & Gamers
by Anand Lal Shimpi on January 22, 2010 12:00 AM EST- Posted in
- CPUs
Overclocking the i3 - 4GHz with the Stock Cooler
I’ve become a fan of stock voltage overclocking over the past few years. As power consumption and efficiency has become more important, and manufacturing processes improved, how far you can push a CPU without increasing its core voltage appears to be the most efficient way to overclock. You minimize any increases in power consumption while maximizing performance. You really find out whether or not you’ve been sold a chip that’s artificially binned lower than it could have.
With Bloomfield, Intel hit a new peak for how far you can expect to push a CPU without increasing voltage. AMD followed with the Phenom II, but Lynnfield took a step back. Thanks to its on-die PCIe controller, Lynnfield needed some amount of additional voltage to overclock well. Clarkdale is somewhere in between. It lacks the crippling on-die PCIe controller, but it’s also a much higher volume part which by definition shouldn’t be as overclockable.
The Core i3 530 runs at 2.93GHz by default, with no available turbo boost. Without swapping coolers or feeding the chip any additional voltage, the most I got out of it was 3.3GHz (150MHz BCLK x 22). Hardly impressive.
I added another 0.16V to the CPU’s core voltage. That’s just under 14%. And here’s what I was able to do:
That’s 4GHz, stable using the stock heatsink/fan. Part of the trick to overclocking this thing was lowering the clock multiplier. Despite always keeping the QPI and memory frequencies in spec, lowering the clock multiplier on the chip improved stability significantly and allowed me to reach much higher frequencies.
I could push beyond 4GHz but that requires more voltage and potentially better cooling. With a stable 4GHz overclock, I was happy.
If you’ll remember from my review of the processor, my Phenom II X2 550 BE managed 3.7GHz using the stock cooler and a pound of voltage. Unfortunately it’s not enough to challenge the overclocked 530.
| CPU | x264 HD 3.03 - 2nd pass | 7-zip KB/s | Batman: AA | Dawn of War II | Dragon Age Origins | World of Warcraft |
| Intel Core i3 530 @ 4GHz | 18.4 fps | 2822 | 192 fps | 62.7 fps | 115 fps | 92 fps |
| AMD Phenom II X2 550 @ 3.7GHz | 10.4 fps | 2681 | 170 fps | 50.9 fps | 63 fps | 60.8 fps |
| AMD Phenom II X4 965 (3.4GHz) | 22.2 fps | 3143 | 196 fps | 54.3 fps | 109 fps | 74.1 fps |
Even an overclocked Athlon II X4 630 isn’t going to dramatically change things. It’ll still be faster in multithreaded applications, and still the overall slower gaming CPU.
If the Core i3 530 is right for you, overclocking is just going to make it more right.
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loucm - Sunday, August 1, 2010 - link
using the same motherboard gigabyte h55m-ud2hi manage to get my i3 530 @ 4GHZ stable with only 1.184 core voltage.
polarq - Tuesday, August 3, 2010 - link
Hi, I have a core i3-530 and h55m-ud2h, bought a coolermaster 212 and I'm trying to push the limits :) But with the GPU, in bios there's a possibility to change it from 733mhz, which I did, on 900 - but it still shows 733, both in bios and cpu-z.So I can freely input the value, but 733 is still lights up white in bios. Is there any possibility it was locked after it couldnt take 900? Can I unlock it again? I tried CLR_CMOS, load fail safe defaults, but nothing changed. Any advice please?
Alejo1879 - Wednesday, February 2, 2011 - link
Need Opinion For Core i3 550Hello people, i need some opinions about the intel core i3 550.
Is this CPU faster than core i3 530, i think so, but in cpubenchmark.com, in the High End CPUs - Updated 1st of February 2011 the core i3 530 is in the top and the i3 550 don't.
Intel Core i7 995X @ 3.60GHz 10,795
Intel Core i3 530 @ 2.93GHz 3,546 $124.95*
AMD Phenom II X4 B40 3,534 NA
Intel Core i5 655K @ 3.20GHz 3,525 $192.95*
Intel Core i7 820QM @ 1.73GHz 3,520 $546.00**
Intel Core2 Extreme @ 2.26GHz 3,518 NA
Intel Core2 Quad Q9100 @ 2.26GHz 3,428 $385.89**
Intel Core i7-2620M @ 2.70GHz 3,415 NA
Intel Core i5 661 @ 3.33GHz 3,295 $209.99*
Intel Core i3 560 @ 3.33GHz 3,283 $149.99*
AMD Phenom II X4 910 3,281 $204.19**
AMD Phenom II X4 B93 3,275 NA
Intel Core i5 650 @ 3.20GHz 3,120 $182.99*
Intel Core i5 660 @ 3.33GHz 3,101 $207.99*
Intel Core i3 550 @ 3.20GHz 3,026 $124.99*
IS IN FACT THE CORE I3 530 BETTER THAN I3 540, 550 AND EVEN I3 560?
PLEASE HELP.
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dayat - Wednesday, September 28, 2011 - link
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sarp - Wednesday, January 11, 2012 - link
Ive i3 530 @2.93Ive managed to get it to 4.00GHz with 182 BClk by changing QPI, Graphics and RAM Frequencies accodringly. Sometimes my screen just freezes with a solid color and I have to restart it in order to get to Windows again. Anyway, I want to boost Intel Graphics HD 3000 performance, it's default clock is 733MHz, since Ive changed BClk to 182, to be on the safe side it is 500MHz. I wonder, how much should I increase graphics core voltage in order to get to 900Mhz with 182 BClk?
KinderJoy - Tuesday, September 28, 2021 - link
What software are you using to overclock?