Intel Core i3-7100U vs Intel Core i9-12900KF

Core i3-7100U vs Core i9-12900KF benchmarks

Our benchmark analysis concludes that the Core i9-12900KF performs better than the Core i3-7100U. Furthermore, our gaming benchmark shows that it also outperforms the Core i3-7100U in all gaming tests too.

When comparing core counts for these CPUs, we notice that the Core i9-12900KF has significantly more cores with 16 cores compared to the Core i3-7100U that has 2 cores. It also has more threads than the Core i3-7100U. These CPUs have different clock speeds. Indeed, the Core i9-12900KF has a slightly higher clock speed compared to the Core i3-7100U. A Core i3-7100U CPU outputs less heat than a Core i9-12900KF 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 i3-7100U has more threads than cores. Each physical core is split into multiple threads.