Intel Core i3-4170 vs Intel Core 2 Quad Q9400

Core i3-4170 vs Core 2 Quad Q9400 specs and performance

Our benchmark analysis concludes that the Core i3-4170 performs better than the Core 2 Quad Q9400. Furthermore, our gaming benchmark shows that it also outperforms the Core 2 Quad Q9400 in all gaming tests too.

With info from our database, we find that the Core 2 Quad Q9400 has significantly more cores with 4 cores whereas the Core i3-4170 has 2 cores. But they both have the same number of threads. Our comparison shows that the Core i3-4170 has a slightly higher clock speed compared to the Core 2 Quad Q9400. A Core i3-4170 CPU outputs less heat than a Core 2 Quad Q9400 CPU because of its 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 i3-4170 has more threads than cores. Each physical core is split into multiple threads.