I’m sure Intel needs no introduction, as it is one of the most popular companies around that manufacture microprocessors. It is a common name, as most of the computers and laptops have its hardware based on Intel. Its Core brand consists of mid-range and high-end microprocessors.
Lately, the company has introduced Core processors which are based on the Nehalem micro architecture in three variants, namely Core i3, Core i5, and Core i7. These variants are divided from low-level (i3), mid-range (i5), and high-end (i7). After reading this article, I’m sure you will get to know both the Intel Core i3 and Intel Core i5 a lot better.
To start with, the Core i3 was produced as a new entry-level processor after stopping production of the Core 2 brand. Core i3 processors hit the shelves on January 7, 2010. The Core i3 is Clarkdale-based, with an integrated GPU and two cores. Core i5 is based on the Nehalem microarchitecture and was introduced on September 8, 2009. It is a “mid-range” processor by Intel.
You can notice slight difference in speed between both the Core i3 and Core i5 depending on the applications that you are running. If you are playing games like FreeCell, you won’t be able to make the difference, however if you are editing many files in Adobe Flash, you can see that the Core i5 is faster.
The Core i3 has a great graphics processor, with separate entities, but kept on the same piece of hardware. Any Core i3 based system can allow you to play any kind of movie you want to, that includes blue ray. The Core i3 processor can work in most P55 motherboards.
Let’s see the Core i3 first, its processors support hyper-threading, but does not support turbo boost. The difference here lies that, Core i3 processors cannot automatically clock themselves high when workloads allow it, but the Core i5 processors can over clock themselves with a maximum of 266Mhz.
Well, now let’s move on to the Core i5 processors. They come of two types, namely dual core, and quad core. The dual core i5 processors come with the following:
32nm technology
Turbo boost technology
Hyper threading support
Where as the quad core i5 processors consist of the following:
Virtualization support
45nm technology
Turbo boost technology
They do not have hyper threading support. The main difference between the Core i3 and Core i5 is that the Core i3 processors don’t have turbo boost, the Core i5 processors have turbo boost.
The Core i3 processor can be bought if you have a low budget. The Core i5 processors are faster, so if you are not worried about the budget, you can go ahead and buy them.
I hope I have given enough information for you, to decide for yourselves, which processor is more reliable. My verdict is both the processors are reliable. Reliability is a very important factor when purchasing components like microprocessors, which play a key role in the working of a computer system.
