The i5 vs i7 Comparison

The Intel Core series finally settled with a more organized naming of their microprocessors using the i3, i5, and i7 naming conventions.

The Intel Core i5 and i7 microprocessors are of particular interest since these components provide high-level performance for demanding applications.

The i5 vs i7 comparison thus becomes more relevant especially with the introduction of the Sandy Bridge microarchitecture that uses the 32 nm processing technology.

Compared to its predecessor, the Sandy Bridge architecture integrates a graphics processing unit with twice the power. Overall CPU performance is also increased to as much as 17%.

The Core i7 processors occupy the extreme performance demand in the mobile market.

The Core i7 Extreme runs at a standard CPU clock rate of 2.7 GHz.

With Intel Turbo Boost technology, a clock rate of 3.7 GHz is achieved via dynamic CPU control.

It also sports the L3 multilevel cache of 8 MB.

Because of its extreme computing power, the Core i7 Extreme runs with a thermal design power (TDP) of 55 W, which is the highest value among all the processors in the Intel Core series.

All other processors carrying the i7 naming convention with model numbers between 26xx and 28xx run between 1.5 and 2.5 GHz.

The Core i5 processors, on the other hand, occupy the upper mainstream portion of the mobile market.

Model numbers use the 24xx and 25xx coding system.

The i5 processors follow a similar range of CPU clock rates as the i7 but are limited to 3 MB of L3 cache. TDP for the i5 is rated at 17 W and 35 W for higher and lower end models, respectively.

Just like the i7, the i5 is also designed to run the Turbo Boost technology providing up to 50% more processing power.

From the i5 vs i7 comparison, it is clearly evident that i7 processors are more powerful than i5, hence, also more expensive.

Cheapest i7 processors cost about $300 while the Extreme variant costs about $1000. Cost of the i5, on the other hand, plays around $250.

Cheapest laptop running the i5 is Lenovo IdeaPad starting at $549.99, while the more expensive i5 laptop is HP EliteBook at $1,600.

Acer Aspire at $600 with i7 processor is the cheapest in its class, while Dell XPS 16 at $2,699.99 is at the higher end.

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