Intel Core i5-9500 vs Intel Core i3-12100

Core i5-9500 vs Core i3-12100 comparison

Our benchmark analysis concludes that the Core i3-12100 performs better than the Core i5-9500. Furthermore, our gaming benchmark shows that it also outperforms the Core i5-9500 in all gaming tests too.

With info from our database, we find that the Core i5-9500 has significantly more cores with 6 cores whereas the Core i3-12100 has 4 cores. Despite this, the Core i3-12100 has more threads than the Core i5-9500. These CPUs have different clock speeds. Indeed, the Core i3-12100 has a slightly higher clock speed compared to the Core i5-9500. Despite this, the Core i5-9500 has a slightly higher turbo speed. The Core i3-12100 outputs less heat than Core i5-9500 thanks to a slightly 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. For instance, the Core i5-9500 has the same number of threads as cores. This means the the CPU does not support hyperthreading.