Is Intel's Core i3-530 Fast Enough For Performance Gaming?

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Crashman

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[citation][nom]lashton[/nom]there is no reason to buy the core i3, you need expensive DDR3 ram, and with the phenom II 550 BE you could unlock the other 2 cores, there is NO REASON to buy the Core i3[/citation]

Where have you been for the last 6 months? DDR2 is expensive now! And the article even says AMD offers gamers better performance for the money, like, thrice, so go back to wherever it was you've been...or at least these read articles before you comment on the title.
 

demonhorde665

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[citation][nom]andy5174[/nom]It should also take GTA IV (which is CPU intensive game and can utilize four cores) into consideration, although most games don't behave similar today. In addition, I would expect more and more to-be-released games to be able to utilize the full potential of quads.[/citation]

not quite accurate , Tom's did a cpu test on GTA 4 long time ago , and their conclusion showed that while this game saw benifits from a quad core the differnce from a tri core to a quad core were minimal so the game techniclaly dioesn't really fully utilize 4 core chips , however the difference between a dual core to a tri or quad core were massive , jsut thes tep from tri to quad was not so great
 

demonhorde665

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[citation][nom]abhishekk89[/nom]if ur sole purpose is just gaming i'd go for a dual core... but since i do a lot more than just gaming quad's my way..[/citation]

actualy most multithreaded games wil make great use of a tri core (see my previous comment) adn af ew like GTA will even make some moderate use on 4 cores but currently three are becmoing the "must" have number of cores for the best gaming exprience, of course a quad core will do nicely too just the games don't relaly do much with the extra core over a tri core ... coincidentally the xbox 360 is using a tri core chip , and this system seems to be the one that has the most pc ports or pc games ported to it.
 

demonhorde665

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what leaves me straching my head is why not bench mark this with l4d or l4d 2 both games require at least a dual core cpu to run fairly smooth, i know this for a fact , becasue i but a new vid card in my old comp that is at the same performance level as my currect comps card , my current comp is a dual core cpu ,adnt egh old one is a single core cpu , l4d 1 runs great on this comp , half a--ed on teh old one , l4d 2 run great on this comp ,and real sh---y on the old one given the cards perform the same in other games (hlf2) on both machines , those two games being multithreaded and the core coutns on teh cpu are obviously what's causing this massive difference betwen my older comps performance and my newer comps performance.
 
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You need to test any game from Valve's Source engine, since it's totally CPU driven.
 
I would like to see those charts with an Athon II X3, even though they don't cost nearly as much. Since you're looking for CPU bottlenecks, does missing L3 create one?
I'm also surprised at the low placing of the i7-870. At this point, maybe you'd have to look at productivity benchmarks for any reason to get one?
 

ohim

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I wonder what the power consumption would be on the AMDs with the Cool and quiet tweaks that were presented by Tom`s last week.
 
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I'll second the Dragon Age notices, this game alone is my reason for upgrading from my ´06 65nm E6600@3.0GHz.

Testing games that are known to require a good deal of CPU horsepower, which isn't the shooters most commonly used for GPU testing, would have been a better fit.
 
The i3 and i5 CPU both have an onboard GPU (well a pretty sad one) ... adding to the cost of the processor.

Touting them as cost effective gaming processors and failing to mention your paying extra cash for wortheless GPU silicon surely seems appropriate??

Or is that just too anti-Intel for this sort of article??

Paul might not approve??

 

jonpaul37

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Seems to me that the CPU technology is lagging behind on all fronts in the gaming sector, there is an actual wall that is hit with ALL the CPU's in this article.

Guess i'll be sticking with my Q6600 a little longer than i expected...
 

chickenhoagie

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wow..I'm kind of wishing i bought this Core i3 instead of my phenom ii x4 955. my phenom may out-perform it by a bit, but the overclocking potential, cpu cooling performance and overall quality of these processors just seem superb. not to mention the ability to upgrade in the future is much more vast I believe. Perhaps in a few years down the road I'll have to sell parts and switch over to the Intel's again.
 

kartu

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[citation][nom]chickenhoagie[/nom]wow..I'm kind of wishing i bought this Core i3 instead of my phenom ii x4 955. my phenom may out-perform it by a bit, but the overclocking potential, cpu cooling performance and overall quality of these processors just seem superb. not to mention the ability to upgrade in the future is much more vast I believe. Perhaps in a few years down the road I'll have to sell parts and switch over to the Intel's again.[/citation]

It depends on your GPU. Most tests were obviously GPU limited. Other than that, your phenom can run circles around i3.
 

GlItCh017

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I would be REALLY interested in seeing a Battlefield Bad Company 2 comparison of the i3 vs an i7 920 or 930. That game has a huge frame difference depending on your processor. At least, going from a Core2Duo to a Core2Quad is about a 20+ avg frame increase.
 

tommysch

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[citation][nom]th_at[/nom]So once again, a 3 Ghz Dual Core CPU (100$) and a Radeon 5850 (300$) manage to play to just about every game perfectly at up to 1920x1200 (and mostly beyond) with HQ image settings. And why wouldn't it, when every developer with half a brain will make sure their games run on the XBOX 360 and thus froze system specs in 2006.Why is that never stressed more in regular CPU/GPU tests, where the focus is usually on 300$ CPUs and 500$ GPUs and their Pyrrhic victories of producing meaninglessly high framerates that only framerate morons (everything below 50 fps stutters) and insects care about?[/citation]

50 FPS is unacceptable...

If I dont get my 60++ FPS I am unhappy. I want my 60Hz 2ms GtG display to be the bottleneck.
 
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Nothing so great about this article imo. Why compare to Phenom II X3 720, if Athlon II X4 635 costs the same and OCs better?
 

obarthelemy

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Very interesting article, thanks.

One question: what was the power-saving config ? In particular, for AMD, did you activate CnQ, C1E, and choose a better P-State ? I don't know what the Intel settings are called.
 

Crashman

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[citation][nom]obarthelemy[/nom]Very interesting article, thanks.One question: what was the power-saving config ? In particular, for AMD, did you activate CnQ, C1E, and choose a better P-State ? I don't know what the Intel settings are called.[/citation]

Yes, for both, except when overclocked.
 

cadder

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The i3 overclocks to impressive performance. Compare this to the price and performance of the E8500/E8600. It's not that much more to buy an i5-750 if you can use additional cores, but since this is effectively the bottom of the Intel chip line now, they are ignoring people that have a limited budget.
 
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