Home › Product Finder › Processors

Intel Core i5 2500K 3.3GHz Socket 1155

The Intel Core i5 2500K operates at 3.30GHz and can reach as high as 3.70GHz when using Turbo Boost.It features a 6MB L3 cache and uses the HD Graphics 3000 engine

Based on 24 reviews

Excellent:

21
Good:

3
Average:

0
Bad:

0

Pros

Good media-processing capabilities.
Unlocked multiplier for simplified overclocking.
Great performance, 1.2GHz overclock.
Overclocking is made easy with a P67 motherboard, 95W TDP and low CPU temperatures.
New Sandy Bridge Architecture, Blazing Fast Cache Speeds, Intel HD Graphics 3000.
New AVX Instruction Support, Improved Productivity, Intel Quick Sync.
InTru 3D, Improved Turbo Boost, Fully Unlocked (CPU and GPU).
Very fast, Improvements over previous generation, Improved integrated graphics.
Overclocks really easily with K models, Full hardware transcoding support.
GPU performance greatly improved compared to last generation.
Support for DirectX 10.1, Turbo Boost increases GPU clock.
HDMI Audio bitstreaming supported.

Cons

Does not support Hyper-Threading.
Onboard video lacks DirectX 11 support.
Requires new motherboard.
Cannot be overclocked on a H67 motherboard.
Limited GPU performance.
Drivers not as mature as the ones from ATI or NVIDIA, No support for CUDA, PhysX, OpenCL.
No Hyperthreading.
New chipset requirements mean you’ll need a new Socket 1155 motherboard.
Integrated graphics performance still slow compared to cheap dedicated 3D cards.

By TechSpot on January 03, 2011

Although the new Sandy Bridge architecture may not be revolutionary, it is a much improved version of Nehalem as it seems to do everything a little better. When compared to the Clarkdale Core i5 661 processor which we reviewed exactly a year ago, the...

-
By XSReviews on August 05, 2011

Interestingly while the 2500k walked all over the aging 760 in our synthetic tests, it didn’t faire quite so well in the gaming ones. Probably some naff titles to choose as evidently they arn’t CPU bottlenecked. Still, this is an impressive...

-
By iXBT Labs on April 25, 2011

The general conclusion is a bit banal: Sandy Bridge is much better than the previous core. Not as much as Core 2 (Conroe) was better than Pentium 4, but it's still a larger step forward in terms of architecture than Nehalem compared with...

-
By PC Mag on April 21, 2011

The Intel Core i5-2500K offers exceptional value and impressive Sandy Bridge–based performance, but you can (and should) do better than this CPU's integrated graphics. Buy it...

90
By APH Networks on February 11, 2011

We have a little song we sing here at APH Networks. It goes along with the tune of Taio Cruz's Dynamite radio hit that plays every five minutes on every North American popular music station. "I put my foot down to the floor sometimes / Saying VTEC /...

-
By Phoronix on February 10, 2011

It was exciting this week to finally see Intel's Sandy Bridge platform work under Linux with OpenGL acceleration without any problems, but it was even more exciting to see just how fast the Core i5 2500K graphics were under Linux using an...

-
By TechwareLabs on January 27, 2011

The long awaited and much anticipated Sandy Bridge architecture from Intel hit the ground running at CES just 2 weeks ago. This architecture promises better overall performance, the latest version of Intel Turbo Boost Technology 2.0, and great...

-
By SilentPC Review on January 24, 2011

With Sandy Bridge, Intel has set new standards in both performance and power consumption. Not only is the new hardware faster and more efficient, it is also not that expensive. These LGA1155 chips obliterate their comparably priced competition, with the...

-
By Phoronix on January 24, 2011

Lastly, with the usual Apache web-server benchmark, the Core i5 2500K performance was in front of the Core i7 970 by 36%. There is no doubt about it: Intel's Sandy Bridge is fast. In fact, it is damn fast. The Core i5 2500K retails for just over...

-
By ThinkComputers on January 24, 2011

The long awaited Sandy Bridge architecture is here and I really think that it was worth the wait. Intel is very excited about this new line of processors and they want you to be too. It is always great to see companies improve on existing products...

90