i3-540 vs i5-12600K - Need For Speed: Heat GTX 1650 Ti Max-Q - Game Performance Benchmarks

Multi-Thread Performance

Single-Thread Performance

i3-540

• The i3-540 has higher Level 2 Cache. Data/instructions which have to be processed can be loaded from the fast L2 and the CPU does not have to wait for the very slow DDR RAM
• The i3-540 is more power efficient and generates less heat.

i5-12600K

• The i5-12600K has higher Level 3 Cache. This is useful when you have substantial multiprocessing workloads, many computationally intense simultaneous processes. More likely on a server, less on a personally used computer for interactive desktop workloads.
• The i5-12600K has more cores. The benefit of having more cores is that the system can handle more threads. Each core can handle a separate stream of data. This architecture greatly increases the performance of a system that is running concurrent applications.
• The i5-12600K has more threads. Larger programs are divided into threads (small sections) so that the processor can execute them simultaneously to get faster execution.
• For some games, a cpu with a higher clock speed, or in a technical name IPC (Instructions per clock), has better results than other CPU's with higher core count and lower core speed.
• The i5-12600K has a smaller process size. The faster a transistor can toggle on and off, the faster it can do work. And transistors that turn on and off with less energy are more efficient, reducing the operating power, or “dynamic power consumption,” required by a processor.