Intel Core i3-540 vs Intel Core i5-3230M

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

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Other Benchmarks
Specifications
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CPU Comparison

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Benchmark Score

Overall Score

A combined score of all workloads

1037 points

1083 points

4% slightly better overall score

Gaming Score

The raw gaming performance with a fast GPU

2070 points

2105 points

1% slightly better gaming score

Multitasking Score

Performance in workloads using up to 8 cores

769 points

813 points

5% slightly better multitasking score

Heavy Workload Score

Performance in workloads using up to 16 cores

739 points

780 points

5% slightly better heavy workload score

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Other Benchmarks

Blender score

Cycles Render (Samples per minute)

14.86 points

17.73 points

19% slightly higher Blender score

Geekbench 5 (multi) score

Multi threaded benchmark

818 points

1041 points

27% slightly higher Geekbench 5 (multi) score

Geekbench 5 (single) score

Single threaded benchmark

386 points

523 points

35% slightly higher Geekbench 5 (single) score

Geekbench 6 (multi) score

Multi threaded benchmark

836 points

1017 points

21% slightly higher Geekbench 6 (multi) score

Geekbench 6 (single) score

Single threaded benchmark

404 points

505 points

25% slightly higher Geekbench 6 (single) score

Specifications

Cores

Number of physical processing units

Identical

Threads

Number of logical processing units

Identical

Clock Speed

Base frequency at which the chip operates

3.06 GHz

17% slightly higher clock speed

2.6 GHz

TDP

Thermal Design Power: Measure of heat generated by the CPU

73 W

35 W

108% significantly lower TDP

PCIe Lanes

Number of physical connections between the CPU and expansion slots

Identical

Memory Channels

Lanes for simultaneous memory access

Identical

Supported Memory

Maximum amount of RAM supported by this CPU

38 GiB

18% slightly more supported memory

32 GiB

Other details

Rank

Ranking in the hardwareDB database

963rd of 1,116

949th of 1,116

Family

The product line

Core

Release date

The official date of release of this chip

2010 February

2013 February

Memory Type

The type of memory used by this chip

DDR3-1066

DDR3-1333

Supports ECC memory

Does this CPU support error correcting memory

Core i3-540 vs Core i5-3230M specs and performance

In our benchmarks, the Core i5-3230M beats the Core i3-540 in overall performance. Furthermore, our gaming benchmark shows that it also outperforms the Core i3-540 in all gaming tests too.

Info from our database shows that they both have the same core count and the same number of threads. Our comparison shows that the Core i3-540 has a slightly higher clock speed compared to the Core i5-3230M. The Core i5-3230M outputs less heat than Core i3-540 thanks to a 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 i3-540 has more threads than cores. Each physical core is split into multiple threads.