Intel Core i3-3120M vs AMD Athlon II X3 425

Core i3-3120M vs Athlon II X3 425 specs and performance

Our benchmark analysis concludes that the Core i3-3120M performs better than the Athlon II X3 425. Despite this, the Athlon II X3 425 has the advantage in our gaming benchmark.

When comparing core counts for these CPUs, we notice that the Athlon II X3 425 has significantly more cores with 3 cores compared to the Core i3-3120M that has 2 cores. Despite this, the Core i3-3120M has more threads than the Athlon II X3 425. With our hardware info, we find that the Athlon II X3 425 has a slightly higher clock speed than the Core i3-3120M.

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 i3-3120M has more threads than cores. Each physical core is split into multiple threads.