Intel Core i3 2100 Sandy Bridge vs. Core i3 7100 Kabylake Performance

The Redis server performance was more than twice as fast with the Core i3 7100.

While delivering equally good performance-per-Watt results.

There were different CPU heatsinks used between the two setups, albeit they were both low-profile solutions, so take the thermal results as you wish. Both systems were running in the same 2U chassis. With the stock cooler of the Core i3 7100, its average temperature during all of this benchmarking was 42C with a peak of 56C.

Looking at the AC system power consumption results during the entire course of the benchmarking was interesting. The Core i3 7100 had an average system power draw of 43.6 Watts and a peak of 57.6 Watts, compared to the i3-2100 having an average power draw of 52 Watts and a peak of 66 Watts. The minimum power draw of the i3-7100 was at just 20 Watts while the i3-2100 was at 28.9 Watts.

If you currently have an older, low-end Sandy Bridge system (or older), hopefully you found these numbers insightful in going from a Core i3 2100 to a Core i3 7100 Kabylake. The HD Graphics difference was stunning, most of the CPU tests found significant wins while in a few tests there were only a minor difference. Particularly for the computational heavy workloads, the Core i3 7100 was up to twice as fast due to its higher clock speeds, AVX 2.0 support, faster (DDR4) memory support, etc.

If you wish to compare the results in this article to the performance of your own Linux system(s), simply install the Phoronix Test Suite and run phoronix-test-suite benchmark 1702096-RI-SANDYKABY41 to make use of our open-source, fully-automated, reproducible benchmarking software.

For those wanting to see how the Core i3 7100 compares to other recent CPUs, see my earlier i3-7100 Linux benchmarks.