Skylake i3 vs i5: how does hyperthreading compare?

[Mr Jack]

The i3 runs four threads on two cores whilst the i5 runs four threads on four cores. There's also the larger L3 cache to consider (6Mb vs 4Mb) but this seems to be the big difference between the two chips and there's a sizeable gulf in the price to go along with it.

Does anyone know how the real world specs compare for multi-threaded work? Does hyperthreading stand up to the performance of having four genuine cores? Given that you can get higher clock speed at a lower price, does it make more sense to prefer a 3.9Ghz i3 over a lower speed i5.

Any thoughts?

 

[Mr Jack]

Cool, thanks for the information.

That leaves the second part of my question: given the price differential, is it better to go for a low end i5 or the top of the pile i3 if I can't stretch to a higher i5. For example, a 3.9GHz i3 costs £20 less than a 2.7GHz i5.

It looks like the 3.9Ghz is going to play games better due to significantly higher single thread performance but the i5 will score better on all round benchmarks due to the big jump from 4 virtual cores to 4 real cores. Does that sound about right?

 

[Mr Jack]

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/product/837?vs=1198

Haswell i5 @ 3.5Ghz: 4c - 4t = 6.21
Haswell i7 @ 3.5Ghz: 4c - 8t = 6.69 (+8%)

I think you have made a mistake: the link - which seems to be where the numbers you give comes from - compares two i5 processors not an i5 and an i7.