Intel Core i3-9100 vs Intel Core i5-9500

Core i3-9100 vs Core i5-9500 comparison

Our benchmark analysis concludes that the Core i5-9500 performs better than the Core i3-9100. Furthermore, our gaming benchmark shows that it also outperforms the Core i3-9100 in all gaming tests too.

When comparing core counts for these CPUs, we notice that the Core i5-9500 has significantly more cores with 6 cores compared to the Core i3-9100 that has 4 cores. It also has more threads than the Core i3-9100. These CPUs have different clock speeds. Indeed, the Core i3-9100 has a slightly higher clock speed compared to the Core i5-9500. Despite this, the Core i5-9500 has a slightly higher turbo speed. Both these chips have an identical TDP (Thermal Design Power). This measures the amount of heat they output and can be used to estimate power consumption. The cache sizes of these CPUs are different. Indeed, the Core i5-9500 has significantly more L2 cache than the Core i3-9100. The Core i5-9500 also has significantly more L3 cache.

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. For instance, the Core i3-9100 has the same number of threads as cores. This means the the CPU does not support hyperthreading.