your integrated GPU and all
dependant features including
QuickSync.
• AVX (Advanced Vector
Extensions) are disabled, so
if you have any software that
takes specific advantage of
this instruction set extension,
chances are performance will
suffer tremendously.
As you can tell, these are not
minor issues when put together
and for those who are power
conscious (which we should all be
actually) this may not be an ideal
way to run your system for everyday
usage. Fortunately, we do have BIOS
profiles in all decent motherboards
and you may use one profile for
gaming and overclocking, and
another one for regular media and
work, in which case you’re not
always dealing with these short
comings.
TEST PLATFORM
Our test platform for benchmarks
comprised of a Core i3-6300, 8GiB
G.Skill Trident Z DDR4-3,466MHz
RAM and an EVGA GeForce GTX
780Ti K|NGP|IN Edition running
at its stock GPU and memory
speeds of 1,072MHz and 7,000MHz
respectively, while the operating
system used was Windows 10. For
the comparison we ran the i3-6300
at its default frequency with
memory at 2133MHZ. We
then changed the DRAM frequency
to 3,400MHz, then followed that
with the CPU at 4.6GHz and DRAM
frequency at 3,200MHz. Finally, a
4.7GHz CPU clock was used with a
3,473MHz DRAM frequency.
BENCHMARK RESULTS
As shown in the graphs, the Core i3
has a lot of untapped performance
potential. F1 2015 was a prime
example of how bandwidthstarved the CPU is, gaining 23%
performance by merely increasing
the memory frequency to
3,400MHz. In this instance the gain
from increasing the DRAM
frequency was larger than that
recorded by increasing the core
frequency to 4.7GHz. On the other
end of the spectrum, Total War:
Attila's massive number of units
in the game move the bottleneck
squarely to the CPU and gains of
over 42% were seen by increasing
the frequency to 4.7GHz. Dragon
Age: Inquisition and GTA V were
somewhere in between, showing
similar gains where the CPU
speed or memory speed had
somewhat similar benefits.
3DMark 11, despite its age
and its largely synthetic nature,
remains a relevant indication of
a system's gaming performance.
It showed sizeable gains with a
bump in memory speed and even
larger gains with the processor
overclocked. Overall, we were able
to get an extra 15% out of 3DMark.
Looking at the multi-threaded
CPU benchmarks, 3D Particle
Movement saw a gain of 10% with
the increased memory frequency
and a massive 25% with the CPU
overclocked as well. CineBench
R15 tells a similar tale. With just
the memory frequency increased
it offered a performance increase
of just under 3%, but with the CPU
running at 4.7GHz that was extended
well over 26%. wPrime 1024M
showed absolutely no gain from
increasing the memory speed at
all, but a 19% gain from increasing
the CPU frequency. This puts it in
approximately the same territory as
a stock Core i5-6600K.
SuperPi 32M showed an
improvement of almost 5% from
a memory overclock alone, which
jumped to an improvement of almost
22% when operating at 4.7GHz. It is
worth noting that in single-threaded
tests and benchmarks, it would
keep up with more expensive and
higher core count CPUs such as the
Core i5-6600 or Core i5-6600K.
TAKING IT UP A NOTCH
The results we've shown have all
been air cooled and at settings safe
for 24/7 use for this particular CPU,
but that isn't where things end by
any measure. The massive Bclk
headroom available on Skylake
Issue 38 | 2016 The OverClocker 17