Intel Core i5-9500 vs Intel Core i3-1215U

Core i5-9500 vs Core i3-1215U specs and performance

Our benchmark analysis concludes that the Core i5-9500 performs better than the Core i3-1215U. Despite this, the Core i3-1215U has the advantage in our gaming benchmark.

Our spec comparison shows that they have an identical amount of cores but the Core i3-1215U has more threads. These CPUs have different clock speeds. Indeed, the Core i5-9500 has a significantly higher clock speed compared to the Core i3-1215U. In addition, both chips have the same turbo speed. The Core i3-1215U outputs less heat than Core i5-9500 thanks to a significantly lower TDP. This measures the amount of heat they output and can be used to estimate power consumption. The cache sizes of these CPUs are different. Indeed, the Core i3-1215U has significantly more L2 cache than the Core i5-9500. The Core i3-1215U 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 i5-9500 has the same number of threads as cores. This means the the CPU does not support hyperthreading.