Intel Core i5-12600K vs Intel Core i7-12700K

Core i5-12600K vs Core i7-12700K comparison

In our benchmarks, the Core i7-12700K beats the Core i5-12600K in overall performance. Furthermore, our gaming benchmark shows that it also outperforms the Core i5-12600K in all gaming tests too.

With info from our database, we find that the Core i7-12700K has slightly more cores with 12 cores whereas the Core i5-12600K has 10 cores. It also has more threads than the Core i5-12600K. Our comparison shows that the Core i5-12600K has a slightly higher clock speed compared to the Core i7-12700K. Despite this, the Core i7-12700K has a slightly higher turbo speed. A Core i5-12600K CPU outputs less heat than a Core i7-12700K CPU because of its slightly 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 i5-12600K has more threads than cores. Each physical core is split into multiple threads.