Intel Core i3-4170 vs Intel Core i5-2500

Compare Intel 4th Generation Core i3 2 core CPU vs Intel Core 4 core processor, specs and benchmark score. Which is the better CPU for gaming?

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Price

The cheapest price from our partner retailers

$ 41.60
$ 94.27 significantly less expensive
$ 135.87

Benchmark Score

Overall Score

A combined score of all workloads

1489 points
1975 points
32% slightly better overall score

Gaming Score

The raw gaming performance with a fast GPU

2858 points
3663 points
28% slightly better gaming score

Multitasking Score

Performance in workloads using up to 8 cores

1121 points
1502 points
33% slightly better multitasking score

Heavy Workload Score

Performance in workloads using up to 16 cores

1076 points
1441 points
33% slightly better heavy workload score

Free CPU Benchmark

Want to compare your processor against the Core i3-4170 and the Core i5-2500? Download our free and quick PC Performance Test.

Other Benchmarks

Blender score

Blender score

Cycles Render (Samples per minute)

27.13 points
3% slightly higher Blender score
26.26 points
Geekbench 5 (multi) score

Geekbench 5 (multi) score

Multi threaded benchmark

2036 points
20% slightly higher Geekbench 5 (multi) score
1687 points
Geekbench 5 (single) score

Geekbench 5 (single) score

Single threaded benchmark

1049 points
83% significantly higher Geekbench 5 (single) score
571 points
Geekbench 6 (multi) score

Geekbench 6 (multi) score

Multi threaded benchmark

2163 points
27% slightly higher Geekbench 6 (multi) score
1692 points
Geekbench 6 (single) score

Geekbench 6 (single) score

Single threaded benchmark

1119 points
89% significantly higher Geekbench 6 (single) score
592 points

Specifications

Cores

Number of physical processing units

2
4
100% significantly more cores

Threads

Number of logical processing units

4
Identical
4

Clock Speed

Base frequency at which the chip operates

3.7 GHz
12% slightly higher clock speed
3.3 GHz

TDP

Thermal Design Power: Measure of heat generated by the CPU

54 W
75% significantly lower TDP
95 W

PCIe Lanes

Number of physical connections between the CPU and expansion slots

16
Identical
16

Memory Channels

Lanes for simultaneous memory access

2
Identical
2

Supported Memory

Maximum amount of RAM supported by this CPU

32 GiB
Identical
32 GiB

Other details

Rank

Ranking in the hardwareDB database

811th of 1,089
725th of 1,089

Family

The product line

4th Generation Core i3
Core

Release date

The official date of release of this chip

2015 February
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

Yes
No

Core i3-4170 vs Core i5-2500 specs and performance

According to the hardwareDB Benchmark tool, the Core i5-2500 is faster than the Core i3-4170. Furthermore, our gaming benchmark shows that it also outperforms the Core i3-4170 in all gaming tests too.

With info from our database, we find that the Core i5-2500 has significantly more cores with 4 cores whereas the Core i3-4170 has 2 cores. But they both have the same number of threads. With our hardware info, we find that the Core i3-4170 has a slightly higher clock speed than the Core i5-2500. A Core i3-4170 CPU outputs less heat than a Core i5-2500 CPU because of its significantly 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 i3-4170 has more threads than cores. Each physical core is split into multiple threads.

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