Intel Core i3-3120M vs Intel Core i5-4200U

Core i3-3120M vs Core i5-4200U specs and performance

Our benchmark analysis concludes that the Core i5-4200U performs better than the Core i3-3120M. Furthermore, our gaming benchmark shows that it also outperforms the Core i3-3120M in all gaming tests too.

When comparing these CPUs we notice that they have the same number of cores and the same number of threads. These CPUs have different clock speeds. Indeed, the Core i3-3120M has a significantly higher clock speed compared to the Core i5-4200U. The Core i5-4200U outputs less heat than Core i3-3120M thanks to a significantly 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 i3-3120M has more threads than cores. Each physical core is split into multiple threads.