Intel Core i7-10700 vs Intel Core i5-12500

Compare Intel 10th Generation Core i7 8 core CPU vs Intel 12th Generation Core i5 6 core processor, specs and benchmark score. Which is the better CPU for gaming?

Benchmark Score
Other Benchmarks
Specifications
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Intel Core i5-12500

Price

The cheapest price from our partner retailers

$ 298.15

$ 272.22

$ 25.93 slightly less expensive

Benchmark Score

Overall Score

A combined score of all workloads

6267 points

7166 points

14% slightly better overall score

Gaming Score

The raw gaming performance with a fast GPU

7929 points

9976 points

25% slightly better gaming score

Multitasking Score

Performance in workloads using up to 8 cores

5718 points

6301 points

10% slightly better multitasking score

Heavy Workload Score

Performance in workloads using up to 16 cores

5568 points

6099 points

9% slightly better heavy workload score

Free CPU Benchmark

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Other Benchmarks

3DMark Physics score

Physics simulation benchmark

6944 points

14% slightly higher 3DMark Physics score

6075 points

Blender score

Cycles Render (Samples per minute)

143.42 points

170.78 points

19% slightly higher Blender score

Geekbench 5 (multi) score

Multi threaded benchmark

7060 points

9112 points

29% slightly higher Geekbench 5 (multi) score

Geekbench 5 (single) score

Single threaded benchmark

1560 points

2182 points

39% slightly higher Geekbench 5 (single) score

Geekbench 6 (multi) score

Multi threaded benchmark

7115 points

9032 points

26% slightly higher Geekbench 6 (multi) score

Geekbench 6 (single) score

Single threaded benchmark

1625 points

2320 points

42% slightly higher Geekbench 6 (single) score

Specifications

Cores

Number of physical processing units

33% slightly more cores

Threads

Number of logical processing units

33% slightly more threads

Turbo Speed

Higher frequency used for heavy workloads

4.8 GHz

4% slightly higher turbo speed

4.6 GHz

TDP

Thermal Design Power: Measure of heat generated by the CPU

65 W

Identical

65 W

PCIe Lanes

Number of physical connections between the CPU and expansion slots

25% slightly more pcie lanes

Memory Channels

Lanes for simultaneous memory access

Identical

Supported Memory

Maximum amount of RAM supported by this CPU

128 GiB

Identical

128 GiB

L1 Cache

Smallest embedded memory, but the fastest

512 KiB

6% slightly more L1 cache

480 KiB

L3 Cache

General memory pool for all cores

16 MiB

18 MiB

12% slightly more L3 cache

Other details

Rank

Ranking in the hardwareDB database

238th of 1,089

182nd of 1,089

Family

The product line

10th Generation Core i7

12th Generation Core i5

Release date

The official date of release of this chip

2020 May

2022 February

Memory Type

The type of memory used by this chip

DDR4-2933

DDR5-4800

Is Unlocked

Can this CPU can be overclocked

Supports ECC memory

Does this CPU support error correcting memory

Yes

Core i7-10700 vs Core i5-12500 specs and performance

In our benchmarks, the Core i5-12500 beats the Core i7-10700 in overall performance. Furthermore, our gaming benchmark shows that it also outperforms the Core i7-10700 in all gaming tests too.

When comparing core counts for these CPUs, we notice that the Core i7-10700 has slightly more cores with 8 cores compared to the Core i5-12500 that has 6 cores. It also has more threads than the Core i5-12500. Both these chips have an identical TDP (Thermal Design Power). This measures the amount of heat they output and can be used to estimate power consumption.

Modern CPUs generally have more logical cores than physical cores, this means that each core is split into multiple virtual cores, improving efficiency for parallel workloads. Indeed, the Core i7-10700 has more threads than cores. Each physical core is split into multiple threads.