Intel Core i9-10900KF vs Intel Core i3-12100F

Core i9-10900KF vs Core i3-12100F specs and performance

Our benchmark analysis concludes that the Core i9-10900KF performs better than the Core i3-12100F. Furthermore, our gaming benchmark shows that it also outperforms the Core i3-12100F in all gaming tests too.

When comparing core counts for these CPUs, we notice that the Core i9-10900KF has significantly more cores with 10 cores compared to the Core i3-12100F that has 4 cores. It also has more threads than the Core i3-12100F. With our hardware info, we find that the Core i9-10900KF has a slightly higher clock speed than the Core i3-12100F. Also, the Core i9-10900KF has a slightly higher turbo speed. The Core i3-12100F outputs less heat than Core i9-10900KF thanks to a 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 i9-10900KF has more threads than cores. Each physical core is split into multiple threads.