Intel Core i5-2500 vs Intel Core i7-870

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 i7-870

Price

The cheapest price from our partner retailers

$ 135.87

$ 27.17 slightly less expensive

$ 163.04

Benchmark Score

Overall Score

A combined score of all workloads

1975 points

2% slightly better overall score

1923 points

Gaming Score

The raw gaming performance with a fast GPU

3663 points

18% slightly better gaming score

3090 points

Multitasking Score

Performance in workloads using up to 8 cores

1502 points

1576 points

4% slightly better multitasking score

Heavy Workload Score

Performance in workloads using up to 16 cores

1441 points

1513 points

4% slightly better heavy workload score

Free CPU Benchmark

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Other Benchmarks

Blender score

Cycles Render (Samples per minute)

26.26 points

37.74 points

43% significantly higher Blender score

Geekbench 5 (multi) score

Multi threaded benchmark

1687 points

7% slightly higher Geekbench 5 (multi) score

1563 points

Geekbench 5 (single) score

Single threaded benchmark

571 points

17% slightly higher Geekbench 5 (single) score

485 points

Geekbench 6 (multi) score

Multi threaded benchmark

1692 points

9% slightly higher Geekbench 6 (multi) score

1550 points

Geekbench 6 (single) score

Single threaded benchmark

592 points

24% slightly higher Geekbench 6 (single) score

475 points

Specifications

Cores

Number of physical processing units

Identical

Threads

Number of logical processing units

100% significantly more threads

Clock Speed

Base frequency at which the chip operates

3.3 GHz

12% slightly higher clock speed

2.93 GHz

Turbo Speed

Higher frequency used for heavy workloads

3.7 GHz

2% slightly higher turbo speed

3.6 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

100% significantly more supported memory

16 GiB

Other details

Rank

Ranking in the hardwareDB database

725th of 1,089

732nd of 1,089

Family

The product line

Core

Release date

The official date of release of this chip

2011 February

2009 August

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 i7-870 benchmarks

In our benchmarks, the Core i7-870 beats the Core i5-2500 in overall performance. Despite this, the Core i5-2500 has the advantage in our gaming benchmark.

When comparing these CPUs we notice that they have the same number of cores but the Core i7-870 has more threads. These CPUs have different clock speeds. Indeed, the Core i5-2500 has a slightly higher clock speed compared to the Core i7-870. Also, the Core i5-2500 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.

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