Intel Core i3-2120 vs Intel Core i5-3470

Compare Intel Core 2 core CPU vs Intel Core 4 core processor, specs and benchmark score. Which is the better CPU for gaming?

CPU Comparison

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Price

The cheapest price from our partner retailers

$ 170.00
$ 47.39 slightly less expensive
$ 217.39

Benchmark Score

Overall Score

A combined score of all workloads

1307 points
2020 points
54% significantly better overall score

Gaming Score

The raw gaming performance with a fast GPU

2496 points
3714 points
48% significantly better gaming score

Multitasking Score

Performance in workloads using up to 8 cores

989 points
1543 points
56% significantly better multitasking score

Heavy Workload Score

Performance in workloads using up to 16 cores

949 points
1482 points
56% significantly better heavy workload score

Free CPU Benchmark

Want to compare your processor against the Core i3-2120 and the Core i5-3470? Download our free and quick PC Performance Test.

Other Benchmarks

Blender score

Blender score

Cycles Render (Samples per minute)

14.23 points
30.09 points
111% significantly higher Blender score
Geekbench 5 (multi) score

Geekbench 5 (multi) score

Multi threaded benchmark

1073 points
1862 points
73% significantly higher Geekbench 5 (multi) score
Geekbench 5 (single) score

Geekbench 5 (single) score

Single threaded benchmark

516 points
620 points
20% slightly higher Geekbench 5 (single) score
Geekbench 6 (multi) score

Geekbench 6 (multi) score

Multi threaded benchmark

1022 points
1843 points
80% significantly higher Geekbench 6 (multi) score
Geekbench 6 (single) score

Geekbench 6 (single) score

Single threaded benchmark

497 points
622 points
25% slightly higher Geekbench 6 (single) score

Specifications

Cores

Number of physical processing units

2
4
100% significantly more cores

Threads

Number of logical processing units

4
Identical
4

Clock Speed

Base frequency at which the chip operates

3.3 GHz
3% slightly higher clock speed
3.2 GHz

TDP

Thermal Design Power: Measure of heat generated by the CPU

65 W
18% slightly lower TDP
77 W

Memory Channels

Lanes for simultaneous memory access

2
Identical
2

Supported Memory

Maximum amount of RAM supported by this CPU

32 GiB
Identical
32 GiB

Other details

Rank

Ranking in the hardwareDB database

869th of 1,089
712th of 1,089

Family

The product line

Core
Core

Release date

The official date of release of this chip

2011 February
2012 May

Memory Type

The type of memory used by this chip

DDR3-1066
DDR3-1333

Supports ECC memory

Does this CPU support error correcting memory

-
No

Core i3-2120 vs Core i5-3470 comparison

Our benchmark analysis concludes that the Core i5-3470 performs better than the Core i3-2120. Furthermore, our gaming benchmark shows that it also outperforms the Core i3-2120 in all gaming tests too.

In terms of the number of cores of each of these CPUs, the Core i5-3470 has significantly more cores than the Core i3-2120. Indeed, the Core i5-3470 has 4 cores compared to 2 cores found in the Core i3-2120. But they both have the same number of threads. With our hardware info, we find that the Core i3-2120 has a slightly higher clock speed than the Core i5-3470. A Core i3-2120 CPU outputs less heat than a Core i5-3470 CPU because of its slightly lower TDP. This measures the amount of heat they output and can be used to estimate power consumption.

The more cores a CPU has, the better the overall performance will be in parallel workloads such as multitasking. Many CPUs have more threads than cores, this means that each physical core is split into multiple logical cores, making them more efficient. Indeed, the Core i3-2120 has more threads than cores. Each physical core is split into multiple threads.

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