Intel Core i5-3230M vs Intel Core i7-930

Compare Intel Core 2 core CPU vs Intel Core 4 core processor, specs and benchmark score. Which is the better CPU for gaming?

CPU Comparison

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Price

The cheapest price from our partner retailers

$ 99.99
$ 207.30 significantly less expensive
$ 307.29

Benchmark Score

Overall Score

A combined score of all workloads

1086 points
1941 points
78% significantly better overall score

Gaming Score

The raw gaming performance with a fast GPU

2128 points
3145 points
47% significantly better gaming score

Multitasking Score

Performance in workloads using up to 8 cores

812 points
1583 points
94% significantly better multitasking score

Heavy Workload Score

Performance in workloads using up to 16 cores

780 points
1519 points
94% significantly better heavy workload score

Free CPU Benchmark

Want to compare your processor against the Core i5-3230M and the Core i7-930? Download our free and quick PC Performance Test.

Other Benchmarks

Blender score

Blender score

Cycles Render (Samples per minute)

17.73 points
28.18 points
58% significantly higher Blender score
Geekbench 5 (multi) score

Geekbench 5 (multi) score

Multi threaded benchmark

1041 points
1490 points
43% significantly higher Geekbench 5 (multi) score
Geekbench 5 (single) score

Geekbench 5 (single) score

Single threaded benchmark

523 points
21% slightly higher Geekbench 5 (single) score
432 points
Geekbench 6 (multi) score

Geekbench 6 (multi) score

Multi threaded benchmark

1017 points
1449 points
42% slightly higher Geekbench 6 (multi) score
Geekbench 6 (single) score

Geekbench 6 (single) score

Single threaded benchmark

505 points
18% slightly higher Geekbench 6 (single) score
425 points

Specifications

Cores

Number of physical processing units

2
4
100% significantly more cores

Threads

Number of logical processing units

4
8
100% significantly more threads

Clock Speed

Base frequency at which the chip operates

2.6 GHz
2.8 GHz
7% slightly higher clock speed

Turbo Speed

Higher frequency used for heavy workloads

3.2 GHz
4% slightly higher turbo speed
3.06 GHz

TDP

Thermal Design Power: Measure of heat generated by the CPU

35 W
271% significantly lower TDP
130 W

Memory Channels

Lanes for simultaneous memory access

2
3
49% significantly more memory channels

Supported Memory

Maximum amount of RAM supported by this CPU

32 GiB
33% slightly more supported memory
24 GiB

Other details

Rank

Ranking in the hardwareDB database

927th of 1,089
729th of 1,089

Family

The product line

Core
Core

Release date

The official date of release of this chip

2013 February
2010 February

Memory Type

The type of memory used by this chip

DDR3-1333
DDR3-1066

Supports ECC memory

Does this CPU support error correcting memory

No
No

Core i5-3230M vs Core i7-930 specs and performance

Our benchmark analysis concludes that the Core i7-930 performs better than the Core i5-3230M. Furthermore, our gaming benchmark shows that it also outperforms the Core i5-3230M in all gaming tests too.

With info from our database, we find that the Core i7-930 has significantly more cores with 4 cores whereas the Core i5-3230M has 2 cores. It also has more threads than the Core i5-3230M. These CPUs have different clock speeds. Indeed, the Core i7-930 has a slightly higher clock speed compared to the Core i5-3230M. Despite this, the Core i5-3230M has a slightly higher turbo speed. A Core i5-3230M CPU outputs less heat than a Core i7-930 CPU because of its significantly 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. Indeed, the Core i5-3230M has more threads than cores. Each physical core is split into multiple threads.

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