Intel Core i3-3240 vs Intel Core i5-2520M

Compare Intel Core 2 core CPU vs Intel Core 2 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

$ 41.00
$ 28.00 significantly less expensive
$ 69.00

Benchmark Score

Overall Score

A combined score of all workloads

1315 points
34% slightly better overall score
979 points

Gaming Score

The raw gaming performance with a fast GPU

2538 points
35% slightly better gaming score
1873 points

Multitasking Score

Performance in workloads using up to 8 cores

986 points
33% slightly better multitasking score
738 points

Heavy Workload Score

Performance in workloads using up to 16 cores

946 points
33% slightly better heavy workload score
708 points

Free CPU Benchmark

Want to compare your processor against the Core i3-3240 and the Core i5-2520M? Download our free and quick PC Performance Test.

Other Benchmarks

Blender score

Blender score

Cycles Render (Samples per minute)

19.18 points
49% significantly higher Blender score
12.81 points
Geekbench 5 (multi) score

Geekbench 5 (multi) score

Multi threaded benchmark

1122 points
22% slightly higher Geekbench 5 (multi) score
915 points
Geekbench 5 (single) score

Geekbench 5 (single) score

Single threaded benchmark

547 points
18% slightly higher Geekbench 5 (single) score
462 points
Geekbench 6 (multi) score

Geekbench 6 (multi) score

Multi threaded benchmark

1110 points
19% slightly higher Geekbench 6 (multi) score
929 points
Geekbench 6 (single) score

Geekbench 6 (single) score

Single threaded benchmark

544 points
16% slightly higher Geekbench 6 (single) score
467 points

Specifications

Cores

Number of physical processing units

2
Identical
2

Threads

Number of logical processing units

4
Identical
4

Clock Speed

Base frequency at which the chip operates

3.4 GHz
36% slightly higher clock speed
2.5 GHz

TDP

Thermal Design Power: Measure of heat generated by the CPU

55 W
35 W
57% significantly lower TDP

Memory Channels

Lanes for simultaneous memory access

2
Identical
2

Supported Memory

Maximum amount of RAM supported by this CPU

32 GiB
100% significantly more supported memory
16 GiB

Other details

Rank

Ranking in the hardwareDB database

866th of 1,089
955th of 1,089

Family

The product line

Core
Core

Release date

The official date of release of this chip

2012 August
2011 February

Memory Type

The type of memory used by this chip

DDR3-1333
DDR3-1066

Supports ECC memory

Does this CPU support error correcting memory

No
No

Core i3-3240 vs Core i5-2520M benchmarks

According to the hardwareDB Benchmark tool, the Core i3-3240 is faster than the Core i5-2520M. Furthermore, our gaming benchmark shows that it also outperforms the Core i5-2520M in all gaming tests too.

Our spec comparison shows that they have an identical amount of cores and the same number of threads. These CPUs have different clock speeds. Indeed, the Core i3-3240 has a slightly higher clock speed compared to the Core i5-2520M. The Core i5-2520M outputs less heat than Core i3-3240 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 i3-3240 has more threads than cores. Each physical core is split into multiple threads.

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