I just purchased a new x1 Carbon with all the bells and whistles. I got a Core i7-5600u which I really thought would be the better chipset to get. But now I'm looking at some benchmarks and the i5-5300u seems to outperform the i7 on every site. Now I understand that these benchmark softwares can't perfectly gauge the power of a chip but why is there a common advantage for the i5? Even though the i7 has a higher GHz rating it keeps scoring lower. Is there a technical reason or are the benchmark software created in such a way that it favors the current i5 architecture?
Here's two links:
http://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=Intel+Core+i5-5300U+%40+2.30GHz&id=2459
http://cpuboss.com/cpus/Intel-Core-i7-5600U-vs-Intel-Core-i5-5300U
Best Answer
That is normal for 3 main reasons:
the benchamrks score depends on the ram installed, whether it is in dual channel mode or not, so a core i5 with faster ram may perform faster.
heat sink and cooling, those processors are usually coupled with heat sink and fans that can only dissipate heat generated by 15 watt of power, which is the required by Intel, however, to achive higher turbo boost speeds, the processor needs to use more power than 15w, so it depends on the specific laptop and how much heat it can dissipate above the required 15 watts.
different manufacturers may limit the power draw when the processor tries to use more than 15 watts, to avoid possibly overheating the laptop.
The only thing you can do is to check that your laptop is cooling properly and not limited due to over heating.
If the processor is limited due to OEM, you can complain to them, in some cases they may relax limitation by a software update to the BIOS.