Intel Core i5-12500 vs Intel Core i5-12600K

Core i5-12500 vs Core i5-12600K specs and performance

According to the hardwareDB Benchmark tool, the Core i5-12600K is faster than the Core i5-12500. Furthermore, our gaming benchmark shows that it also outperforms the Core i5-12500 in all gaming tests too.

When comparing core counts for these CPUs, we notice that the Core i5-12600K has significantly more cores with 10 cores compared to the Core i5-12500 that has 6 cores. It also has more threads than the Core i5-12500. A Core i5-12500 CPU outputs less heat than a Core i5-12600K 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 i5-12500 has more threads than cores. Each physical core is split into multiple threads.