Intel Core i3-3240 vs Intel Core i7-960

Core i3-3240 vs Core i7-960 comparison

According to the hardwareDB Benchmark tool, the Core i7-960 is faster than the Core i3-3240. Furthermore, our gaming benchmark shows that it also outperforms the Core i3-3240 in all gaming tests too.

When comparing core counts for these CPUs, we notice that the Core i7-960 has significantly more cores with 4 cores compared to the Core i3-3240 that has 2 cores. It also has more threads than the Core i3-3240. With our hardware info, we find that the Core i3-3240 has a slightly higher clock speed than the Core i7-960. A Core i3-3240 CPU outputs less heat than a Core i7-960 CPU because of its significantly lower TDP. This measures the amount of heat they output and can be used to estimate power consumption.

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 i3-3240 has more threads than cores. Each physical core is split into multiple threads.