Intel Core i5-3230M vs Intel Core i7-860

Core i5-3230M vs Core i7-860 specs and performance

In our benchmarks, the Core i7-860 beats the Core i5-3230M in overall performance. Despite this, the Core i5-3230M has the advantage in our gaming benchmark.

When comparing core counts for these CPUs, we notice that the Core i7-860 has significantly more cores with 4 cores compared to the Core i5-3230M that has 2 cores. It also has more threads than the Core i5-3230M. Our comparison shows that the Core i7-860 has a slightly higher clock speed compared to the Core i5-3230M. Also, the Core i7-860 has a slightly higher turbo speed. A Core i5-3230M CPU outputs less heat than a Core i7-860 CPU because of its significantly 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 i5-3230M has more threads than cores. Each physical core is split into multiple threads.