What do the numbers in the CPU stand for? Like i7-9700 vs the i7-8700 vs the i5-8600/9600?
In: Technology
i3/5/7 loosely corellates to cores/threads. Early i3s had 2 cores, later 2 cores and 4 threads, currently 4 cores. i5s have had 4 cores/threads up until recently where they bumped up to 6 cores/threads. i7s have been more of a mixed bag, but generally have had two threads per core relative to i5s.
Cores are the number of workers that can perform a given task at a given point in time. Threads are a particular job that a worker can work on, given that he’s got downtime between tasks.
The a in ix-abcd also correlates to generation (at least in desktop models). An i3-5600 is a 5th generation processor. New generations typically impart a smaller manufacturing process which means more transistors on the chip, so more computing power and/or lower power requirements for a given performance factor.
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