Intel Core i3-10100 vs Intel Core i5-8600K

Core i3-10100 vs Core i5-8600K comparison

In our benchmarks, the Core i5-8600K beats the Core i3-10100 in overall performance. Furthermore, our gaming benchmark shows that it also outperforms the Core i3-10100 in all gaming tests too.

When comparing core counts for these CPUs, we notice that the Core i5-8600K has significantly more cores with 6 cores compared to the Core i3-10100 that has 4 cores. Despite this, the Core i3-10100 has more threads than the Core i5-8600K. In terms of clock speed, the Core i3-10100 and Core i5-8600K are identical in this regard. In addition, both chips have the same turbo speed. A Core i3-10100 CPU outputs less heat than a Core i5-8600K CPU because of its significantly lower TDP. This measures the amount of heat they output and can be used to estimate power consumption. In terms of cache, the Core i5-8600K has significantly more L2 cache when compared to the Core i3-10100. The Core i5-8600K also has significantly more L3 cache.

Most CPUs have more threads than cores. This technology, colloquially called hyperthreading, improves performance by splitting a core into multiple virtual ones. This provides more efficient utilisation of a core. Indeed, the Core i3-10100 has more threads than cores. Each physical core is split into multiple threads.