The Core i5 and Core i7 represent the two most popular processors in the Intel Core processor line. Each has come a long way in the nearly 15 years they’ve been on the market.
The Intel Core series launched in 2008 with a series of Core i7 processors that utilized the company’s Nehalem microarchitecture. Each of the three processors — the i7-920, the i7-940, and the i7-965 Extreme Edition — launched with four cores and a 130-watt thermal design point (TDP), allowing for a level of high performance. A TechRadar review at the time noted that the i7-920, despite being an entry-level model, was actually faster than Intel’s previous high-end offerings.
The Core i5-750, the first desktop-class i5 processor, lowered the TDP to 95 watts in its initial version — meaning it could throw less energy at a given processing task — but gave users access to four cores.
The processor lines have evolved significantly in the years since, with the first mobile-targeted i7 processors appearing in the fall of 2009 and the mobile-targeted i5 processors appearing at the start of 2010. Historically, mobile processors (which are also utilized in small-form-factor desktop systems such as Intel’s Next Unit of Computing, or NUC, line) tend to utilize lower power wattage because balancing performance and battery life is a main goal.
Intel is on its 12th generation of Core processors today, with the latest models leveraging a mix of performance and efficiency cores, an approach that has gained popularity in the technology world thanks to ARM-based processors like those used in smartphones and in the recent Apple Silicon Macs.
Shalini Singh, a mobile product marketing manager for Intel, notes that one of the key differences between the 12th generation and prior versions is the addition of Intel Thread Director, a technology that can automatically detect background tasks and put them on lower-powered cores, “allowing the most responsive experience for the user with the performance cores.”
“Based on the performance of hybrid architecture, our processors have been optimized for performance first while offering optimal battery life,” Singh says.