Intel Core i5-6500 vs Intel Core i7-7700K

Core i5-6500 vs Core i7-7700K specs and performance

Our benchmark analysis concludes that the Core i7-7700K performs better than the Core i5-6500. Furthermore, our gaming benchmark shows that it also outperforms the Core i5-6500 in all gaming tests too.

Our spec comparison shows that they have an identical amount of cores but the Core i7-7700K has more threads. These CPUs have different clock speeds. Indeed, the Core i7-7700K has a slightly higher clock speed compared to the Core i5-6500. Also, the Core i7-7700K has a slightly higher turbo speed. A Core i5-6500 CPU outputs less heat than a Core i7-7700K CPU because of its significantly lower TDP. This measures the amount of heat they output and can be used to estimate power consumption. The data shows that both these CPUs have same sized L2 caches. The Core i7-7700K also has slightly more L3 cache.

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. For instance, the Core i5-6500 has the same number of threads as cores. This means the the CPU does not support hyperthreading.