Intel Core i5-2550K: specs and benchmarks

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Intel Core i5-2550K
Intel Core i5-2550K
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  • Core clock speed
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Year of release 2012
Performance 3.32

Summary

Intel started Intel Core i5-2550K sales on January 2012 at a recommended price of $189. This is a Sandy Bridge architecture desktop processor primarily aimed at office systems. It has 4 cores and 4 threads, and is based on 32 nm manufacturing technology, with a max turbo frequency of 3800 MHz and an unlocked multiplier.

Compatibility-wise, this is LGA1155 processor with a TDP of 95 Watt. It supports DDR3 memory.

It provides poor benchmark performance at

3.32%

of a leader's which is AMD EPYC 9654.

AMD EPYC 9654 EPYC 9654
Compare

General info

Core i5-2550K processor market type (desktop or notebook), architecture, sales start time and pricing.

Place in performance rating1381
Value for money1.65
Market segmentDesktop processor
Architecture codenameSandy Bridge (2011−2013)
Release dateJanuary 2012 (11 years old)
Launch price (MSRP)$189of 305 (Core i7-870)
Current price$139 (0.7x MSRP)of 16240 (Xeon Platinum 8276L)
Value for money

Performance per price, higher is better.

  • 0
  • 50
  • 100

Technical specs

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 cores4 (Quad-Core)
Threads4
Base clock speed3.4 GHzof 4.7 (FX-9590)
Boost clock speed3.8 GHzof 6 (Core i9-13900KS)
L1 cache64 KB (per core)of 7475.2 (Apple M2 Pro 10-Core)
L2 cache256 KB (per core)of 36864 (Apple M2 Max)
L3 cache6144 KB (shared)of 786432 (EPYC 7373X)
Chip lithography32 nmof 4 (Ryzen 9 7940HS)
Die size216 mm2
Maximum core temperature73 °Cof 110 (Atom x7-E3950)
Number of transistors1160 millionof 9900000 (Ryzen 5 7645HX)
64 bit support+
Windows 11 compatibility-
Unlocked multiplier+

Compatibility

Information on Core i5-2550K 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)
SocketLGA1155
Thermal design power (TDP)95 Wattof 400 (Xeon Platinum 9282)

Technologies and extensions

Technological capabilities and additional instructions supported by Core i5-2550K. You'll probably need this information if you require some particular technology.

Instruction set extensionsIntel® SSE4.1, Intel® SSE4.2, Intel® AVX
AES-NI+
AVX+
Enhanced SpeedStep (EIST)+
Enhanced SpeedStep (EIST)+
Turbo Boost Technology2.0
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 i5-2550K's memory controller. Depending on the motherboard, higher memory frequency may be supported.

Supported memory typesDDR3of 5600 (Ryzen 9 7940HS)
Maximum memory size32 GBof 786 (Xeon E5-2670 v3)
Max memory channels2of 12 (Xeon Platinum 9221)
Maximum memory bandwidth21 GB/sof 284.357 (EPYC 9124)
ECC memory support-

Graphics specifications

General parameters of a GPU integrated into Core i5-2550K.

Quick Sync Video+
Clear Video HD-
InTru 3D-

Peripherals

Specifications and connection types of supported peripherals.

PCIe version2.0of 5 (Core i9-12900K)
PCI Express lanes16of 128 (EPYC 7551P)

Benchmark performance

Single-core and multi-core benchmark results of Core i5-2550K. Overall benchmark performance is measured in points in 0-100 range, higher is better.


Overall 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.

i5-2550K 3.32
  • Passmark
  • GeekBench 5 Single-Core
  • GeekBench 5 Multi-Core
  • 3DMark Fire Strike Physics

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.

Benchmark coverage: 67%

i5-2550K 4184

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.

Benchmark coverage: 37%

i5-2550K 581

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.

Benchmark coverage: 37%

i5-2550K 1661

3DMark Fire Strike Physics

Benchmark coverage: 4%

i5-2550K 5840

Mining hashrates

Cryptocurrency mining performance of Core i5-2550K. Usually measured in megahashes per second.

Bitcoin / BTC (SHA256) 2.5 Mh/s  

Gaming performance

Relative perfomance

Overall Core i5-2550K performance compared to nearest competitors among desktop CPUs.


AMD equivalent

We believe that the nearest equivalent to Core i5-2550K by AMD is FX-6300, which is slower by 1% and lower by 7 positions in our rating.

AMD FX-6300 FX 6300
Compare

Here are some closest AMD rivals to Core i5-2550K:

AMD FX-6130 103.92
AMD FX-6330 101.51
Intel Core i5-2550K 100

Similar processors

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

Intel Core i5-2450P Core i5 2450P
Compare
Intel Core i5-3475S Core i5 3475S
Compare
AMD FX-6300 FX 6300
Compare
Intel Core i5-3340 Core i5 3340
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Intel Core i5-2500K Core i5 2500K
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Intel Core i5-2500 Core i5 2500
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Recommended GPUs

People consider these graphics cards to be good for Core i5-2550K, according to our PC configuration statistics.

These are the fastest graphics cards for Core i5-2550K in our user configuration statistics. There is a total of 892 configurations based on Core i5-2550K in our database.

User rating

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


4 85 votes

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Questions and comments

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