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
Final Words
I like the Core i3 530. It’s the first real alternative Intel offers to AMD’s Phenom II X2 and Athlon II X4 processors. And dare I say that it’s perfectly competitive? With Clarkdale I get the feeling that Intel is actually trying to compete with AMD, instead of run them into the ground.
If you need a fast dual-core processor, the Core i3 530 is right for you. If you need affordable threaded performance, the Athlon II X4 is a better option. Intel attempts to sweeten the deal with TrueHD/DTS-HD MA bitstreaming support, but ultimately what we have here is a chip that is truly competitive.
The i5s continue to be priced far too high, but that’s where they should be. Intel has a much larger sales and marketing budget than AMD, so put those sales folks to work. AMD (and Intel) offer better value than the entire dual-core i5 line, so it’s up to Intel's marketing to sell those more expensive chips. To those in the know, you'll ignore them almost entirely.
The i3 is the sensible solution. It’s not too perfect. You’re still better off with an Athlon II X4 if you are doing a lot of video encoding or offline 3D rendering, but it’s great for the rest of the market. You lose turbo mode but honestly, with only two cores, you don’t really need it. Instead, just be happy with the fact that you can push nearly 4GHz with minimal effort and without even swapping out the stock heatsink/fan. The lack of AES-NI support keeps the i3 from being the otherwise perfect chip for corporate use, a clever but unfortunate move by Intel.
The competitive angle is even more interesting when you realize that the majority of the dual-core CPUs that AMD sells today are all much cheaper than the Core i3. Maybe it’s Intel playing nice for the FTC, but it almost looks like the two companies have conspired to compete without stepping on each others toes.
Between $60 - $100 you have the Athlon II X2. Then at $100 - $130 you can go with either an i3 or an Athlon II X4. Between $130 and $200 you have a number of Phenom II X4 choices that make sense. And at $200 and above it’s all Lynnfield/Bloomfield. Everyone gets a piece of the pie, Intel just gets the more expensive price points (which to AMD’s credit, aren’t high volume sellers anyway).
AMD technically has the best product at one of the most important price points - $150. Maybe I’m reading too much into this but the competition here just seems...clean.
There you have it. If you want a dual-core processor at around $130, the Core i3 530 is as good as it gets. Competition without killing AMD. I like it.
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Suntan - Friday, January 22, 2010 - link
Then again, it may just be that those people do have better stereos (or more importantly, better rooms and speakers) then yours.In any case, 99% of this website’s existence is possible because of the tendency for people to try and get “just a little more” out of their electronics…
-Suntan
Suntan - Friday, January 22, 2010 - link
In a word, yes. If your room/components/setup is worth it, then it can make a big difference.Analog output (and no, what you are doing is not LPCM) can compete sound-wise with digital output (either LPCM or bit streaming) if you have a quality soundcard (think Lynx 2B, not anything that says soundblaster) but even then, you lose other digital signal processing capabilities that a good AVR can offer (namely Audyssey Multi-EQ room correction and Audyessey Dynamic-EQ.)
That said, I too think it is a little over exaggerated. Simply because most people really wouldn’t notice the benefit in their situations.
Lastly, I happen to believe that the big flap over LPCM vs. bitstream *is* completely overblown. Ymmv.
-Suntan
Anand Lal Shimpi - Friday, January 22, 2010 - link
I agree that 8-channel LPCM is pretty much good enough. There are issues with players downsampling audio when outputting 8-channel LPCM from TrueHD/DTS-HD MA sources, but to my ears I could never notice the difference.Also remember that the majority of users don't even have 8-channel audio setups. We're talking 5.1 at best, and honestly a huge advantage of these high def audio formats is the support for discrete rear surround channels.
That being said, it's still a valid option to want. Blu-ray players have been able to do it for quite a while, there's no reason we shouldn't demand the same out of our HTPCs. Some users do prefer to keep the decoding on their receiver/preprocessor and for them it's the only option.
Hopefully by the end of this year all platforms will offer it and we can just assume its presence as a checkbox feature.
Take care,
Anand
cmdrdredd - Friday, January 22, 2010 - link
The big problem is some players mess with the audio during the decode and don't output LPCM in a raw untouched format. Bitstreaming means nothing is meddes with, no volume normalization and the like.archcommus - Friday, January 22, 2010 - link
Thanks all for the info, helped clear things up. With my 5.1 system and onboard audio with Windows 7 these days the software decoding and analog output is fine. But I guess in the future with a possible 7.1 system I would at least want LPCM over HDMI. I couldn't imagine needing bitstreaming unless I was building a true home theater.Spivonious - Friday, January 22, 2010 - link
LPCM is decoding the channels and sending them digitally over HDMI.I don't understand the big hype either, unless the decoder in your AVR is much better than the one in software. Otherwise the sound would be the same. I guess it's fun to get the AVR to display "DTS-HD".
blckgrffn - Friday, January 22, 2010 - link
Can we see what the 4ghz power consumption looked like? Was speed step still active? How about the OC'd graphics power consumption?Thanks :)
Anand Lal Shimpi - Friday, January 22, 2010 - link
At 4GHz the i3 530 used 129W under load, up from 101.4W :)I don't remember if speedstep was still functioning when I adjusted the clock multiplier, I believe it was but I'll need to double check.
Take care,
Anand
blckgrffn - Saturday, January 23, 2010 - link
Thank you!I guess it doesn't matter if speedstep was functioning if you could provide the idle power consumption of 4ghz as well.
The information is very much appreciated.
Deaks2 - Friday, January 22, 2010 - link
So were the the overclocking tests done on the Asus or MSI mainboard? Also, would the use of a P55 or H55 chipset affect o/c'ability of this CPU?