Which score in a comparison of two CPUs means it's better?

Question

Processors

Hello.
Perhaps it was not very clear expressed in the question itself, but the essence lies in the comparison. But on a specific example:
Let's take some i5, load up to 50%, take i7, load the same task, it will probably be about 30%.
As far as I know, these % indicate the CPU time used (MHz).
For some reason, most applications do not load the processor up to 100% and instead are delayed by 30 and just think for a long time. Although, as I understand it, to use 100%, you need to program the program for multi-core.
The question itself.
Does it mean that in this case, i7 has no advantage over i5? i5 is not loaded at 100%, which means that the speed of the task, in theory, will be the same, because i5 has not reached the limit of its performance.
Sincerely,
Robert.

Answer 1

Let's take some i5, load up to 50%, take i7, load the same task, it will probably be about 30%.

Well, if you compile while(1), the load will be maximum in both cases. archiver - is also maximum in both cases. but i7 will do it in less time
Yes sir. the full load of one core of a quad-core processor in the task manager will be shown as 25% (12.5% ​​if there is support for Hyper Threading). so don't trust percentages.
archiving data, encoding video, performing mathematical calculations - all this will be done faster on a more powerful processor. If you are on the Internet and watching movies, you will not notice the difference at all. If you often compile complex FPGA projects, you will definitely want to buy an i7 so that you have to wait half an hour less to compile