Core i7-6500U: specs and benchmarks

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Aggregate performance score

Core i7-6500U
2015
2 cores / 4 threads, 15 Watt
2.06

Core i7-6500U provides poor benchmark performance at 2.06% of a leader's which is a 96-core EPYC 9655P.

Summary

Intel started Core i7-6500U sales 1 September 2015 at a recommended price of $393. This is a Skylake architecture notebook processor primarily aimed at office systems. It has 2 cores and 4 threads, and is based on 14 nm manufacturing technology, with a maximum frequency of 3100 MHz and a locked multiplier.

Compatibility-wise, this is FCBGA1356 processor with a TDP of 15 Watt. It supports DDR3, DDR4 memory.

Primary details

Core i7-6500U processor market type (desktop or notebook), architecture, sales start time and pricing.

Place in the ranking1902
Place by popularitynot in top-100
Market segmentLaptop
SeriesIntel Core i7
Power efficiency13.00of 100.00 (Ryzen Z1 Extreme)
Architecture codenameSkylake (2015−2016)
Release date1 September 2015 (9 years ago)
Launch price (MSRP)$393of 17,906 (Xeon Platinum 8280L)

Detailed specifications

Basic microprocessor parameters such as number of cores, number of threads, base frequency and turbo boost clock, lithography, cache size and multiplier lock state. These parameters can generally indicate CPU performance, but to be more precise you have to review its test results.

Physical cores2 (Dual-core)
Threads4
Base clock speed2.5 GHzof 4.7 GHz (FX-9590)
Boost clock speed3.1 GHzof 6.2 GHz (Core i9-14900KS)
Bus typeOPI
Bus rate4 GT/s
Multiplier25of 42 (Core i7-7700K)
L1 cache128 KBof 80 KB (EPYC 9965)
L2 cache512 KBof 2 MB (Xeon 6980P)
L3 cache4 MBof 1152 MB (EPYC 9684X)
Chip lithography14 nmof 3 nm (Apple M3 Max 16-Core)
Die size98.57 mm2
Maximum core temperature100 °Cof 110 °C (Atom x7-E3950)
Number of transistors1750 Millionof 135,240 million (EPYC 9684X)
64 bit support+
Windows 11 compatibility-

Compatibility

Information on Core i7-6500U compatibility with other computer components and devices: motherboard (look for socket type), power supply unit (look for power consumption) etc. Useful when planning a future computer configuration or upgrading an existing one. Note that power consumption of some processors can well exceed their nominal TDP, even without overclocking. Some can even double their declared thermals given that the motherboard allows to tune the CPU power parameters.

Number of CPUs in a configuration1 (Uniprocessor)of 8 (Opteron 842)
SocketFCBGA1356
Power consumption (TDP)15 Wattof 500 Watt (Xeon 6960P)

Technologies and extensions

Technological capabilities and additional instructions supported by Core i7-6500U. You'll probably need this information if you require some particular technology.

Instruction set extensionsIntel® SSE4.1, Intel® SSE4.2, Intel® AVX2
AES-NI+
AVX+
Enhanced SpeedStep (EIST)+
My WiFi+
Turbo Boost Technology2.0
Hyper-Threading Technology+
Idle States+
Thermal Monitoring+
Flex Memory Access+
Smart Response+

Security technologies

Processor technologies aimed at improving security, for example, by protecting against hacks.

TXT-
EDB+
Secure Key+
MPX+
Identity Protection+
SGXYes with Intel® ME
OS Guard+

Virtualization technologies

Supported virtual machine optimization technologies. Some are specific to Intel only, some to AMD.

AMD-V+
VT-d+
VT-x+
EPT+

Memory specs

Types, maximum amount and channel number of RAM supported by Core i7-6500U's memory controller. Depending on the motherboard, higher memory frequency may be supported.

Supported memory typesDDR3, DDR4
Maximum memory size32 GBof 6 TiB (EPYC 9124)
Max memory channels2of 12 (Xeon Platinum 9221)
Maximum memory bandwidth34.134 GB/sof 460.8 GB/s (EPYC 9124)

Graphics specifications

General parameters of a GPU integrated into Core i7-6500U.

Integrated graphics cardIntel HD Graphics 520
Max video memory32 GB
Quick Sync Video+
Clear Video+
Clear Video HD+
Graphics max frequency1.05 GHz
InTru 3D+

Graphics interfaces

Available interfaces and connections of Core i7-6500U's integrated GPU.

Number of displays supported3
eDP+
DisplayPort+
HDMI+
DVI+

Graphics image quality

Maximum display resolutions supported by Core i7-6500U's integrated GPU, including resolutions over different interfaces.

4K resolution support+
Max resolution over HDMI 1.44096x2304@24Hz
Max resolution over eDP4096x2304@60Hz
Max resolution over DisplayPort4096x2304@60Hz
Max resolution over VGAN/A

Graphics API support

APIs supported by Core i7-6500U's integrated GPU, sometimes API versions are included.

DirectX12
OpenGL4.5

Peripherals

Specifications and connection types of supported peripherals.

PCIe version3.0of 5.0 (Core i9-12900K)
PCI Express lanes12of 128 (EPYC 7551P)

Benchmark performance

Single-core and multi-core benchmark results of Core i7-6500U. Overall benchmark performance is measured in points in 0-100 range, higher is better.


Combined synthetic benchmark score

This is our combined benchmark performance rating. We are regularly improving our combining algorithms, but if you find some perceived inconsistencies, feel free to speak up in comments section, we usually fix problems quickly.

i7-6500U 2.06

Passmark

Passmark CPU Mark is a widespread benchmark, consisting of 8 different types of workload, including integer and floating point math, extended instructions, compression, encryption and physics calculation. There is also one separate single-threaded scenario measuring single-core performance.

i7-6500U 3276

GeekBench 5 Single-Core

GeekBench 5 Single-Core is a cross-platform application developed in the form of CPU tests that independently recreate certain real-world tasks with which to accurately measure performance. This version uses only a single CPU core.

i7-6500U 719

GeekBench 5 Multi-Core

GeekBench 5 Multi-Core is a cross-platform application developed in the form of CPU tests that independently recreate certain real-world tasks with which to accurately measure performance. This version uses all available CPU cores.

i7-6500U 1641

Cinebench 10 32-bit single-core

Cinebench R10 is an ancient ray tracing benchmark for processors by Maxon, authors of Cinema 4D. Its single core version uses just one CPU thread to render a futuristic looking motorcycle.

i7-6500U 4886

Cinebench 10 32-bit multi-core

Cinebench Release 10 Multi Core is a variant of Cinebench R10 using all the processor threads. Possible number of threads is limited by 16 in this version.

i7-6500U 10844

3DMark06 CPU

3DMark06 is a discontinued DirectX 9 benchmark suite from Futuremark. Its CPU part contains two scenarios, one dedicated to artificial intelligence pathfinding, another to game physics using PhysX package.

i7-6500U 4231

Cinebench 11.5 64-bit multi-core

Cinebench Release 11.5 Multi Core is a variant of Cinebench R11.5 which uses all the processor threads. A maximum of 64 threads is supported in this version.

i7-6500U 4

Cinebench 15 64-bit multi-core

Cinebench Release 15 Multi Core is a variant of Cinebench R15 which uses all the processor threads.

i7-6500U 316

Cinebench 15 64-bit single-core

Cinebench R15 (standing for Release 15) is a benchmark made by Maxon, authors of Cinema 4D. It was superseded by later versions of Cinebench, which use more modern variants of Cinema 4D engine. The Single Core version (sometimes called Single-Thread) only uses a single processor thread to render a room full of reflective spheres and light sources.

i7-6500U 128

Cinebench 11.5 64-bit single-core

Cinebench R11.5 is an old benchmark by Maxon, authors of Cinema 4D. It was superseded by later versions of Cinebench, which use more modern variants of Cinema 4D engine. The Single Core version loads a single thread with ray tracing to render a glossy room full of crystal spheres and light sources.

i7-6500U 1.46

TrueCrypt AES

TrueCrypt is a discontinued piece of software that was widely used for on-the-fly-encryption of disk partitions, now superseded by VeraCrypt. It contains several embedded performance tests, one of them being TrueCrypt AES, which measures data encryption speed using AES algorithm. Result is encryption speed in gigabytes per second.

i7-6500U 1.8

WinRAR 4.0

WinRAR 4.0 is an outdated version of a popular file archiver. It contains an internal speed test, using 'Best' setting of RAR compression on large chunks of randomly generated data. Its results are measured in kilobytes per second.

i7-6500U 2482

x264 encoding pass 2

x264 Pass 2 is a slower variant of x264 video compression that produces a variable bit rate output file, which results in better quality since the higher bit rate is used when it is needed more. Benchmark result is still measured in frames per second.  

i7-6500U 20

x264 encoding pass 1

x264 version 4.0 is a video encoding benchmark uses MPEG 4 x264 compression method to compress a sample HD (720p) video. Pass 1 is a faster variant that produces a constant bit rate output file. Its result is measured in frames per second, which means how many frames of the source video file were encoded per second.  

i7-6500U 105

Geekbench 3 32-bit multi-core

i7-6500U 6489

Geekbench 3 32-bit single-core

i7-6500U 2998

Geekbench 2

i7-6500U 7572

3DMark Fire Strike Physics

i7-6500U 2830

Geekbench 4.0 64-bit multi-core

i7-6500U 7303

Geekbench 4.0 64-bit single-core

i7-6500U 3872

Gaming performance

Closest competitors

Core i7-6500U's performance relative to its closest rivals among notebook CPUs.


Celeron N5100 100.49
Core i7-6500U 100

AMD equivalent

According to our data, the closest AMD alternative to Core i7-6500U is Ryzen Embedded R1600, which is nearly equal in speed and lower by 1 position in our ranking.

Here are some closest AMD rivals to Core i7-6500U:

Ryzen 3 2200U 109.71
FX-9830P 101.94
Core i7-6500U 100
FX-7500 98.06
A10-5757M 94.17

Similar processors

Here is our recommendation of several processors that are more or less close in performance to the one reviewed.

Recommended GPUs

People consider these graphics cards to be good for Core i7-6500U, according to our PC configuration statistics.

These are the fastest graphics cards for Core i7-6500U in our user configuration statistics. There is a total of 8207 configurations using Core i7-6500U in our database.

RTX 4090 GeForce RTX 4090
0.5% (45/8207)
RTX 4080 GeForce RTX 4080
0.01% (1/8207)
RTX 4070 Ti GeForce RTX 4070 Ti
0.02% (2/8207)
RTX 3090 Ti GeForce RTX 3090 Ti
0.06% (5/8207)
PRO W7800 Radeon PRO W7800
0.01% (1/8207)
RTX 3080 Ti GeForce RTX 3080 Ti
0.09% (7/8207)
RTX 4070 GeForce RTX 4070
0.02% (2/8207)
RX 6900 XT Radeon RX 6900 XT
0.01% (1/8207)
RTX 3090 GeForce RTX 3090
0.01% (1/8207)

All comparisons with Core i7-6500U

Community ratings

Here is the rating given to the reviewed processor by our users. Let others know your opinion by rating it yourself.


3.5 379 votes

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Questions & comments

Here you can ask a question about Core i7-6500U, agree or disagree with our judgements, or report an error or mismatch.