Intel Core i5 3570K  vs 2500K 

PC enthusiasts love the i5 series because it's a mainstream Quad Core that's fast and reliable. They especially favor the K series, because its unlocked multiplier can be overclocked for even better performance. But compared to the Sandy Bridge CPU, is the newer Ivy Bridge a compelling upgrade? For this matchup, we're comparing the Intel Core i5 3570K versus the Intel Core i5 2500K to find out.

The 3570K is newer by 15 months, and is based on Ivy Bridge's more efficient 22nm manufacturing process. It's a 3.4 GHz Quad Core with 4 threads and 6MB cache. Aside from being overclockable, it can also turbo boost up to 3.8 GHz which kicks in when demanding applications require extra processing power. This chip consumes only 77W TDP of power.

In contrast is the 2500K, clocked at 3.3 GHz with 4 threads and 6MB cache. It's also overclockable and it turbo boosts up to 3.7 GHz. Part of the Sandy Bridge architecture, it has a less efficient 32nm manufacturing process which outputs a more wasteful power consumption of 95W TDP.

Benchmarks show that the 3570K is dominant and consistently leads by 8-11% in the PassMark, Single Core and Cinebench tests. However, overclocking seems to favor the 2500K: it can reach 5.13 GHz on water cooling compared to only 4.83 GHz on the 3570K. But this overclock only resulted to a 2% lead in our test results.

Considering that both chips are priced similarly, there's no reason not to upgrade to the newer and more powerful Intel Core i5 3570K. But if overclocking's your thing, you'll reach higher speeds with the Intel Core i5 2500K.