Intel Core i5-2500 vs Intel Core i5-2500K

Compare Intel Core 4 core CPU vs Intel Core 4 core processor, specs and benchmark score. Which is the better CPU for gaming?

Benchmark Score
Other Benchmarks
Specifications
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Intel Core i5-2500K

Price

The cheapest price from our partner retailers

$ 135.87

$ 133.55

$ 2.32 slightly less expensive

Benchmark Score

Overall Score

A combined score of all workloads

1975 points

2325 points

17% slightly better overall score

Gaming Score

The raw gaming performance with a fast GPU

3663 points

4281 points

16% slightly better gaming score

Multitasking Score

Performance in workloads using up to 8 cores

1502 points

1776 points

18% slightly better multitasking score

Heavy Workload Score

Performance in workloads using up to 16 cores

1441 points

1704 points

18% slightly better heavy workload score

Free CPU Benchmark

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Other Benchmarks

Blender score

Cycles Render (Samples per minute)

26.26 points

34.51 points

31% slightly higher Blender score

Geekbench 5 (multi) score

Multi threaded benchmark

1687 points

1893 points

12% slightly higher Geekbench 5 (multi) score

Geekbench 5 (single) score

Single threaded benchmark

571 points

629 points

10% slightly higher Geekbench 5 (single) score

Geekbench 6 (multi) score

Multi threaded benchmark

1692 points

1910 points

12% slightly higher Geekbench 6 (multi) score

Geekbench 6 (single) score

Single threaded benchmark

592 points

650 points

9% slightly higher Geekbench 6 (single) score

Specifications

Cores

Number of physical processing units

Identical

Threads

Number of logical processing units

Identical

Clock Speed

Base frequency at which the chip operates

3.3 GHz

Identical

3.3 GHz

Turbo Speed

Higher frequency used for heavy workloads

3.7 GHz

Identical

3.7 GHz

TDP

Thermal Design Power: Measure of heat generated by the CPU

95 W

Identical

95 W

PCIe Lanes

Number of physical connections between the CPU and expansion slots

Identical

Memory Channels

Lanes for simultaneous memory access

Identical

Supported Memory

Maximum amount of RAM supported by this CPU

32 GiB

Identical

32 GiB

Other details

Rank

Ranking in the hardwareDB database

725th of 1,089

654th of 1,089

Family

The product line

Core

Release date

The official date of release of this chip

2011 February

Memory Type

The type of memory used by this chip

DDR3-1066

Supports ECC memory

Does this CPU support error correcting memory

Core i5-2500 vs Core i5-2500K comparison

Our benchmark analysis concludes that the Core i5-2500K performs better than the Core i5-2500. Furthermore, our gaming benchmark shows that it also outperforms the Core i5-2500 in all gaming tests too.

Our spec comparison shows that they have an identical amount of cores and the same number of threads. In terms of clock speed, the Core i5-2500 and Core i5-2500K are identical in this regard. Furthermore, both these CPUs have identical turbo speeds. 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.

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. For instance, the Core i5-2500 has the same number of threads as cores. This means the the CPU does not support hyperthreading.