Ryzen 5 3500U vs Core i5-3230M

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Aggregated performance score

Core i5-3230M
2013
2 cores / 4 threads
1.63
Ryzen 5 3500U
2019
4 cores / 8 threads
4.43
+172%

Ryzen 5 3500U outperforms Core i5-3230M by 172% based on our aggregated benchmark results.

Primary Details

Comparing Core i5-3230M and Ryzen 5 3500U processor market type (desktop or notebook), architecture, sales start time and price.

Place in performance ranking19561231
Place by popularitynot in top-100not in top-100
Market segmentLaptopLaptop
SeriesIntel Core i5AMD Ryzen 5
Architecture codenameIvy Bridge (2012−2013)Picasso-U (Zen+)
Release date1 January 2013 (11 years ago)6 January 2019 (5 years ago)
Launch price (MSRP)$225no data
Current price$93 (0.4x MSRP)$672

Detailed Specifications

Core i5-3230M and Ryzen 5 3500U basic parameters such as number of cores, number of threads, base frequency and turbo boost clock, lithography, cache size and multiplier lock state. These parameters indirectly say of CPU speed, though for more precise assessment you have to consider their test results.

Physical cores2 (Dual-core)4 (Quad-Core)
Threads48
Base clock speed2.6 GHz2.1 GHz
Boost clock speed3.2 GHz3.7 GHz
L1 cache64K (per core)128K (per core)
L2 cache256K (per core)512K (per core)
L3 cache3 MB (shared)4 MB (shared)
Chip lithography22 nm12 nm
Die size118 mm2209.78 mm2
Maximum core temperature105 °C105 °C
Number of transistorsno data4500 Million
64 bit support++
Windows 11 compatibility-+
Unlocked multiplierNoNo

Compatibility

Information on Core i5-3230M and Ryzen 5 3500U compatibility with other computer components: 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 configuration11 (Uniprocessor)
SocketFCPGA988FP5
Power consumption (TDP)35 Watt15 Watt

Technologies and extensions

Technological solutions and additional instructions supported by Core i5-3230M and Ryzen 5 3500U. You'll probably need this information if you require some particular technology.

Instruction set extensionsIntel® AVXDDR4-2400 RAM, PCIe 3, MMX, SSE, SSE2, SSE3, SSSE3, SSE4A, SSE4.1, SSE4.2, AVX, AVX2, BMI2, ABM, FMA, ADX, SMEP, SMAP, SMT, CPB, AES-NI, RDRAND, RDSEED, SHA, SME
AES-NI++
FMAno data+
AVX++
Enhanced SpeedStep (EIST)+no data
My WiFi+no data
Turbo Boost Technology2.0no data
Hyper-Threading Technology+no data
Idle States+no data
Thermal Monitoring+no data
Flex Memory Access+no data
Demand Based Switching-no data
FDI+no data
Fast Memory Access+no data
StatusDiscontinuedno data

Security technologies

Core i5-3230M and Ryzen 5 3500U technologies aimed at improving security, for example, by protecting against hacks.

TXT-no data
EDB+no data
Secure Key+no data
Identity Protection+no data
Anti-Theft+no data

Virtualization technologies

Virtual machine speed-up technologies supported by Core i5-3230M and Ryzen 5 3500U are enumerated here.

AMD-V++
VT-d+no data
VT-x+no data
EPT+no data

Memory specs

Types, maximum amount and channel quantity of RAM supported by Core i5-3230M and Ryzen 5 3500U. Depending on the motherboard, higher memory frequencies may be supported.

Supported memory typesDDR3DDR4
Maximum memory size32 GB64 GB
Max memory channels22
Maximum memory bandwidth25.6 GB/s38.397 GB/s
ECC memory support-+

Graphics specifications

General parameters of integrated GPUs, if any.

Integrated graphics card
Compare
Intel HD Graphics 4000AMD Radeon RX Vega 8 (Ryzen 2000/3000)
Quick Sync Video+no data
Clear Video HD+no data
Graphics max frequency1.1 GHzno data
InTru 3D+no data

Graphics interfaces

Available interfaces and connections of Core i5-3230M and Ryzen 5 3500U integrated GPUs.

Number of displays supported3no data
eDP+no data
DisplayPort+no data
HDMI+no data
SDVO+no data
CRT+no data

Peripherals

Specifications and connection of peripherals supported by Core i5-3230M and Ryzen 5 3500U.

PCIe version3.03.0
PCI Express lanes1612

Synthetic benchmark performance

Various benchmark results of the processors in comparison. Overall score 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.

i5-3230M 1.63
Ryzen 5 3500U 4.43
+172%

Ryzen 5 3500U outperforms Core i5-3230M by 172% based on our aggregated benchmark results.


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: 68%

i5-3230M 2559
Ryzen 5 3500U 6956
+172%

Ryzen 5 3500U outperforms Core i5-3230M by 172% in Passmark.

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: 42%

i5-3230M 509
Ryzen 5 3500U 859
+68.8%

Ryzen 5 3500U outperforms Core i5-3230M by 69% in GeekBench 5 Single-Core.

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: 42%

i5-3230M 1027
Ryzen 5 3500U 2452
+139%

Ryzen 5 3500U outperforms Core i5-3230M by 139% in GeekBench 5 Multi-Core.

Cinebench 10 32-bit single-core

Cinebench R10 is an ancient ray tracing benchmark for processors by Maxon, authors of Cinema 4D. Its single core version uses just one CPU thread to render a futuristic looking motorcycle.

Benchmark coverage: 20%

i5-3230M 4268
Ryzen 5 3500U 4558
+6.8%

Ryzen 5 3500U outperforms Core i5-3230M by 7% in Cinebench 10 32-bit single-core.

Cinebench 10 32-bit multi-core

Cinebench Release 10 Multi Core is a variant of Cinebench R10 using all the processor threads. Possible number of threads is limited by 16 in this version.

Benchmark coverage: 19%

i5-3230M 9159
Ryzen 5 3500U 17231
+88.1%

Ryzen 5 3500U outperforms Core i5-3230M by 88% in Cinebench 10 32-bit multi-core.

3DMark06 CPU

3DMark06 is a discontinued DirectX 9 benchmark suite from Futuremark. Its CPU part contains two scenarios, one dedicated to artificial intelligence pathfinding, another to game physics using PhysX package.

Benchmark coverage: 19%

i5-3230M 3760
Ryzen 5 3500U 5951
+58.3%

Ryzen 5 3500U outperforms Core i5-3230M by 58% in 3DMark06 CPU.

wPrime 32

wPrime 32M is a math multi-thread processor test, which calculates square roots of first 32 million integer numbers. Its result is measured in seconds, so that the less is benchmark result, the faster the processor.

Benchmark coverage: 18%

i5-3230M 17.83
Ryzen 5 3500U 12.88
+38.4%

Core i5-3230M outperforms Ryzen 5 3500U by 38% in wPrime 32.

Cinebench 11.5 64-bit multi-core

Cinebench Release 11.5 Multi Core is a variant of Cinebench R11.5 which uses all the processor threads. A maximum of 64 threads is supported in this version.

Benchmark coverage: 17%

i5-3230M 3
Ryzen 5 3500U 8
+157%

Ryzen 5 3500U outperforms Core i5-3230M by 157% in Cinebench 11.5 64-bit multi-core.

Cinebench 15 64-bit multi-core

Cinebench Release 15 Multi Core is a variant of Cinebench R15 which uses all the processor threads.

Benchmark coverage: 15%

i5-3230M 258
Ryzen 5 3500U 650
+152%

Ryzen 5 3500U outperforms Core i5-3230M by 152% in Cinebench 15 64-bit multi-core.

Cinebench 15 64-bit single-core

Cinebench R15 (standing for Release 15) is a benchmark made by Maxon, authors of Cinema 4D. It was superseded by later versions of Cinebench, which use more modern variants of Cinema 4D engine. The Single Core version (sometimes called Single-Thread) only uses a single processor thread to render a room full of reflective spheres and light sources.

Benchmark coverage: 15%

i5-3230M 105
Ryzen 5 3500U 143
+36.2%

Ryzen 5 3500U outperforms Core i5-3230M by 36% in Cinebench 15 64-bit single-core.

Cinebench 11.5 64-bit single-core

Cinebench R11.5 is an old benchmark by Maxon, authors of Cinema 4D. It was superseded by later versions of Cinebench, which use more modern variants of Cinema 4D engine. The Single Core version loads a single thread with ray tracing to render a glossy room full of crystal spheres and light sources.

Benchmark coverage: 14%

i5-3230M 1.25
Ryzen 5 3500U 1.65
+32%

Ryzen 5 3500U outperforms Core i5-3230M by 32% in Cinebench 11.5 64-bit single-core.

TrueCrypt AES

TrueCrypt is a discontinued piece of software that was widely used for on-the-fly-encryption of disk partitions, now superseded by VeraCrypt. It contains several embedded performance tests, one of them being TrueCrypt AES, which measures data encryption speed using AES algorithm. Result is encryption speed in gigabytes per second.

Benchmark coverage: 13%

i5-3230M 1.5
Ryzen 5 3500U 4.4
+193%

Ryzen 5 3500U outperforms Core i5-3230M by 193% in TrueCrypt AES.

WinRAR 4.0

WinRAR 4.0 is an outdated version of a popular file archiver. It contains an internal speed test, using 'Best' setting of RAR compression on large chunks of randomly generated data. Its results are measured in kilobytes per second.

Benchmark coverage: 13%

i5-3230M 3219
+31.1%
Ryzen 5 3500U 2455

Core i5-3230M outperforms Ryzen 5 3500U by 31% in WinRAR 4.0.

x264 encoding pass 1

x264 version 4.0 is a video encoding benchmark uses MPEG 4 x264 compression method to compress a sample HD (720p) video. Pass 1 is a faster variant that produces a constant bit rate output file. Its result is measured in frames per second, which means how many frames of the source video file were encoded per second.  

Benchmark coverage: 13%

i5-3230M 60
Ryzen 5 3500U 135
+125%

Ryzen 5 3500U outperforms Core i5-3230M by 125% in x264 encoding pass 1.

x264 encoding pass 2

x264 Pass 2 is a slower variant of x264 video compression that produces a variable bit rate output file, which results in better quality since the higher bit rate is used when it is needed more. Benchmark result is still measured in frames per second.  

Benchmark coverage: 13%

i5-3230M 11
Ryzen 5 3500U 39
+242%

Ryzen 5 3500U outperforms Core i5-3230M by 242% in x264 encoding pass 2.

Gaming performance

Pros & Cons Summary


Performance score 1.63 4.43
Integrated graphics card 1.17 4.49
Recency 1 January 2013 6 January 2019
Physical cores 2 4
Threads 4 8
Chip lithography 22 nm 12 nm
Power consumption (TDP) 35 Watt 15 Watt

The Ryzen 5 3500U is our recommended choice as it beats the Core i5-3230M in performance tests.


Should you still have questions on choice between Core i5-3230M and Ryzen 5 3500U, ask them in Comments section, and we shall answer.

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Intel Core i5-3230M
Core i5-3230M
AMD Ryzen 5 3500U
Ryzen 5 3500U

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