is 6th Generation Intel® Core™ i3 processor better than older gen i7's?

[Naer]

i apologize if this has been asked before

 

[mikeymikec]

In some ways, yes. Probably cheaper and cooler than most i7s. Single-threaded performance probably is better than the oldest i7s I would guess. Multi-threaded perf: Not so much.

E.g.: http://www.anandtech.com/bench/product/1192?vs=47

 

[SPBHM]

I wouldn't pick a Skylake i3 over Sandy Bridge (second gen) desktop i7
but comparing to an i7 920... probably, the 920 might be faster in MT, but the difference in power draw and platform is just to much, also in ST... sandy bridge i7s had better IPC than Nehalem and high clocks (like 3.5GHz+), i7 920 had lower clocks, so the advantage for the i3 is going to be very impressive in ST performance (if you don't OC the 920, but 920 OC have some seriously bad power draw)

 

[NTMBK]

Depends if you are talking desktop or mobile. In desktop- probably not. In mobile- quite likely.

 

[Sheep221]

Desktop SKUs are faster in ST but slower in MT it's simple as that.

 

[TeknoBug]

The i7 2600/2700*, i7 3770* and i7 47** are still better for the time being.

 

[sm625]

The Xeon x5687 is a 4C8T 12M cache monster that is nehalem based but was shrunk to 32nm. I like to use this chip as the benchmark because you can find so many off lease systems for $200 that contain this processor, and it is also faster than any nehalem based i7 in single threaded tasks. The i3-6100 is 33% faster in single threaded tasks, but 20% slower in multithreaded tasks. Overall, the skylake i3 is faster. But is it worth 2.5 times the money for a new system built around it? No. Not unless you're paying 86 cents per KWhr.