Intel Core i5-2500K vs Intel Xeon E3-1230 v3

Compare Intel Core 4 core CPU vs Intel Xeon E3 v3 Family 4 core processor, specs and benchmark score. Which is the better CPU for gaming?

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Price

The cheapest price from our partner retailers

$ 133.55
$ 144.95 significantly less expensive
$ 278.50

Benchmark Score

Overall Score

A combined score of all workloads

2325 points
2545 points
9% slightly better overall score

Gaming Score

The raw gaming performance with a fast GPU

4281 points
8% slightly better gaming score
3940 points

Multitasking Score

Performance in workloads using up to 8 cores

1776 points
2128 points
19% slightly better multitasking score

Heavy Workload Score

Performance in workloads using up to 16 cores

1704 points
2046 points
20% slightly better heavy workload score

Free CPU Benchmark

Want to compare your processor against the Core i5-2500K and the Xeon E3-1230 v3? Download our free and quick PC Performance Test.

Other Benchmarks

3DMark Physics score

3DMark Physics score

Physics simulation benchmark

2748 points
3667 points
33% slightly higher 3DMark Physics score
Blender score

Blender score

Cycles Render (Samples per minute)

34.51 points
61.88 points
79% significantly higher Blender score
Geekbench 5 (multi) score

Geekbench 5 (multi) score

Multi threaded benchmark

1893 points
3681 points
94% significantly higher Geekbench 5 (multi) score
Geekbench 5 (single) score

Geekbench 5 (single) score

Single threaded benchmark

629 points
1126 points
79% significantly higher Geekbench 5 (single) score
Geekbench 6 (multi) score

Geekbench 6 (multi) score

Multi threaded benchmark

1910 points
3699 points
93% significantly higher Geekbench 6 (multi) score
Geekbench 6 (single) score

Geekbench 6 (single) score

Single threaded benchmark

650 points
1160 points
78% significantly higher Geekbench 6 (single) score

Specifications

Cores

Number of physical processing units

4
Identical
4

Threads

Number of logical processing units

4
8
100% significantly more threads

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
80 W
18% slightly lower TDP

PCIe Lanes

Number of physical connections between the CPU and expansion slots

16
Identical
16

Memory Channels

Lanes for simultaneous memory access

2
Identical
2

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
617th of 1,089

Family

The product line

Core
Xeon E3 v3 Family

Release date

The official date of release of this chip

2011 February
2013 May

Memory Type

The type of memory used by this chip

DDR3-1066
DDR3-1333

Supports ECC memory

Does this CPU support error correcting memory

No
Yes

Core i5-2500K vs Xeon E3-1230 v3 comparison

In our benchmarks, the Xeon E3-1230 v3 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 Xeon E3-1230 v3 has more threads. In terms of clock speed, the Core i5-2500K and Xeon E3-1230 v3 are identical in this regard. In addition, both chips have the same turbo speed. The Xeon E3-1230 v3 outputs less heat than Core i5-2500K thanks to a slightly lower TDP. 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.

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