i3-4160 and i5-4460 What's the difference?

[vSyNd1c4t3]

So if the i3-4160 is 3.6ghz dual core hyper threaded to 4 virtual cores, does that make it better than the i5-4460 3.2ghz 4 cores?

 

I mean 3.6ghz is a higher clock speed.

 

Is it (3.6x4 = 14.4 > 3.2x4 = 12.8)?

 

What information am I missing here?

[cheeze_tartz]

doesnt mean if it has a higher clock speed, doesnt mean its faster

 

thats like saying an i7-4790K is not faster than an FX-9590 because it has 8 cores. and its 5 ghz. thats simply not the case

[Speaker1264]

So if the i3-4160 is 3.6ghz dual core hyper threaded to 4 virtual cores, does that make it better than the i5-4460 3.2ghz 4 cores?

 

I mean 3.6ghz is a higher clock speed.

 

Is it (3.6x4 = 14.4 > 3.2x4 = 12.8)?

 

What information am I missing here?

 

The i3 is 2 cores, 4 threads.  The i5 is 4 cores 4 threads.  The additional threads help but the cores are still doing all the work.  The 4460 beats the i3 by a significant margin.

[mroz10]

4460 is better in every way except price. 4 real cores can do more than 4 "cores"

[vSyNd1c4t3]

doesnt mean if it has a higher clock speed, doesnt mean its faster

 

thats like saying an i7-4790K is not faster than an FX-9590 because it has 8 cores. and its 5 ghz. thats simply not the case

 

 

The i3 is 2 cores, 4 threads.  The i5 is 4 cores 4 threads.  The additional threads help but the cores are still doing all the work.  More cores is better.  The 4460 beats the i3 by a significant margin.

 

Details?

[Mattrixx]

So if the i3-4160 is 3.6ghz dual core hyper threaded to 4 virtual cores, does that make it better than the i5-4460 3.2ghz 4 cores?

 

I mean 3.6ghz is a higher clock speed.

 

Is it (3.6x4 = 14.4 > 3.2x4 = 12.8)?

 

What information am I missing here?

Oh dear..................... A lot of information I'm afraid.

 

You can't quite measure CPU performance in terms of "cores multiplied by speed".

HT doesn't quite work like that. It's mostly a  "pipeline" improvement. The i3 is a dual core HT chip (2 physical cores, 4 logical cores), while the i5 is a quad core (4 physical cores, 4 logical cores). The  general consensus is that HT really only adds about 20% in terms of power. I recommend you watch this and come back with some new-found knowledge.

[cheeze_tartz]

Details?

its called benchmarks

[Lolucoca]

The i5 hat double the cache of the i3 (3 compared to 6 mb), the i5 can get 0.72°C higher and virtual cores aren't as fast as real cores...

[monaka25]

     Hyperthreading as linus says,... feeds 1 core to make a fast core, so the i3 has 2 fast cores, and the i5  has 4 normal cores, and usually more cores is better then half the amount of cores that are hyperthreaded. The i5 has 6mb of cache, and the i3 has 3mb of cache. If you get a i3-43xx, that will come with 4mb of cache, but this i3 has 3mb of cache.

[Speaker1264]

Details?

 

Imagine you (the core) are assembling computers or something.  And you can assemble 1 computer an hour, but your employee (the thread) is only able to bring the necessary parts every 1.5 hours.  That means for every computer you assemble you have half an hour of downtime.  Now imagine you hire a second employee to also bring you computer parts.  Now you are receiving enough parts to build to build 2 computers every 1.5 hours, but you can still only assemble 1 computer hour, so the second employee added was only half as efficient as the first.

 

The threads bring information for the core to process, but the core can only process that information so fast, so the second thread helps reduce the downtime, but doesn't increase the speed at which it is able to process the information.

[vSyNd1c4t3]

Oh dear..................... A lot of information I'm afraid.

 

You can't quite measure CPU performance in terms of "cores multiplied by speed".

HT doesn't quite work like that. It's mostly a  "pipeline" improvement. The i3 is a dual core HT chip (2 physical cores, 4 logical cores), while the i5 is a quad core (4 physical cores, 4 logical cores). The  general consensus is that HT really only adds about 20% in terms of power. I recommend you watch this and come back with some new-found knowledge.

-snip-

 

oh yea, this helped me understand.

 

I wonder at what point does the speed start outweighing the more cores though.

 

so for example "hypothetical" 4.5ghz 2 core hyper threaded vs 3.0ghz 4 core. When would the speed be better than having more cores in relation to the speed of the more cores? Ya know what I'm saying?

[Speaker1264]

oh yea, this helped me understand.

 

I wonder at what point does the speed start outweighing the more cores though.

 

so for example "hypothetical" 4.5ghz 2 core hyper threaded vs 3.0ghz 4 core. When would the speed be better than having more cores in relation to the speed of the more cores? Ya know what I'm saying?

 

You still sort of math it out, assuming the 20% improvement from HT is true.  It is only an estimate though.

 

(4.5ghz * 2cores) * 1.2HT improvement = 10.8

 

(3.0ghz * 4cores) = 12

 

The four core would be approximately 11% faster.

 

This only sort of makes sense when comparing same architecture CPUs.  Like haswell 2 core with HT vs haswell 4 core no HT.  If you wanted you could try to fake it again, so if you know haswell has a 10% IPC improvement over ivy bridge you could factor that into the calculation, but for every variable you add the less accurate the final solution would become.  Also there are no 4.5 ghz haswell cpu's with HT.  The pentium g3258 can overclock to 4.5 ghz, but it doesn't have hyperthreading.

[vSyNd1c4t3]

You still sort of math it out, assuming the 20% improvement from HT is true.  It is only an estimate though.

 

(4.5ghz * 2cores) * 1.2HT improvement = 10.8

 

(3.0ghz * 4cores) = 12

 

The four core would be approximately 11% faster.

 

True true, maybe the cache factors add some more hard to math out truths as well.

 

I would say they need to bring on the unlocked i3s, but i guess they'd have to be unlocked AND be able to reach over 5.0ghz to match the i5-4460 with the new information I have learned.

 

Alright guys, I feel we have come to a conclusion.

 

I'm going to give the answer to..... @Mattrixx as he gave the first detailed answer that was understandable to me.

 

Others help me as well, so don't feel left out! Thanks to all of you. Forum <3

[Mattrixx]

oh yea, this helped me understand.

 

I wonder at what point does the speed start outweighing the more cores though.

 

so for example "hypothetical" 4.5ghz 2 core hyper threaded vs 3.0ghz 4 core. When would the speed be better than having more cores in relation to the speed of the more cores? Ya know what I'm saying?

Great! glad it helped.

 

Regarding the speed deal you're kind of asking the wrong question. There's no real way to tell, as it all depends on the program. Most programs are reliant on a single core, and can't take advantage of more than one. Games for instance, typically use 1-2, with a few being able to get some advantage out of 4. Besides, most programs won't max out a CPU anyway, so more power will really benefit you very little.

 

A pretty notable exception to this is video editing (and streaming to a certain degree). In that case, it's possible for the editing program to use more than one core pretty much to it's full extent. You'll still be better off with more cores though. A hypothetical 4.5Ghz i3 would still do worse than a locked i5.

[Mattrixx]

I'm going to give the answer to..... @Mattrixx as he gave the first detailed answer that was understandable to me.

*bows* Thank you, I am deeply honored! 

[cragger89]

I recently went from an i3 4160 to an i5 4460. The difference it made when playing GTA V was enough to let me play at Very High settings throughout with 60fps on average, the i3 only allowed 44 or sometimes high 30s when things got busy.