Intel Core i3-7100 vs Intel Core i5-6600

Core i3-7100 vs Core i5-6600 specs and performance

According to the hardwareDB Benchmark tool, the Core i5-6600 is faster than the Core i3-7100. Furthermore, our gaming benchmark shows that it also outperforms the Core i3-7100 in all gaming tests too.

With info from our database, we find that the Core i5-6600 has significantly more cores with 4 cores whereas the Core i3-7100 has 2 cores. But they both have the same number of threads. With our hardware info, we find that the Core i3-7100 has a slightly higher clock speed than the Core i5-6600. A Core i3-7100 CPU outputs less heat than a Core i5-6600 CPU because of its slightly lower TDP. This measures the amount of heat they output and can be used to estimate power consumption. The info from our database shows that the Core i5-6600 has more L2 cache than the Core i3-7100. The Core i5-6600 also has significantly more L3 cache.

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.