Intel Core i3-7100 vs Intel Core i5-2500

Core i3-7100 vs Core i5-2500 benchmarks

Our benchmark analysis concludes that the Core i5-2500 performs better than the Core i3-7100. Despite this, the Core i3-7100 has the advantage in our gaming benchmark.

With info from our database, we find that the Core i5-2500 has significantly more cores with 4 cores whereas the Core i3-7100 has 2 cores. But they both have the same number of threads. Our comparison shows that the Core i3-7100 has a slightly higher clock speed compared to the Core i5-2500. A Core i3-7100 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.

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 i3-7100 has more threads than cores. Each physical core is split into multiple threads.