At this writing, the ninth-generation, Core i3 desktop processors have a top clock speed of 4.6 GHz however, that’s only the higher-end Core i3-9350K. They handle less RAM than other Core processors and have varying clock speeds. Intel has elected not to double the thread count in recent Core i3 generations instead, it’s building CPUs with four cores and four threads.Ĭore i3 processors also have lower cache sizes (onboard memory). Those earlier dual-core Core i3’s also tended to have four threads, also known as Hyper-Threading. This used to mean that Core i3’s started with dual-core processors, but for recent generations, that core count has gone up to four on the desktop. In general, Core i3 processors have lower core counts than higher-grade CPUs.

Intel Core i3 processors are where the Core lineup starts for each generation. With that in mind, there are a few guideposts you can use to understand what all the different parts mean. This is generally meaningless, though, as the newer part is still going to perform better-check out this comparison at UserBenchmark as an example. For example, a seventh-generation “Kaby Lake” Core i7, and a third-generation “Ivy Bridge” Core i7 might run at similar speeds with similar core counts. Therefore, the differences between Core i3, Core i5, and Core i7 designations matter most within its respective generation.