Review- Intel Core i3 2120 Processor: More Performance… for a Price

Test Platform

Now, it’s time to get to the benchmarks! The hardware components used as our testbed are as follows:

Test Results

Blender 2.49b

Blender is an open-source 3D-modelling software. Performance is measured through the amount of time needed to render a 3D object. Lower figures represent better results.

In this test, the Core i3-2120 is faster than the Core i3-2100, but only by a meager 2 seconds. That’s still an increase though.

Cinebench R11.5

Cinebench benchmark calculates hardware performance in rendering a 3D scene. The final results are measured in points. Higher points mean better performance.

Core i3 2120 holds the upper hand here, thanks to its high clockspeed (which is the highest amongst all three contestants).

Excel 2010 – Montecarlo

Surely you are well familiar with this popular spreadsheet application from Microsoft. Here, we see how fast each processor could finish the “Monte Carlo Simulation Table” in Excel 2010. The final scores are measured in seconds. Smaller figures indicate better results.

Again, the Core i3-2120 seems to benefit from the additional megahertz it has over the Core i3-2100.

7-Zip

Another file compression software that we use as a benchmarking tool is the 7-Zip (version 9.20). This particular application is able to utilize all available threads, making it ideal to test the performance of multi-core processors. The same set of files as used in the Winzip test are also employed in this test. For our testing purposes, the file compression is carried out under three different scenarios: utilizing 1, 2, and four threads. Results are measured in the amount of time needed to finish the process. Lower figures are better.

This application shows consistent performance readings across our three scenarios. Core i3 2120 leads the pack in all cases.