Core i3 vs. Core i5 Performance Impact On OpenGL/Vulkan Linux Gaming

Now onto Dota 2 where there is both the OpenGL and Vulkan renderers...

Dota 2 with OpenGL at a resolution of only 800 x 600 saw the i5-7600K delivering close to 20% better performance over the i3-7100 and similar gains with the two other tested Radeon GPUs.

When running with Vulkan, the difference was much less. But, then again, the RADV Vulkan driver was slower than the RadeonSI OpenGL performance in this configuration. Interestingly, for the Radeon RX 460, the i3-7100 even came out in front of the i5-7600K. The R9 Fury performance was also very close between the two processors. Do note that the i3-7100 has a higher base clock frequency than the i5-7600K (3.9 vs. 3.8 GHz) while the i5-7600K can boost up to 4.2GHz. So if the i5-7600K isn't boosting in this particular case, that could explain why the i3-7100 comes out ahead.

Moving up to 1280 x 1024 as the next step for these OpenGL vs. Vulkan runs, the benefit of the i5-7600K is less than 20% over the i3-7100. But with Vulkan, the RX 480 and R9 Fury see similar performance on both CPUs at 1280 x 1024... Note the RX 460 performance is still awkward with the i3-7100 results coming out ahead of the i5-7600K. There is the case mentioned above where the base clock frequency of the i3-7100 is higher than the i5-7600K if it's deciding not to boost. For those new here, also keep in mind the Phoronix Test Suite runs each test a minimum of three times to verify statistical accuracy, so these numbers are reproducible.

Lastly with Dota 2 are the Vulkan and OpenGL numbers at 1080p. At 1080p, the RX 460 with Vulkan remained faster on the i3-7100, the RX 480 performance now saw a bit better performance with the Core i5 CPU, and the R9 Fury performance remained the same between CPUs.