Intel Core i3-3220 vs Intel Core i5-3550S

Core i3-3220 vs Core i5-3550S comparison

Our benchmark analysis concludes that the Core i3-3220 performs better than the Core i5-3550S. Furthermore, our gaming benchmark shows that it also outperforms the Core i5-3550S in all gaming tests too.

With info from our database, we find that the Core i5-3550S has significantly more cores with 4 cores whereas the Core i3-3220 has 2 cores. But they both have the same number of threads. Our comparison shows that the Core i3-3220 has a slightly higher clock speed compared to the Core i5-3550S. A Core i3-3220 CPU outputs less heat than a Core i5-3550S CPU because of its slightly lower TDP. This measures the amount of heat they output and can be used to estimate power consumption.

Modern CPUs generally have more logical cores than physical cores, this means that each core is split into multiple virtual cores, improving efficiency for parallel workloads. Indeed, the Core i3-3220 has more threads than cores. Each physical core is split into multiple threads.