Intel Core i9-10900 vs Intel Core i5-12500

Compare Intel 10th Generation Core i9 10 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

$ 390.77

$ 272.22

$ 118.55 significantly less expensive

Benchmark Score

Overall Score

A combined score of all workloads

7582 points

5% slightly better overall score

7166 points

Gaming Score

The raw gaming performance with a fast GPU

8692 points

9976 points

14% slightly better gaming score

Multitasking Score

Performance in workloads using up to 8 cores

7207 points

14% slightly better multitasking score

6301 points

Heavy Workload Score

Performance in workloads using up to 16 cores

7099 points

16% slightly better heavy workload score

6099 points

Free CPU Benchmark

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Other Benchmarks

3DMark Physics score

Physics simulation benchmark

12127 points

99% significantly higher 3DMark Physics score

6075 points

Blender score

Cycles Render (Samples per minute)

164.66 points

170.78 points

3% slightly higher Blender score

Geekbench 5 (multi) score

Multi threaded benchmark

7743 points

9112 points

17% slightly higher Geekbench 5 (multi) score

Geekbench 5 (single) score

Single threaded benchmark

1567 points

2182 points

39% slightly higher Geekbench 5 (single) score

Geekbench 6 (multi) score

Multi threaded benchmark

8309 points

9032 points

8% slightly higher Geekbench 6 (multi) score

Geekbench 6 (single) score

Single threaded benchmark

1714 points

2320 points

35% slightly higher Geekbench 6 (single) score

Specifications

Cores

Number of physical processing units

66% significantly more cores

Threads

Number of logical processing units

66% significantly more threads

Turbo Speed

Higher frequency used for heavy workloads

5.2 GHz

13% 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

640 KiB

33% slightly more L1 cache

480 KiB

L3 Cache

General memory pool for all cores

20 MiB

11% slightly more L3 cache

18 MiB

Other details

Rank

Ranking in the hardwareDB database

164th of 1,089

182nd of 1,089

Family

The product line

10th Generation Core i9

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 i9-10900 vs Core i5-12500 benchmarks

Our benchmark analysis concludes that the Core i9-10900 performs better than the Core i5-12500. Despite this, the Core i5-12500 has the advantage in our gaming benchmark.

When comparing core counts for these CPUs, we notice that the Core i9-10900 has significantly more cores with 10 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.

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 i9-10900 has more threads than cores. Each physical core is split into multiple threads.