Intel Core i7-3520M vs Intel Core i7-950

Core i7-3520M vs Core i7-950 benchmarks

Our benchmark analysis concludes that the Core i7-950 performs better than the Core i7-3520M. Despite this, the Core i7-3520M has the advantage in our gaming benchmark.

When comparing core counts for these CPUs, we notice that the Core i7-950 has significantly more cores with 4 cores compared to the Core i7-3520M that has 2 cores. It also has more threads than the Core i7-3520M. With our hardware info, we find that the Core i7-950 has a slightly higher clock speed than the Core i7-3520M. Despite this, the Core i7-3520M has a slightly higher turbo speed. A Core i7-3520M CPU outputs less heat than a Core i7-950 CPU because of its significantly 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. Indeed, the Core i7-3520M has more threads than cores. Each physical core is split into multiple threads.