Core i5-560M: CPU benchmarks and laptop guide

The Intel Core i5-560M is the faster-clocked sibling of the 540M, another Arrandale dual-core from 2010, and five catalog laptops carry it. Against the 69 games the catalog tracks it clears the recommended CPU tier for zero of them, and it sits below every listed minimum. This guide covers where the chip ranks among laptop processors, what it delivers, and which second-hand machines you will find it in.

Where the Core i5-560M sits in 2026

A catalog score of 0.38 puts the chip 734th of 741 scored laptop CPUs — inside the bottom ten of the entire table. The surrounding ranks tell the story: a Core i3-3110M (0.4) and a Celeron N3060 (0.4) sit level with or just above it, a Core i7-2637M (0.6) and Celeron N2940 (0.6) a step higher, while the Celeron N2840 and N2830 (0.3 each) trail just below. Even within its own neighborhood the 560M holds no performance claim — this is budget-baseline silicon from a distant generation.

What the chip brings

Arrandale pairs 2 cores with 4 threads on a 32 nm process, at 35 W: 2.66 GHz base and up to 3.2 GHz on boost. Public benchmarks record a single-core score of 409 and a multi-core score of 752 — effectively identical to the rest of the 2010 mid-range and a fraction of what a modern entry-level processor delivers. For everyday 2026 use, that translates into serviceable browsing and document work, with patience required for anything heavier.

Games: CPU-side readiness

Measured purely as a processor, the chip meets the recommended CPU tier for 0 of 69 cataloged games, and it falls below the minimum tier for all 69. Titles as light as Minecraft, Dota 2, Valorant and League of Legends all list it under their minimum CPU requirement, let alone modern releases. These verdicts are CPU-only — actual playability also depends on the laptop's GPU and RAM, which on this hardware generation are equally outpaced.

Laptops that carry it

All five roster machines are business models: HP's ProBook 6550b at $127 and ProBook 6450b at $120, the EliteBook 2540p at $110, the convertible EliteBook 2740p at $140, and Dell's Latitude E6410 at $127 — machines built between 2010 and 2013. The laptops around it typically show a median gaming index of 28, office comfort of 30, portability of about 42, and a performance index of about 14 — solid corporate hardware for its day, now priced as inexpensive used laptops.

Bottom line

The Core i5-560M belongs to the legacy tier in 2026: it is a processor for a cheap, expendable used laptop that handles web, documents and video without ambition. With zero of 69 games cleared and a place in the bottom ten of a 741-chip table, no buyer should approach it for gaming or demanding work. Its $110–$140 business-chassis machines remain attractive only for their sturdy build and rock-bottom prices.