Intel Core i5 7500 4-core LGA 1151

The i5-7500 scores 6044 multi-core and 2244 single-core on PassMark, and it's one of the cheapest quad-cores you can buy at a 94th percentile affordability ranking. But it's an OEM renewed part with no cooler and no warranty, and user sentiment sits at a rough 22nd percentile. Fine for breathing life into an old LGA 1151 build, not a chip to build a new system around.

The single-core score of 2244 is the number that matters most here. That's what keeps this chip feeling snappy in day-to-day use, and it's why the i5-7500 still holds up for older games and general productivity. The 3.8GHz boost clock helps, and the 6MB of L3 cache is fine for a quad-core. But the multi-core score of 6044 tells the other half of the story. Four threads just isn't much in 2025, and anything that leans on parallel workloads, video encoding, heavy multitasking, you'll feel the ceiling fast. The efficiency score of 51.7 out of 100 is also pretty meh. 65W TDP sounds low, but for the performance you get, it's not exactly sipping power.

The platform score of 67th percentile is a mixed bag. You get DDR4 support up to 64GB and PCIe 3.0, which is fine for budget GPUs and SSDs. But LGA 1151 is a dead socket. There's no upgrade path to anything meaningfully faster without swapping the motherboard too. The integrated HD Graphics 630 is there if you need it, but nobody's buying this chip for the iGPU. It's a stopgap at best.

Stacked against the AMD Ryzen 5 5500, this thing gets embarrassed. The 5500 has six cores and twelve threads, and its multi-core PassMark score is roughly double the i5-7500's 6044. But the Ryzen 5 5500 also costs more and needs an AM4 board, so it's not a fair fight for someone already sitting on an LGA 1151 motherboard. The Dell Xeon E5-2637 V2 is an interesting alternative if you're building a cheap workstation, it's older but has more threads, though single-core performance is worse and you're stuck with server boards. For pure budget gaming on an existing Intel board, the i5-7500 still makes sense. For a new build, it doesn't. The be quiet! and Thermal Grizzly entries in our database are coolers, not CPUs, so they're not really competitors here, just noise in the category.

At USD 40 to USD 60 on Amazon, this chip is hard to argue with on pure price. That's a 94th percentile affordability ranking, and for that money you're getting a CPU that still boots Windows, runs a browser with a dozen tabs, and plays older titles without choking. The spread across US listings is USD 20, so it's worth checking which seller has the best renewed unit at the low end. Amazon's renewed guarantee gives you some protection, but it's not the same as a factory warranty. In Europe, prices run EUR 79 to EUR 108, and the best deal there is at the lower end of that range. The value proposition is simple: cheap chip, no cooler, no warranty. If you can live with those asterisks, the price per frame is excellent.

The Core i5-7500 pulls a PassMark multi-core score of 6044 and a single-core score of 2244. That single-core number lands in the 63rd percentile, which is respectable for a chip from 2017, but the multi-core score sits at the 43rd percentile. It's a quad-core, four-thread part with a 3.8GHz boost clock, and for a budget build or an upgrade to an older LGA 1151 board, it still does the job. The affordability ranking is the real headline here: 94th percentile. You can grab one of these renewed chips for USD 40 to USD 60 in the US, which is dirt cheap for a CPU that still handles everyday tasks and light gaming without wheezing.

But there's a catch, and it's a big one. This is an OEM part sold as renewed. No cooler in the box, no official Intel warranty, and the user sentiment score sits at a rough 22nd percentile. Owners generally like the performance for the price, but the missing cooler and warranty are recurring complaints. If you're cool with buying a used chip and slapping a USD 20 cooler on it, this thing is a solid budget play. If you want peace of mind, keep scrolling.

Skip this if you're building a new system from scratch. The multi-core score of 6044 is a 43rd percentile result, and four threads will choke on anything beyond light productivity and older games. The efficiency score of 51.7 out of 100 is also nothing to brag about. If you need a CPU for video editing, streaming, or modern AAA titles, this isn't it. And if you're not comfortable buying a used OEM chip with no cooler and no warranty, the 22nd percentile user sentiment score should be your warning sign. Spend the extra money on a Ryzen 5 5500 or a newer Intel chip instead.

The i5-7500 is a budget stopgap, not a foundation. The 2244 single-core score keeps it usable, and the 94th percentile affordability ranking means you're not risking much cash. But the 43rd percentile multi-core performance and the 22nd percentile user sentiment tell you what you're getting into: a used OEM chip with no cooler and no warranty. If you have an LGA 1151 board and a dead or weaker CPU, this is a cheap way to squeeze more life out of it. If you're building from scratch, spend a bit more on something with a future.