Intel Core i5-2500K vs Intel Core i7-2600K

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 i7-2600K

Price

The cheapest price from our partner retailers

$ 133.55

$ 84.99

$ 48.56 significantly less expensive

Benchmark Score

Overall Score

A combined score of all workloads

2325 points

2571 points

10% slightly better overall score

Gaming Score

The raw gaming performance with a fast GPU

4281 points

5% slightly better gaming score

4067 points

Multitasking Score

Performance in workloads using up to 8 cores

1776 points

2123 points

19% slightly better multitasking score

Heavy Workload Score

Performance in workloads using up to 16 cores

1704 points

2039 points

19% slightly better heavy workload score

Free CPU Benchmark

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Other Benchmarks

3DMark Physics score

Physics simulation benchmark

2748 points

3342 points

21% slightly higher 3DMark Physics score

Blender score

Cycles Render (Samples per minute)

34.51 points

44.04 points

27% slightly higher Blender score

Geekbench 5 (multi) score

Multi threaded benchmark

1893 points

2292 points

21% slightly higher Geekbench 5 (multi) score

Geekbench 5 (single) score

Single threaded benchmark

629 points

665 points

5% slightly higher Geekbench 5 (single) score

Geekbench 6 (multi) score

Multi threaded benchmark

1910 points

2289 points

19% slightly higher Geekbench 6 (multi) score

Geekbench 6 (single) score

Single threaded benchmark

650 points

665 points

2% slightly higher Geekbench 6 (single) score

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

3.4 GHz

3% slightly higher clock speed

Turbo Speed

Higher frequency used for heavy workloads

3.7 GHz

3.8 GHz

2% slightly higher turbo speed

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

654th of 1,089

612th 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 i5-2500K vs Core i7-2600K benchmarks

In our benchmarks, the Core i7-2600K beats the Core i5-2500K in overall performance. Despite this, the Core i5-2500K has the advantage in our gaming benchmark.

Our spec comparison shows that they have an identical amount of cores but the Core i7-2600K has more threads. Our comparison shows that the Core i7-2600K has a slightly higher clock speed compared to the Core i5-2500K. Also, the Core i7-2600K 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 more cores a CPU has, the better the overall performance will be in parallel workloads such as multitasking. Many CPUs have more threads than cores, this means that each physical core is split into multiple logical cores, making them more efficient. For instance, the Core i5-2500K has the same number of threads as cores. This means the the CPU does not support hyperthreading.