Benchmarks: CPU
Our head-to-head benchmarks provide a look at how CPU performance has improved over the years. The Core i5-3427U and Core i7-5600U are both dual-core, hyper-threaded chips, but despite a lower TDP (15W vs. 17w), the newer Core i7 part ships with significantly higher frequencies. Core and boost speeds are raised to 2.6GHz and 3.2GHz, respectively, up from 1.8GHz and 2.8GHz a couple of years ago.
The increase in raw speed, combined with the efficiencies of a newer Intel architecture, translates to healthy gains in all CPU workloads. The time taken to complete our single-threaded PiFast benchmark has fallen by roughly a third, and in the multi-threaded Cinebench and Handbrake tests, performance is up to the tune of roughly 20 per cent. Not bad going, but considering the three-year gap between machines, the performance uplift isn't huge.