You get the i5-680 that is essentially a 3.6 GHz CPU with a basic 2 core Technology. Other interesting bits include its lithography is 32nm and more importantly is the Intel Smart Cash that runs at 4MB

Then there is the i5-760 that is essentially a 2.8 GHz CPU with an impressive 4 core Technology. The lithography is 45nm and it has a stunning Smart Cash capability of up to 8MB.

So both CPU’s are good, well are they? No... Here is the slapper for you, even with quad core and its 8MB cash capability it is not that impressive. The devil as always sits in the details, No Hyper Treading, no Intel Virtualization Technology and no AES.

The truth as it is, stands with the i5-680 and I cannot understand why such a powerful CPU as the i5 760 had to be so severely limited. Still if you look at all the supporting technology of the i5-680 it is worth mentioning that you need a reasonable motherboard “main-board” to support all of those functions.

So here are the bits that matter most.

Technology (micron): i5-680 = 0.032 | i5-760 = 0.045
Frequency (MHz): i5-680 = 3600 | i5-760 = 2800

Turbo Frequency (MHz): i5-680 = 3867 / 3733 | i5-760 = 3467 / 3333 / 2933 / 2933

Clock Multiplier: i5-680 = NA | i5-760 =21

L1 cache: i5-680 = 64 KB (code) / 64 KB (data) | i5-760 = 128 KB (code) / 128 KB (data)

L2 cache (KB): i5-680 = 512 | i5-760 = 1024
L3 cache (KB): i5-680 = 4096 | i5-760 = 8192

TDP (Watt): i5-680= 73 | i5-760 = 95
Cores: i5-680 = 2 | i5-760 = 4

So now are the limitations a good thing and do you go for the i5-760 or is supported technologies more important and do you go for i5-680?