Intel Core i3 i3-540 Dual-core (2 Core) 3.06 GHz Processor - Socket H LGA-1156-256 KB - 4 MB Cache - Yes - 32 nm - 73 W - 162.7¿F (72.6¿C) - 1.4 V DC - CM80616003060AE

so with the release of the new core i3 and Core i5 dual core processors Intel has made their product line potentially one of the most confusing out there today but I'm going to try and clear that up a little bit so today I've got the i3 540 so this is the faster of the two i3s that are available at launch and what the i3 540 is is it's very similar to the socket 1156 core i7s and core i5s with a couple key differences first of all an i3 500 series is a dual core processor with hyper threading okay so it has four logical processors even though it only has two physical processors this actually provides some real-world benefit in terms of any sort of multi-threaded tasks that you're going to be performing like video editing stuff like that okay what it doesn't have compared to the new dual core Core i5 600 series is turbo boost and turbo boost is an incredibly important feature for the cor