Core i3-2120: specs and benchmarks

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Aggregate performance score

Core i3-2120 provides poor benchmark performance at 1.28% of a leader's which is a 96-core Ryzen Threadripper PRO 7995WX.

Summary

Intel started Core i3-2120 sales 20 February 2011 at a recommended price of $95. This is a Sandy Bridge architecture desktop processor primarily aimed at office systems. It has 2 cores and 4 threads, and is based on 32 nm manufacturing technology, with a maximum frequency of 3.3 and a locked multiplier.

Compatibility-wise, this is FCLGA1155 processor with a TDP of 65 Watt. It supports DDR3 memory.

Primary details

Core i3-2120 processor market type (desktop or notebook), architecture, sales start time and pricing.

Place in the ranking2302
Place by popularity98
Cost-effectiveness evaluation0.14
Market segmentDesktop processor
Power efficiency1.80of 100.00 (Core Ultra 7 164U)
Architecture codenameSandy Bridge (2011−2013)
Release date20 February 2011 (13 years ago)
Launch price (MSRP)$95of 17,906 (tray) (Xeon Platinum 8280L)

Cost-effectiveness evaluation

Performance per price, higher is better.

Detailed specifications

Basic microprocessor parameters such as number of cores, number of threads, base frequency and turbo boost clock, lithography, cache size and multiplier lock state. These parameters can generally indicate CPU performance, but to be more precise you have to review its test results.

Physical cores2 (Dual-core)
Threads4
Base clock speed3.3 GHzof 4.7 GHz (FX-9590)
Boost clock speed3.3 GHzof 50 MHz (i486DX-50)
Bus rate5 GT/s
L1 cache64 KB (per core)of 80 KB (EPYC 9965)
L2 cache256 KB (per core)
L3 cache3 MB (shared)of 1152 MB (EPYC 9684X)
Chip lithography32 nmof 3 nm (Apple M3 Max 16-Core)
Die size131 mm2
Maximum core temperature69 °Cof 110 °C (Atom x7-E3950)
Number of transistors504 millionof 135,240 million (EPYC 9684X)
64 bit support+
Windows 11 compatibility-

Compatibility

Information on Core i3-2120 compatibility with other computer components and devices: motherboard (look for socket type), power supply unit (look for power consumption) etc. Useful when planning a future computer configuration or upgrading an existing one. Note that power consumption of some processors can well exceed their nominal TDP, even without overclocking. Some can even double their declared thermals given that the motherboard allows to tune the CPU power parameters.

Number of CPUs in a configuration1of 8 (Opteron 842)
SocketFCLGA1155
Power consumption (TDP)65 Wattof 3100 ‑ 4500 (Ryzen 7 7435H)

Technologies and extensions

Technological capabilities and additional instructions supported by Core i3-2120. You'll probably need this information if you require some particular technology.

Instruction set extensionsIntel® SSE4.1, Intel® SSE4.2, Intel® AVX
Enhanced SpeedStep (EIST)+
Turbo Boost Technology-
Hyper-Threading Technology+
Idle States+
Thermal Monitoring+
Flex Memory Access+
FDI+
Fast Memory Access+

Security technologies

Processor technologies aimed at improving security, for example, by protecting against hacks.

TXT+
EDB+
Identity Protection+

Virtualization technologies

Supported virtual machine optimization technologies. Some are specific to Intel only, some to AMD.

VT-d-
VT-x+
EPT+

Memory specs

Types, maximum amount and channel number of RAM supported by Core i3-2120's memory controller. Depending on the motherboard, higher memory frequency may be supported.

Supported memory typesDDR3
Maximum memory size32 GBof 6 TiB (EPYC 9124)
Max memory channels2of 12 (Xeon Platinum 9221)
Maximum memory bandwidth21 GB/sof 460.8 GB/s (EPYC 9124)

Graphics specifications

General parameters of a GPU integrated into Core i3-2120.

Integrated graphics cardIntel HD Graphics 2000
Quick Sync Video+
Clear Video HD+
Graphics max frequency1.1 GHz
InTru 3D+

Graphics interfaces

Available interfaces and connections of Core i3-2120's integrated GPU.

Number of displays supported2

Peripherals

Specifications and connection types of supported peripherals.

PCIe version2.0of 5.0 (Core i9-12900K)
PCI Express lanes16of 128 (EPYC 7551P)

Benchmark performance

Single-core and multi-core benchmark results of Core i3-2120. Overall benchmark performance is measured in points in 0-100 range, higher is better.


Combined synthetic benchmark score

This is our combined benchmark performance rating. We are regularly improving our combining algorithms, but if you find some perceived inconsistencies, feel free to speak up in comments section, we usually fix problems quickly.

i3-2120 1.28

Passmark

Passmark CPU Mark is a widespread benchmark, consisting of 8 different types of workload, including integer and floating point math, extended instructions, compression, encryption and physics calculation. There is also one separate single-threaded scenario measuring single-core performance.

i3-2120 1956

GeekBench 5 Single-Core

GeekBench 5 Single-Core is a cross-platform application developed in the form of CPU tests that independently recreate certain real-world tasks with which to accurately measure performance. This version uses only a single CPU core.

i3-2120 496

GeekBench 5 Multi-Core

GeekBench 5 Multi-Core is a cross-platform application developed in the form of CPU tests that independently recreate certain real-world tasks with which to accurately measure performance. This version uses all available CPU cores.

i3-2120 1022

3DMark Fire Strike Physics

i3-2120 2650

Gaming performance

Closest competitors

Core i3-2120's performance relative to its closest rivals among desktop CPUs.


AMD equivalent

According to our data, the closest AMD alternative to Core i3-2120 is Athlon II X4 610e, which is nearly equal in speed and higher by 3 positions in our ranking.

Here are some closest AMD rivals to Core i3-2120:

Similar processors

Here is our recommendation of several processors that are more or less close in performance to the one reviewed.

Recommended GPUs

People consider these graphics cards to be good for Core i3-2120, according to our PC configuration statistics.

These are the fastest graphics cards for Core i3-2120 in our user configuration statistics. There is a total of 27276 configurations using Core i3-2120 in our database.

RTX 4090 GeForce RTX 4090
0.7% (202/27276)
RTX 4080 GeForce RTX 4080
0.004% (1/27276)
RTX 4080 SUPER GeForce RTX 4080 SUPER
0.004% (1/27276)
RTX 4070 Ti GeForce RTX 4070 Ti
0.01% (4/27276)
RX 7900 XTX Radeon RX 7900 XTX
0.007% (2/27276)
RTX 4070 SUPER GeForce RTX 4070 SUPER
0.01% (3/27276)
RTX 3090 Ti GeForce RTX 3090 Ti
0.1% (33/27276)
RX 7900 XT Radeon RX 7900 XT
0.004% (1/27276)
RX 6950 XT Radeon RX 6950 XT
0.007% (2/27276)
RTX 3080 Ti GeForce RTX 3080 Ti
0.09% (25/27276)

All comparisons with Core i3-2120

Community ratings

Here is the rating given to the reviewed processor by our users. Let others know your opinion by rating it yourself.


3.4 1673 votes

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Questions & comments

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