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
Windows 7 Gaming Performance
Our Bench suite is getting a little long in the tooth, so I added a few more gaming tests under Windows 7 with a new group of processors. We'll be adding some of these tests to Bench in the future but the number of datapoints is obviously going to be small as we build up the results.
Batman: Arkham Asylum
Batman is an Unreal Engine 3 game and a fairly well received one at that. Performance is measured using the built in benchmark at the highest image quality settings without AA enabled.
Pretty much everything performs well here. Technically this is one of those exceptions where the i5 661 actually performs like it's priced. The i3s continue to be competitive with similarly priced AMD options.
Dragon Age Origins is another very well received game. The 3rd person RPG gives our CPUs a different sort of workload to enjoy:
Many games these days can actually use more than two cores, and thus we see the Lynnfield/Bloomfield chips scale ridiculously well here. As such, the i5 661 loses its appeal since it's priced like a Lynnfield.
The i3s however do very well. They outperform the similarly priced AMD CPUs and are just behind the Phenom II X4 925. They're definitely a lot faster than the old Core 2 Duo E8600 despite the clock speed deficiency.
Dawn of War II is a beautiful RTS that we've used in our GPU reviews for some time now. It scales will core count reasonably well but also shows the strengths of the new Clarkdales:
Again, the i5 661 isn't fast enough for its price but the i3s are great.
World of Warcraft needs no introduction. An absurd number of people play it, so we're here to benchmark it. Our test favors repeatability over real world frame rates, so our results here will be higher than in the real world with lots of server load. But what our results will tell you is what the best CPU is to get for playing WoW:
It's surprising how little difference there is between the i5 661 and the i3 540. It's almost as if Intel knew that the nomenclature had to exaggerate whatever little difference there was.
The i5 661 does well here, but the most bang for your buck comes from the i3s which even outperform the Phenom II X4 965. If you want an affordable gaming CPU, the Core i3 is where it's at.
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yuhong - Monday, January 4, 2010 - link
"The Clarkdale lineup is honestly made up of CPUs that are too expensive. The Core i5 670, 661/660 and 650 are all priced above $170 and aren’t worth the money. The problem is Lynnfield’s turbo mode gives you high enough clock speeds with two threads that there’s no need to consider a dual-core processor. You can buy a Core i5 750, have more cores than any of these Clarkdales and run at close enough to the same frequencies for $196."But then you have to pay extra for a discrete graphic card and not every application need the extra graphic power!
Paulman - Monday, January 4, 2010 - link
Wow, I was going to write about how you wouldn't have to buy a discrete graphics card if you went with a Core i5 750 because you could just choose a motherboard with an integrated graphics chip. But then I checked online and it seems that there aren't any P55-based boards with integrated graphics - wow! Wouldn't have believed it myself.However, Anand's point still stands when comparing the Clarkdale i5's to the Phenom II X4, for which you can get many boards with integrated graphics.
Inkie - Sunday, January 10, 2010 - link
"when comparing the Clarkdale i5's to the Phenom II X4, for which you can get many boards with integrated graphics"...but Clarkdale already has integrated graphics.
ssj4Gogeta - Friday, January 8, 2010 - link
It's because P55 is a southbridge, not a northbridge.Taft12 - Monday, January 4, 2010 - link
But then you have to pay extra for a discrete graphic card and not every application need the extra graphic power!Only if you don't already have any PCI-E x16 card. Is that true for a single reader of this site? And truly ANY PCI-E card will perform better than Intel's on-chip solution, even one 3 generations old.
ereavis - Monday, January 4, 2010 - link
so the price goes up another $30-$40. As to your question of truth, yes I spend 40 hours a week on an intel IGP dual core as it is, so do the other 1000 people in this building doing engineering work that's processor demanding but graphics independent.nubie - Monday, January 4, 2010 - link
There are rafts of HP 8400 OEM pci-e cards on ebay right now for $15 (total, no shipping or tax), that should even accelerate your Flash 10.1 and video just fine.If you even need it that is, and it is clear that for many there is absolutely no use for more than the integrated graphics.
oc3an - Monday, January 4, 2010 - link
Hi Anand. Looks to me like something weird is up with your Everest benchmarks. Shouldn't the 24X multiplier have the faster scores?-Patrick
Rajinder Gill - Monday, January 4, 2010 - link
Hi Patrick,Fixed it, the images were reversed.
Thanks!
Raja
maxfisher05 - Monday, January 4, 2010 - link
Good Article Anand. I'm going to be building my first HTPC soon, but I want to be able to do some light gaming on it, and it doesn't look like the integrated graphics have come far enough yet. If the 661 was priced lower I would consider it, but for nearly the price of a 750 you are right in saying it makes no sense. 750 + 5750 discrete graphics for me please :)Will someone be posting an updated system buyers' guide soon?