Intel Core i5-680 Review

The Core i5-680 is one of Intel's mid-range Desktop processors. It was released in 2010 with 2 cores and 4 threads. With base clock at 3.6GHz, max speed at 3.86GHz, and a 73W power rating. The Core i5-680 is based on the Clarkdale 32nm family and is part of the Core i5 series.

Now, we're asking ourselves whether or not the Intel Core i5-680 finally dethrones the Phenom II X2 521 as the de facto ruler of the mainstream processors. Ultimately, it depends: the Core i5-680 doesn't reach the same single-core performance as AMD, but we're starting to see more games adopt multi-threaded CPUs, so that doesn't matter as much.

As the higher-priced version of the Core i5-670, the Core i5-680 has higher base and Boost frequencies of 3.6 and 3.86 GHz, respectively. That's an increase in base frequency and a bump to boost clocks, but the real advantage should lay in the higher Package Power Tracking (PPT) envelope, which is a measurement of the maximum amount of power delivered to the socket. The Core i5-670's PPT tops out at 73W, while the motherboard can pump up to 142W to the Core i5-680 at peak performance. That opens up much more aggressive boost behavior, on both single and multiple cores, that could widen the performance gap beyond what we see on the spec sheet.

But, like most humans, if you do things other than gaming, the Core i5-680 offers a better mixture of performance in single- and multi-threaded applications. The Core i5-680 offers twice the threads of the price-comparable Phenom II X2 521, and it wields them to great effect in threaded workloads. As such, rendering and encoding remain a strong suit of the Core i5 chips, and Intel's improvements to AVX throughput have yielded impressive results.

The Intel Core i5-680 is another impressive release from Intel and its 1 Generation of Core i5 chips. With it, you’re getting 2-cores and 4-threads, with a boost clock of 3.86GHz. It may not be the strongest contender ever made on paper, but when you see and feel the actual performance gains it offers, you’re certainly getting a lot of bang for your $272 buck.

One of the nice things about the Intel Core i5-680 processors is that the retail boxed models come with a CPU cooler. So, you can pick something like the Intel Core i5-680 up for $272 and don’t need to spend any extra money on CPU cooling.

The Intel Core i5-680 retail boxed processor comes with the traditional ‘pancake’ CPU cooler. Nothing fancy, but it gets the job done on this processor which is rated at 73W TDP. You do not need to have an aftermarket cooling solution unless you want to.

If extended overclocking and boost frequencies are trivial matters to you, Intel also offers the Core i5-670 at $252. It’s still outfitted with 2-cores and 4-threads, but clocks in at a slower 3.46GHz and maxes out at only 3.73GHz.

Fresh from a successful roll-out of mainstream Core i5 CPUs, Intel's attack on AMD now extends down into the mid-range with its Core i5-680 processors, which the company is making available as of May 2010.

Intel arms Core i5-680 with a 3.6 GHz base frequency that jumps as high as 3.86 GHz under lightly-threaded tasks. The Core i5-680 also offers a 3.6 GHz clock rate with all cores active. Meanwhile, AMD keeps its Phenom II X2 521 operating at a static 3.5 GHz clock rate.