PC Specialist Aurea i3-530 Pro review

Intel’s recent processor refresh may have started at the top with the super-fast Core i7 range, but it’s the budget end of the scale that’s arguably more exciting. The Core i3-530 is the cheapest of Intel’s 32nm parts, yet it offers a level of power beyond anything managed by the budget Core 2 Duos of the past.

PC Specialist’s Aurea i3-530 Pro is the first system we’ve seen to include one. The new chip is based on the Clarkdale core – which is also used in Intel’s low-end Core i5 chips – and fits into the new mainstream LGA 1156 socket.

It may be far cheaper than Core i7 parts, but the Core i3-530 still includes advanced features. Its two cores run at 2.93GHz and are visible as four thanks to the inclusion of Hyper-Threading. Interestingly, it also features an integrated GPU on a separate 45nm die that allows you to buy a motherboard without any integrated graphics of its own.

It proved itself to be an able performer, cantering to a score of 1.66 in our 2D application benchmarks. That the bottom-end part can score so highly really shows the power in Intel’s new range. It’s more than fast enough to handle intensive applications and, crucially, it’s far quicker than other systems we’ve seen at this budget: the Advent Firefly FP9004 has a Pentium Dual-Core E5300 processor and scored just 1.11 in the same tests.

The on-chip graphics are fine for media decoding, handling both 720p and 1080p H.264 clips smoothly, but less impressive for gamers. The chip averaged just 21fps in our Low quality 1,024 x 768 Crysis benchmark, so you’ll be lowering the settings to play most current titles.

The rest of the Aurea specification is relatively prudent. We’d like a little more than 2GB of RAM, but it keeps Windows 7 Home Premium ticking over nicely. The 500GB hard disk and DVD writer keep that trend going – once again, we’d like a little more but for this price it’s not bad at all.