Intel Core i7-3540M vs AMD Athlon X4 860K

Core i7-3540M vs Athlon X4 860K benchmarks

In our benchmarks, the Athlon X4 860K beats the Core i7-3540M in overall performance. Despite this, the Core i7-3540M has the advantage in our gaming benchmark.

Info from our database shows that they both have the same core count and the same number of threads. These CPUs have different clock speeds. Indeed, the Athlon X4 860K has a slightly higher clock speed compared to the Core i7-3540M. A Core i7-3540M CPU outputs less heat than a Athlon X4 860K CPU because of its significantly lower TDP. 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 i7-3540M has more threads than cores. Each physical core is split into multiple threads.