Intel Core i7-3520M vs Intel Core i7-3540M

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

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Other Benchmarks
Specifications
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Intel Core i7-3540M

Price

The cheapest price from our partner retailers

$ 108.02

Identical

$ 108.02

Benchmark Score

Overall Score

A combined score of all workloads

1256 points

1405 points

11% slightly better overall score

Gaming Score

The raw gaming performance with a fast GPU

2477 points

2845 points

14% slightly better gaming score

Multitasking Score

Performance in workloads using up to 8 cores

934 points

1034 points

10% slightly better multitasking score

Heavy Workload Score

Performance in workloads using up to 16 cores

895 points

993 points

10% slightly better heavy workload score

Free CPU Benchmark

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Other Benchmarks

Blender score

Cycles Render (Samples per minute)

19.75 points

1% slightly higher Blender score

19.50 points

Geekbench 5 (multi) score

Multi threaded benchmark

1134 points

41% slightly higher Geekbench 5 (multi) score

803 points

Geekbench 5 (single) score

Single threaded benchmark

554 points

25% slightly higher Geekbench 5 (single) score

442 points

Geekbench 6 (multi) score

Multi threaded benchmark

1158 points

1163 points

0.43% slightly higher Geekbench 6 (multi) score

Geekbench 6 (single) score

Single threaded benchmark

570 points

0.18% slightly higher Geekbench 6 (single) score

569 points

Specifications

Cores

Number of physical processing units

Identical

Threads

Number of logical processing units

Identical

Clock Speed

Base frequency at which the chip operates

2.9 GHz

3 GHz

3% slightly higher clock speed

Turbo Speed

Higher frequency used for heavy workloads

3.6 GHz

3.7 GHz

2% slightly higher turbo speed

TDP

Thermal Design Power: Measure of heat generated by the CPU

35 W

Identical

35 W

PCIe Lanes

Number of physical connections between the CPU and expansion slots

Identical

Memory Channels

Lanes for simultaneous memory access

Identical

Supported Memory

Maximum amount of RAM supported by this CPU

32 GiB

Identical

32 GiB

Other details

Rank

Ranking in the hardwareDB database

881st of 1,089

837th of 1,089

Family

The product line

Core

Release date

The official date of release of this chip

2012 May

2013 February

Memory Type

The type of memory used by this chip

DDR3-1333

Supports ECC memory

Does this CPU support error correcting memory

Core i7-3520M vs Core i7-3540M benchmarks

In our benchmarks, the Core i7-3540M beats the Core i7-3520M in overall performance. Furthermore, our gaming benchmark shows that it also outperforms the Core i7-3520M in all gaming tests too.

Our spec comparison shows that they have an identical amount of cores and the same number of threads. These CPUs have different clock speeds. Indeed, the Core i7-3540M has a slightly higher clock speed compared to the Core i7-3520M. Also, the Core i7-3540M has a slightly higher turbo speed. 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 i7-3520M has more threads than cores. Each physical core is split into multiple threads.