Intel
Intel Core i5-7500
Kaby Lake's mid-range quad: essentially an i5-6500 with about 200 MHz more clock, DDR4-2400 support and HD 630 graphics that add hardware 10-bit HEVC and VP9 decode. That media engine is the one thing it still does meaningfully better than its Skylake predecessor, which makes it an office and HTPC chip today.
Pros
- 3.4 GHz base / 3.8 GHz turbo in a 65 W envelope, with a stock cooler in the box
- HD Graphics 630 adds fixed-function 4K HEVC Main10 and VP9 decode - real value in an HTPC
- Official DDR4-2400 support, a step up from Skylake's DDR4-2133
- Drops into both 200-series and (with a BIOS update) 100-series boards
- One of the cheapest ways to keep an old LGA1151 office machine alive
Cons
- Four cores, four threads - no headroom for streaming, heavy multitasking or modern game engines
- Locked multiplier, so what you see is what you get
- Only 6 MB L3, and no Hyper-Threading to hide memory stalls
- Not on Microsoft's Windows 11 supported-CPU list
Below average
Computed from specs & benchmarks via our public methodology.
Full specifications
Everything we track for the Intel Core i5-7500
General
- Announced
- 2017
- Socket
- LGA1151
- Process
- 14 nm
- Base TDP
- 65 W
- Unlocked multiplier
- No
- Cooler included
- Yes
Cores & Clocks
- Cores
- 4
- Performance cores
- 4
- Efficiency cores
- 0
- Threads
- 4
- Base clock
- 3.4 GHz
- Boost clock
- 3.8 GHz
- L2 cache
- 1 MB
- L3 cache
- 6 MB
Integrated GPU
- iGPU
- Intel HD Graphics 630
- iGPU clock
- 1,100 MHz
Memory
- Memory support
- DDR4-2400 / DDR3L-1600
- Max memory
- 64 GB
- Memory channels
- 2
Platform
- PCIe version
- 3
- CPU PCIe lanes
- 16
Benchmarks
- Geekbench 6 (single)
- 1,290
- Geekbench 6 (multi)
- 3,400
- Cinebench R23 (single)
- 1,070
- Cinebench R23 (multi)
- 3,950
- PassMark
- 6,000
Quick answers
Is the Intel Core i5-7500 good in 2026?
The Intel Core i5-7500 earns an Inno Score of 24.9/100 (“Below average”) based on its specs and benchmark results. Kaby Lake's mid-range quad: essentially an i5-6500 with about 200 MHz more clock, DDR4-2400 support and HD 630 graphics that add hardware 10-bit HEVC and VP9 decode. That media engine is the one thing it still does meaningfully better than its Skylake predecessor, which makes it an office and HTPC chip today.
What are the key specs of the Intel Core i5-7500?
Cores: 4 · Threads: 4 · Boost clock: 3.8 GHz · Socket: LGA1151
What are the closest alternatives to the Intel Core i5-7500?
Its closest rivals on InnoReviews are Intel Core i7-4770K, Intel Core i7-4770, Intel Core i5-6600K — open the comparison pages for a spec-by-spec breakdown.