The Clarkdale Review: Intel's Core i5 661, i3 540 & i3 530
by Anand Lal Shimpi on January 4, 2010 12:00 AM EST- Posted in
- CPUs
Fallout 3 Game Performance
Bethesda’s latest game uses an updated version of the Gamebryo engine (Oblivion). This benchmark takes place immediately outside Vault 101. The character walks away from the vault through the Springvale ruins. The benchmark is measured manually using FRAPS.
For the price, the gaming performance of these chips is pretty good. The Core i3 540 and 530 are competitive with their similarly priced AMD alternatives.
Left 4 Dead
More of the same. At $133 or less, the Core i3s are good gaming chips - especially when you consider how far you can overclock them. The i5 661 doesn't make a whole lot of sense though.
Far Cry 2 Multithreaded Game Performance
Far Cry 2 ships with the most impressive benchmark tool we’ve ever seen in a PC game. Part of this is due to the fact that Ubisoft actually tapped a number of hardware sites (AnandTech included) from around the world to aid in the planning for the benchmark.
For our purposes we ran the CPU benchmark included in the latest patch:
In games that are better threaded, the old Core 2 Quad Q9400 is a better buy. But you do get more balanced performance out of the new i3s. Compared to the Athlon II X4 these new chips make sense.
Crysis Warhead
Crysis also shows the Clarkdales in a good light: we become mostly GPU limited, and the i3 parts do very well against the AMD Athlon II chips.
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marc1000 - Monday, January 4, 2010 - link
Indeed, I want an Atom+ION, but it has not yet come to public availability in Brazil. And Intel is killing ION with the new Atoms, so I believe I won't ever see a Atom+ION board here, because the stores will only launch only the "newer" Atom boards (that is, IF they even launch it...)efficientD - Saturday, January 9, 2010 - link
The other problem with and atom setup is the low cost no L3 cache Athalons. With a decent 785G mainboard, you can get much better performance in only a slightly bigger package for about the same HTPC money. That is the direction I would go if I could build an HTPC right now.IntelUser2000 - Monday, January 4, 2010 - link
The reason for high idle and in some way, high load power is due to the Asus board. Not only that, but the H57 chipset.The Intel H55 mobo will lower power consumption enough to get it below the i5 750 and i7 860.
Kaleid - Monday, January 4, 2010 - link
Would these be chips on would dare to overclock considering the foxconn socket problems that has been reported here @ anandtech?Zool - Monday, January 4, 2010 - link
Its quite confusing now, with 9 desktop and 11 mobile i-xxx cores now. Not a single digit shows core numbers or the gpu on the new 32nm cpus.Actualy its a total mess now for a average user.
marc1000 - Monday, January 4, 2010 - link
I second your opinion!!! Perhaps Intel hired some marketing folks from Nvidia!!! =DHarry Lloyd - Monday, January 4, 2010 - link
So which chip is responsible for HDMI Audio - the CPU, or the H5x chipset?Can we get HDMI audio support with a Lynnfield CPU?
And one other thing - I assume we can use HDMI audio without haeving to use the integrated GPU (for display) when we have a PCI-E card?
DigitalFreak - Monday, January 4, 2010 - link
The GPU on the processor.Alberto - Monday, January 4, 2010 - link
The main problem is the Motherboard, likely an early sample not much optimized. Both Xbit Lab and The Tech Report have found a lower idle system power consumption in the new Intel plataform versus the Lynnfield solution. Maybe This article needs of a fast update :-)Alberto - Monday, January 4, 2010 - link
The italian site www.hwupgrade.it have discovered even better results. Over an Intel DH55TC motherboard this new cpu is IMPRESSIVE at idle.Intel seems right again.