Intel processors 4th generation. Intel Core i3, i5 and i7 processors: what is the difference and which is better? "U"

Almost 3 times faster: 802.11ax 2x2 160 MHz allows maximum theoretical data transfer rates of up to 2402 Mbps, almost 3 times (2.8 times) faster than 802.11ac 2x2 80 MHz (867 Mbps ), as documented in the IEEE 802.11 wireless standard specifications. Requires an 802.11ax wireless router with a similar configuration.

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Based on 3DMark FireStrike* workload benchmarking between pre-production 10th Gen Intel® Core™ i7-1065G7 processor and 8th Gen Intel® Core™ i7-8565U processor. Performance test results are based on testing as of May 23, 2019, and may not reflect all publicly available security updates. Detailed information is provided in the configuration description. No system can be completely secure.

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Based on AIXprt workload benchmark results from pre-production 10th Gen Intel® Core™ i7-1065G7 processor and 8th Gen Intel® Core™ i7-8565U processor (INT8 results). Performance test results are based on testing as of May 23, 2019, and may not reflect all publicly available security updates. Detailed information is provided in the configuration description. No system can be completely secure.

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In the process of assembling or purchasing a new computer, users are always faced with a question. In this article we will look at Intel Core i3, i5 and i7 processors, and also tell you the difference between these chips and what is better to choose for your computer.

Difference No. 1. Number of cores and support for Hyper-threading.

Perhaps, The main difference between Intel Core i3, i5 and i7 processors is the number of physical cores and support for Hyper-threading technology, which creates two threads of computation for each actually existing physical core. Creating two computation threads per core allows for more efficient use of the processing power of the processor core. Therefore, processors with Hyper-threading support have some performance benefits.

The number of cores and support for Hyper-threading technology for most Intel Core i3, i5 and i7 processors can be summarized in the following table.

	Number of physical cores	Hyper-threading technology support	Number of threads
Intel Core i3	2	Yes	4
Intel Core i5	4	No	4
Intel Core i7	4	Yes	8

But there are exceptions to this table. Firstly, these are Intel Core i7 processors from their “Extreme” line. These processors can have 6 or 8 physical computing cores. Moreover, they, like all Core i7 processors, have support for Hyper-threading technology, which means the number of threads is twice the number of cores. Secondly, some mobile processors (laptop processors) are exempt. So, some Intel Core i5 mobile processors have only 2 physical cores, but at the same time have support for Hyper-threading.

It should also be noted that Intel has already planned to increase the number of cores in its processors. According to the latest news, Intel Core i5 and i7 processors with Coffee Lake architecture, scheduled for release in 2018, will each have 6 physical cores and 12 threads.

Therefore, you should not completely trust the table provided. If you are interested in the number of cores in a particular Intel processor, then it is better to check the official information on the website.

Difference No. 2. Cache memory size.

Also, Intel Core i3, i5 and i7 processors differ in cache memory size. The higher the processor class, the larger the cache memory it receives. Intel Core i7 processors get the most cache, Intel Core i5 slightly less, and Intel Core i3 processors even less. Specific values should be looked at in the characteristics of the processors. But as an example, you can compare several processors from the 6th generation.

	Level 1 cache	Level 2 cache	Level 3 cache
Intel Core i7-6700	4 x 32 KB	4 x 256 KB	8 MB
Intel Core i5-6500	4 x 32 KB	4 x 256 KB	6 MB
Intel Core i3-6100	2 x 32 KB	2 x 256 KB	3 MB

You need to understand that a decrease in cache memory is associated with a decrease in the number of cores and threads. But, nevertheless, there is such a difference.

Difference number 3. Clock frequencies.

Typically, higher-end processors come with higher clock speeds. But, not everything is so simple here. It is not uncommon for Intel Core i3 to have higher frequencies than Intel Core i7. For example, let's take 3 processors from the 6th generation line.

	Clock frequency
Intel Core i7-6700	3.4 GHz
Intel Core i5-6500	3.2 GHz
Intel Core i3-6100	3.7 GHz

In this way, Intel is trying to maintain the performance of Intel Core i3 processors at the desired level.

Difference No. 4. Heat dissipation.

Another important difference between Intel Core i3, i5 and i7 processors is the level of heat dissipation. The characteristic known as TDP or thermal design power is responsible for this. This characteristic tells you how much heat the processor cooling system should remove. As an example, let's take the TDP of three 6th generation Intel processors. As can be seen from the table, the higher the processor class, the more heat it produces and the more powerful the cooling system is needed.

	TDP
Intel Core i7-6700	65 W
Intel Core i5-6500	65 W
Intel Core i3-6100	51 W

It should be noted that TDP tends to decrease. With each generation of processors, the TDP becomes lower. For example, the TDP of the 2nd generation Intel Core i5 processor was 95 W. Now, as we see, only 65 W.

Which is better Intel Core i3, i5 or i7?

The answer to this question depends on what kind of performance you need. The difference in the number of cores, threads, cache and clock speeds creates a noticeable difference in performance between the Core i3, i5 and i7.

The Intel Core i3 processor is an excellent option for an office or budget home computer. If you have a video card of the appropriate level, you can play computer games on a computer with an Intel Core i3 processor.
Intel Core i5 processor – suitable for a powerful work or gaming computer. A modern Intel Core i5 can handle any video card without any problems, so on a computer with such a processor you can play any games even at maximum settings.
The Intel Core i7 processor is an option for those who know exactly why they need such performance. A computer with such a processor is suitable, for example, for editing videos or conducting game streams.

Intel has come a very long way from a small chip manufacturer to a world leader in processor production. During this time, many processor production technologies have been developed, and the technological process and device characteristics have been highly optimized.

Many performance indicators of processors depend on the arrangement of transistors on the silicon chip. The technology of transistor arrangement is called microarchitecture or simply architecture. In this article we will look at which Intel processor architectures have been used throughout the company's development and how they differ from each other. Let's start with the most ancient microarchitectures and look all the way to new processors and plans for the future.

As I already said, in this article we will not consider the bit capacity of processors. By the word architecture we will understand the microarchitecture of the microcircuit, the arrangement of transistors on the printed circuit board, their size, distance, technological process, all this is covered by this concept. We will not touch the RISC and CISC instruction sets either.

The second thing you need to pay attention to is the generation of the Intel processor. You've probably heard many times already - this processor is the fifth generation, that one is the fourth, and this one is the seventh. Many people think that this is designated i3, i5, i7. But in fact there is no i3, and so on - these are processor brands. And the generation depends on the architecture used.

With each new generation, the architecture improved, processors became faster, more economical and smaller, they generated less heat, but at the same time they were more expensive. There are few articles on the Internet that would describe all this completely. Now let's look at where it all began.

Intel processor architectures

I’ll say right away that you shouldn’t expect technical details from the article; we’ll only look at the basic differences that will be of interest to ordinary users.

First processors

First, let's take a brief look at history to understand how it all began. Let's not go too far and start with 32-bit processors. The first was the Intel 80386, it appeared in 1986 and could operate at frequencies up to 40 MHz. Old processors also had a generation countdown. This processor belongs to the third generation, and the 1500 nm process technology was used here.

The next, fourth generation was 80486. The architecture used in it was called 486. The processor operated at a frequency of 50 MHz and could execute 40 million instructions per second. The processor had 8 KB of L1 cache, and was manufactured using a 1000 nm process technology.

The next architecture was P5 or Pentium. These processors appeared in 1993, the cache was increased to 32 KB, the frequency was up to 60 MHz, and the process technology was reduced to 800 nm. In the sixth generation P6, the cache size was 32 KB, and the frequency reached 450 MHz. The tech process has been reduced to 180 nm.

Then the company began producing processors based on the NetBurst architecture. It used 16 KB of first-level cache per core, and up to 2 MB of second-level cache. The frequency increased to 3 GHz, and the technical process remained at the same level - 180 nm. Already here 64-bit processors appeared that supported addressing more memory. Many command extensions were also introduced, as well as the addition of Hyper-Threading technology, which allowed the creation of two threads from one core, which increased performance.

Naturally, each architecture improved over time, the frequency increased and the technical process decreased. There were also intermediate architectures, but everything has been simplified here a little since that is not our main topic.

Intel Core

NetBurst was replaced by the Intel Core architecture in 2006. One of the reasons for the development of this architecture was the impossibility of increasing the frequency in NetBrust, as well as its very high heat dissipation. This architecture was designed for the development of multi-core processors, the size of the first level cache was increased to 64 KB. The frequency remained at 3 GHz, but the power consumption was greatly reduced, as well as the process technology, to 60 nm.

Processors based on the Core architecture supported hardware virtualization Intel-VT, as well as some instruction extensions, but did not support Hyper-Threading, since they were developed based on the P6 architecture, where this feature did not yet exist.

First generation - Nehalem

Next, the numbering of generations was started from the beginning, because all the following architectures are improved versions of Intel Core. The Nehalem architecture replaced Core, which had some limitations, such as the inability to increase the clock speed. She appeared in 2007. It uses a 45 nm tech process and has added support for Hyper-Therading technology.

Nehalem processors have a 64 KB L1 cache, 4 MB L2 cache and 12 MB L3 cache. The cache is available to all processor cores. It also became possible to integrate a graphics accelerator into the processor. The frequency has not changed, but the performance and size of the printed circuit board have increased.

Second generation - Sandy Bridge

Sandy Bridge appeared in 2011 to replace Nehalem. It already uses a 32 nm process technology, it uses the same amount of first-level cache, 256 MB of second-level cache and 8 MB of third-level cache. Experimental models used up to 15 MB of shared cache.

Also, now all devices are available with a built-in graphics accelerator. The maximum frequency has been increased, as well as overall performance.

Third generation - Ivy Bridge

Ivy Bridge processors are faster than Sandy Bridge, and they are manufactured using a 22 nm process technology. They consume 50% less energy than previous models and also provide 25-60% higher performance. The processors also support Intel Quick Sync technology, which allows you to encode video several times faster.

Fourth generation - Haswell

The Intel Haswell generation of processor was developed in 2012. The same technical process was used here - 22 nm, the cache design was changed, power consumption mechanisms were improved and performance was slightly improved. But the processor supports many new connectors: LGA 1150, BGA 1364, LGA 2011-3, DDR4 technology, and so on. The main advantage of Haswell is that it can be used in portable devices due to its very low power consumption.

Fifth generation - Broadwell

This is an improved version of the Haswell architecture, which uses the 14 nm process technology. In addition, several improvements have been made to the architecture, which improve performance by an average of 5%.

Sixth generation - Skylake

The next architecture of intel core processors, the sixth generation Skylake, was released in 2015. This is one of the most significant updates to the Core architecture. To install the processor on the motherboard, the LGA 1151 socket is used; DDR4 memory is now supported, but DDR3 support is retained. Thunderbolt 3.0 is supported, as well as DMI 3.0, which gives twice the speed. And by tradition, there was increased productivity, as well as reduced energy consumption.

Seventh generation - Kaby Lake

The new, seventh generation Core - Kaby Lake was released this year, the first processors appeared in mid-January. There weren't many changes here. The 14 nm process technology is retained, as well as the same LGA 1151 socket. DDR3L SDRAM and DDR4 SDRAM memory sticks, PCI Express 3.0 buses, and USB 3.1 are supported. In addition, the frequency was slightly increased and the transistor density was reduced. Maximum frequency 4.2 GHz.

Conclusions

In this article, we looked at the Intel processor architectures that were used in the past, as well as those that are used now. Next, the company plans to switch to the 10 nm process technology and this generation of Intel processors will be called CanonLake. But Intel is not ready for this yet.

Therefore, in 2017 it is planned to release an improved version of SkyLake under the code name Coffe Lake. It is also possible that there will be other Intel processor microarchitectures until the company fully masters the new process technology. But we will learn about all this over time. I hope you found this information helpful.

About the author

Founder and site administrator, I am passionate about open source software and the Linux operating system. I currently use Ubuntu as my main OS. In addition to Linux, I am interested in everything related to information technology and modern science.

A month after the announcement of the eighth generation Core processors for laptops, Intel has officially introduced a new generation of chips for desktop computers, codenamed Coffee Lake. They are produced using an improved 14-nm process technology and, as in the case of mobile Kaby Lake Refresh, contain a larger number of computing cores compared to their predecessors. If you do not take into account HEDT class solutions, this is the first increase in the number of cores in Intel desktop CPUs since 2006, when the Core 2 Extreme QX6700 was released.

There are six cores in Core i7 and i5, and four in Core i3. At the same time, the i7 series models implement HyperThreading technology, thanks to which they execute 12 threads simultaneously. All six new products, the list of which is presented on the slide below, are equipped with an integrated Intel HD Graphics 630 GPU and can work with Intel Optane drives. Support for DDR4-2666 is also declared, with the only exception being Core i3 compatible with DDR4-2400.

The nominal clock frequency of the most powerful member of the family, the Core i7-8700K, is 3.7 GHz, which is 500 MHz less than last year's Core i7-7700K. At the same time, under load the chip develops 200 MHz more - 4.7 GHz. The difference between the “nameplate” frequency and the turbo mode reaches almost 27%, but the dynamic overclocking Turbo Boost Max 3.0 is not used here, we are only talking about the usual Turbo Boost 2.0. Obviously, Intel resorted to a new frequency formula in order to achieve increased performance without a serious increase in heat dissipation requirements: the TDP of the Core i7-8700K is 95 W, which is only 4 W more than that of the i7-7700K.

Speaking about the speed of the new processors, the developers promise a 25% increase in frame rates in modern games, 65% faster speed in content creation applications such as Adobe Photoshop, and 32% faster 4K video processing. Along with the computing power, prices have also increased: for example, the cost of the i7-8700K in quantities of 1000 pieces is $359, which is 18% more expensive than the 7700K model. The new items will go on retail sale on October 5 this year, and deliveries to computer manufacturers will begin in the fourth quarter.

Simultaneously with CPU Coffee Lake, Intel announced the Z370 system logic set that supports them. The press release reports that motherboards based on the chipset meet the increased power requirements of eighth-generation six-core Core processors and allow the installation of DDR4-2666 RAM. The first solutions based on the Z370 will also be announced on October 5, but some of them have already made it online before the deadline.

Intel and the Intel logo are trademarks of Intel Corporation or its subsidiaries in the United States and/or other countries.

*Other names and trademarks are the property of their respective owners. (if third party names and trademarks are used)