Intel Core i7-3540M vs AMD Athlon X4 870K

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

Benchmark Score
Other Benchmarks
Specifications
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CPU Comparison

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Benchmark Score

Overall Score

A combined score of all workloads

1405 points

0.36% slightly better overall score

1400 points

Gaming Score

The raw gaming performance with a fast GPU

2845 points

5% slightly better gaming score

2698 points

Multitasking Score

Performance in workloads using up to 8 cores

1034 points

1049 points

1% slightly better multitasking score

Heavy Workload Score

Performance in workloads using up to 16 cores

993 points

1006 points

1% slightly better heavy workload score

Free CPU Benchmark

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Other Benchmarks

Blender score

Cycles Render (Samples per minute)

19.50 points

4% slightly higher Blender score

18.63 points

Geekbench 6 (multi) score

Multi threaded benchmark

1163 points

1209 points

3% slightly higher Geekbench 6 (multi) score

Geekbench 6 (single) score

Single threaded benchmark

569 points

21% slightly higher Geekbench 6 (single) score

468 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

3 GHz

3.89 GHz

29% slightly higher clock speed

Turbo Speed

Higher frequency used for heavy workloads

3.7 GHz

4.1 GHz

10% slightly higher turbo speed

TDP

Thermal Design Power: Measure of heat generated by the CPU

35 W

171% significantly lower TDP

95 W

Other details

Rank

Ranking in the hardwareDB database

837th of 1,089

839th of 1,089

Family

The product line

Core

Release date

The official date of release of this chip

2013 February

Memory Type

The type of memory used by this chip

DDR3-1333

Is Unlocked

Can this CPU can be overclocked

Yes

Supports ECC memory

Does this CPU support error correcting memory

Core i7-3540M vs Athlon X4 870K benchmarks

According to the hardwareDB Benchmark tool, the Core i7-3540M is faster than the Athlon X4 870K. Furthermore, our gaming benchmark shows that it also outperforms the Athlon X4 870K in all gaming tests too.

Our spec comparison shows that they have an identical amount of cores and the same number of threads. Our comparison shows that the Athlon X4 870K has a slightly higher clock speed compared to the Core i7-3540M. Also, the Athlon X4 870K has a slightly higher turbo speed. A Core i7-3540M CPU outputs less heat than a Athlon X4 870K 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 i7-3540M has more threads than cores. Each physical core is split into multiple threads.