Processor Comparisons
Intel Core i3 vs Core i5 vs Core i7 – The Difference
Intel Core i7 vs Intel Core 2 Duo – The Difference
Intel Core i5 vs Intel Core 2 Duo – The Difference
Intel Core i3 vs Intel Core 2 Duo – The Difference
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Intel Core i3 vs Core i5 vs Core i7 Comparison- The Difference
This post explains the difference between the Intel Core i3, Core i5 and the Core i7 processors.
Intel Core i3
Codenamed: Clarkdale (Westmere)
Fabrication: 32 nm
Instruction set: X86, X86-64, MMX, SSE 4.2
Socket: LGA 1156
Bus: Direct Media Interface
RAM: DDR3
Chipset Support: P55, H55, H57, Q57
Intel Core i5
Codenamed: Lynnfield (Nehalem), Clarkdale (Westmere)
Fabrication: 45 nm, 32 nm
Instruction set: X86, X86-64, MMX, SSE 4.2
Socket: LGA 1156
Bus: Direct Media Interface
RAM: DDR3
Chipset Support: P55, H55, H57, Q57
Intel Core i7
Codenamed: Bloomfield (Nehalem)
Fabrication: 45 nm
Instruction set: X86, X86-64, MMX, SSE 4.2
Socket: LGA 1366
Bus: Quick Path Interconnect
RAM: DDR3
Chipset Support: X58
Intel has classified the Core processor range into Core i3, Core i5 and Core i7. Both the cost and the performance goes on increasing as you move from Core i3 to Core i7.
Intel Core i3
The Core i3 processors are dual core processors based on the Clarkdale (Westmere) architecture. They have a 32 nm fabrication and work with LGA 1156 socket motherboards. Direct Media Interface (DMI) replaces FSB in the Core i3 processors, unlike the faster Quick Path Interconnect in the Core i7 processors. They have clock speeds ranging from 2.93 to 3.06 GHz. They have 2×256 KB L2 cache and 4 MB L3 cache. They are compatible with these chipsets – P55, H55, H57, Q57. They don’t support Turbo Boost (dynamic overclocking) unlike the Core i5 and Core i7. They also have an Integrated graphics processor. They also have Hyperthreading support.
Intel Core i5
There are two types in Core i5 – Dual core and Quad Core. The dualcore Intel Core i5 processors are similar to the Core i3s while the quadcore Core i5s are much closer to the Core i7 in terms of features.
DualCore Core i5 Processors – They are based on the Clarkdale (Westmere) architecture like the Core i3. They also have a 32 nm fabrication and work with LGA 1156 socket motherboards. Direct Media Interface (DMI) replaces FSB in the Core i5 dualcore processors. They have clock speeds ranging from 3.2 to 3.6 GHz. They have 2×256 KB L2 cache and 4 MB L3 cache. They are compatible with these chipsets – P55, H55, H57, Q57. They support Turbo Boost (dynamic overclocking). They also have an Integrated graphics processor and also include Turbo Boost (dynamic overclocking). They also have Hyperthreading support.
QuadCore Core i5 Processors – They are based on the Lynnfield (Nehalem) architecture similar to the Core i7. They have a 45 nm fabrication and work with LGA 1156 socket motherboards. Direct Media Interface (DMI) replaces FSB in the Core i5 quadcore processors. There are 2 processors with clock speeds of 2.4 and 2.66 GHz. They have 4×256 KB L2 cache and 8 MB L3 cache. They are compatible with these chipsets – P55, H55, H57, Q57. They do support Turbo Boost (dynamic overclocking). However they don’t support Hyperthreading and don’t have a Integrated Graphics Processor.
Intel Core i7
They are the most powerful of the lot. They are based on the Bloomfield (Nehalem) architecture. They have a 45 nm fabrication and work with LGA 1366 socket motherboards. They have Quick Path Interconnect (QPI) which is faster than both DMI in Core i3/i5 and FSB. They are native quad cores which offer the best performance. They have 4×256 KB L2 cache and 8 MB L3 cache. They are compatible with the X58 chipset. They support Turbo Boost (dynamic overclocking) and Hyperthreading (8 virtual cores). However they don’t have an Integrated Graphics Processor.
All the three – Core i3, Core i5 and Core i7 comes with Smart Cache (cache sharing between two cores) and support hardware virtualization.
Intel – Difference between Core i3, Core i5 and Core i7
May 16th, 2010 at 4:10 pm
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May 16th, 2010 at 4:13 pm
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September 28th, 2010 at 9:49 am
Hi,
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Jesse
October 18th, 2010 at 3:45 pm
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October 22nd, 2010 at 6:34 am
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October 30th, 2010 at 3:40 am
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November 20th, 2010 at 5:24 pm
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November 25th, 2010 at 2:06 pm
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December 21st, 2010 at 1:06 pm
Hi
I am a freelancer and planning to buy a Dell inspiron laptop but confused which processor will suit me the best core i3 or core i5? Major part of my work involves working on ms office and surfing the net.
Would really like your advice on this. I am contemplating between these two laptops – http://dell.to/hSzYlJ and http://dell.to/eqKK0S
thanks
Bhavna
January 13th, 2011 at 9:26 am
thanks heaps for this!!
you cleared it all up for me very easily!!
March 18th, 2011 at 3:50 pm
Hi
kindly guide me which laptop i should purchase amongst dell , hp and sony …
and kindly do dell me about some specific model with icore7 processor and how much ram and harddisk it should accompany .Is it bad to have higher secondary memory , i means does it slow down the processor speed ?
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August 4th, 2011 at 1:14 am
Yeaaaah, if you go to Intel website and read about these processors, you will see some differences from what this guy wrote here, especially about the fabrication technology. That’s for wants to know it right.
Cheers…
August 8th, 2011 at 6:36 pm
Hi,
I am trying to decide between an older i3 iMac and a newer i5 iMac. There is a significant price difference and wanted to know if there would be a noticeable performance difference. I intend to use the machine for photo editing.
Thanks in advance for you help!
Best,
Morgan
September 15th, 2011 at 2:25 pm
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