The numbers are more of indicative of their relative processing power and target audience or device than anything else. Nevertheless, the above rule is true more often than not.Ĭore i7 does not have seven cores nor does Core i3 have three cores. The word usually does a bit of heavy lifting here, since a close comparison newer or higher-spec Core i5 processor might see it come out ahead of an older Core i7 model. The short version here is that Intel Core i7 processors are usually better than Intel Core i5 processors, which are in turn usually better than Core i3 processors. Core i3, Core i5, Core i7 - the difference in a nutshell