▷ Intel celeron and intel pentium 【all the information】

The processor is a fundamental element in a PC, for this reason it is very important to understand all its characteristics, as it will be the only way to choose the model that is suitable for our needs. In this post we present the Intel Celeron and Intel Pentium processors, which are the low range of the Intel offer, although this does not mean that they are far from bad, since on many occasions they are the most recommended to acquire.

Index of contents

Pentium and Celeron, understanding the low range of Intel processors

Intel processors are the most common in computers, making all users familiar with names like Celeron, Pentium and Core, but not everyone knows their differences. In this post we will focus on Celeron, Pentium models, leaving the Core for another occasion.

Intel Celeron processors arrived on the market in 1998, and from the first moment it stood out as the company's economic offer, that is, it represents its low range of processors. These processors gained a lot of popularity in the emerging markets, due to their low price and very satisfactory performance.

As we have said above, the first Celeron processor was launched in 1998, this model was based on the Intel Pentium II. The Celeron processor offered lower performance than the Pentium on which it was based, but it was considerably cheaper so it was a great opportunity to increase the presence in emerging markets, whose users had low purchasing power. With the birth of the Celeron family, the new Slot 1 socket was also born , which was different from the standardized Socket 7 in that it was an Intel proprietary socket and impossible to use by its rivals, such as AMD.

Until then, the AMD and Intel processors shared the same socket, so the user could choose any of them regardless of the motherboard used. With Slot 1, Intel ended this situation, making competition more difficult and forcing users to choose their processors in case of updating the equipment.

Celeron processors can perform the same basic tasks as the rest of the models, with the difference that their performance will be lower. This is because they have fewer resources like caches, and some advanced functionality is disabled.

Recommended models Intel Celeron

Currently Intel Celeron processors offer a configuration of between two and four cores. All of them are based on Intel's low-power architecture, better known as Gemini Lake in its current iteration. All these processors have a very low power consumption, with a TDP that reaches 10W maximum. This makes them highly suitable processors for environments where high processing power is not required, such as small business offices, schools and for example Torrent file download equipment.

All current Celeron processors offer an L3 cache of up to 4MB. These processors are the least recommended if you need a high performance system due to their limitations. The following table summarizes all the most important features of Celeron Gemini Lake processors.

Intel Celeron Gemini Lake
	Cores	Threads	Base frequency (GHz)	Turbo Frequency (GHz)	iGPU	L3 cache (MB)	TDP (W)
Celeron J4005	two	4	two	2.7	UHD 605	4	10
Celeron J4105	4	4	1.5	2.5	UHD 605	4	10
Celeron N4000	two	4	1.1	2.6	UHD 600	4	6.5
Celeron N4100	4	4	1.1	2.4	UHD 600	4	6.5

Many NAS are using Celeron processors by offering better performance than an ARM CPU

A step above the Celerons we have the Pentium processors. The Pentium brand originated in 1993 and has since undergone such a major transformation that it does not retain any of the original features. Pentium processors were born as Intel's high-end offering, that is, they were the most powerful processors in the company and usually the best and most advanced on the market. This situation changed in 2006 with the arrival of the Core 2 Duo, since then the Pentium brand has been relegated to a second echelon. Since 2009, the Pentium brand has been used to define mid-range processors, one notch above the Celeron but below the Core.

Pentium Silver and Pentium Gold, big differences

Currently, Pentium processors fall into two categories: Pentium Silver and Pentium Gold. The Pentium Silver are based on the same low-power architecture as the Celeron, the difference is that their operating frequencies are somewhat higher so they are slightly more powerful, they also usually include more powerful integrated graphics. The following table summarizes all the most important features of Pentium Silver processors.

Intel Pentium Silver
	Cores	Threads	Base frequency (GHz)	Turbo Frequency (GHz)	iGPU	L3 cache (MB)	TDP (W)
Pentium Silver N5000	4	4	1.1	2.7	UHD 605	4	10
Pentium Silver J5005	4	4	1.5	2.8	UHD 605	4	10

As for the Pentium Golds, these are based on the high-performance architecture of Intel, currently known as Coffee Lake. These processors offer a dual-core and four-wire configuration, due to their nature they are more powerful than the Pentium Silver despite having a lower number of cores. The following table summarizes all the most important features of Pentium Gold processors.

Coffee Lake is manufactured using Intel's 14nm + Tri Gate process, the world's most advanced manufacturing process, enabling these processors to be very energy efficient and to achieve very high operating frequencies. These processors maintain the LGA 1151 socket even though they need 300 series chipsets to function. What does this mean? They are not compatible with the 200 series motherboards that were released earlier this year to host Kaby Lake processors. The exact reason for this incompatibility has not been officially disclosed.

Intel Pentium Gold
	Cores	Threads	Frequency (GHz)	iGPU	L3 cache (MB)	TDP (W)
Pentium Gold G5400T	two	4	3.1	UHD 610	4	35
Pentium Gold G5400	two	4	3.7	UHD 610	4	58
Pentium Gold G5500T	two	4	3.2	UHD 610	4	35
Pentium Gold G5500	two	4	3.8	UHD 630	4	58
Pentium Gold G5600	two	4	3.9	UHD 630	4	58

News from Gemini Lake, Intel's new low-power architecture

Gemini Lake is Intel's third-generation low-power SoC manufactured using the company's 14nm manufacturing technology. Gemini Lake is an evolution of the Apollo Lake chips released last year, although there are a number of differences that seem important. The relative maturity of the manufacturing process is expected to allow Intel to increase the transistor count of the new chip without increasing consumption, enabling higher performance and a potentially improved feature set.

The cores within Gemini Lake are accompanied by 4MB of L2 cache, which we believe to be a top tier unified cache, and which is double what is offered at Apollo Lake. Extended cache can positively affect performance in various applications, as a rule of thumb, doubling a cache reduces the square root error rate at the expense of latency and power, but dramatic increases in performance are not expected compared to Apollo Lake across the board.

Intel claims that the new Pentium Silver N5000 and J5005 processors are 58-68% faster than previous Pentium N3540 and J2900 chips in SYSMark 2014 SE. The improvement seems significant, especially considering the higher clocks on these previous processors, but it's not that surprising when you consider that the old Silvermont cores were equipped with smaller caches and featured a single-channel DDR3 memory controller, Compared to Gemini Lake dual channel DDR4 memory. The new Gemini Lake platform is also more energy efficient than the Bay Trail platform introduced almost four years ago due to architectural innovations and 14nm vs 22nm process technology.

Regarding graphics, Gemini Lake uses the same iGPU as Apollo Lake but with updated features. The Gen9LP core with up to 18 EU operates at a frequency of 250-800 MHz and supports the Direct3D Feature Level 12_1 feature set. Meanwhile, the iGPU is equipped with the next-generation media engine found in Kaby Lake processors that features 4K HEVC and VP9 (8-bit and 10-bit) video hardware encoding / decoding.

These processors are equipped with the Intel Gen10 display controller that supports native HDMI 2.0 output, as well as Local Adaptive Contrast Enhancement (LACE), designed to improve visibility of glare and bright light. So while the graphics performance of the Gemini Lake iGPU is no higher compared to the direct predecessor, the revamped media engine, LACE support, and new display line allow Intel to call it the new UHD Graphics 600 series..

As for the memory subsystem, Gemini Lake SoCs have a 128-bit memory controller that supports DDR4 and LPDDR3 / 4 at up to 2400 MT / s, but is no longer compatible with DDR3L, which is a standard anyway. outgoing. It is possible to equip a Gemini Lake SoC with a memory subsystem that offers up to 38.4 GB / s of bandwidth. Also, DDR4 memory support will allow original equipment manufacturers to build cheaper systems because DDR3L is currently more expensive.

Moving on to storage and connectivity. Gemini Lake supports up to two SATA hard drives and PCIe 2.0 x2 / x4 SSDs, as well as eMMC 5.1 storage solutions. As for I / O interfaces, the new SoCs include USB 3.0 / 2.0, USB Type-C, SPI, SDXC, and other modern buses.

The most important addition related to I / O are the MAC CNV (Connectivity Integration Architecture) blocks for Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and baseband modem. The addition of the CNVi is quite important because it allows Intel partners among original equipment manufacturers to install a relatively inexpensive RF module that supports the required wireless connectivity standards, rather than buying a more expensive adapter. Since Gemini Lake SoCs cost exactly the same amount of money as their predecessors, the CNVi architecture enables PC manufacturers to cut costs for at least some of their SKUs. Unfortunately, since Intel doesn't disclose the prices of its CNVi RF modules and Wi-F + BT models, we don't know how significant those savings could be.

For Gemini Lake-based devices, Intel proposes to use the Wireless-AC 9560 engine that supports Wi-Fi 802.11ac wave2 with 160 MHz channels along with Bluetooth 5.0. The Wireless-AC 9560 supports up to a 1.73 Gbps downlink with MU-MIMO, which is why Intel announces the Gigabit Wi-Fi connection. Not all Gemini Lake based systems will use the Wireless-AC 9560 as the PCIe Wi-Fi controllers are perfectly compatible with the new SoCs and if an OEM has a load of previous generation Wi-Fi chips they will be using it for your next PCs. The Gemini Lake TDP levels for desktops and laptops have not changed and remain at 10W and 6W, respectively . Meanwhile, the SDP of mobile models will increase to 4.8W from 4W, which will be important for new designs.

Speaking of designs, it should be noted that Gemini Lake SoCs use the new FCBGA1090 package and are therefore not compatible with the predecessors. The new package measures 25 × 24mm and is smaller than the FCBGA1296 package used for Apollo Lake SoCs measuring 24 × 31mm. The new SoC form factor will allow original equipment manufacturers to make PCBs for their Gemini Lake-based systems slightly smaller and save space for the battery. Furthermore, it stands to reason that Intel will encourage PC makers to use BGA SSDs and eMMC storage devices with its Gemini Lake-based offerings to make them sleeker and / or install a larger accumulator to provide longer battery life.

The Gemini Lake platform has been around in Intel's public plans for quite some time, chip maker platforms started showing it on their roadmaps in the middle of the year. Most Gemini Lake-based products were due in 2018, so the formal announcement in mid-December, three weeks before OEMs showed their designs at CES was a surprise.

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What is noteworthy about the Gemini Lake SoCs is that the CPU base frequencies have not changed compared to Apollo Lake, and the turbo frequencies only slightly increased by 200 MHz, less than 10%. Therefore, all of the general-use performance benefits Gemini Lake may have over its immediate predecessors will stem from larger caches and any microarchitectural optimizations the new cores may have. Certainly, the new extensions to the instruction set will bring their benefits, but only after the software starts using them.

This ends our post on Intel Celeron and Pentium processors, remember you can leave a comment if you have something else to add. You can also share the post on social networks, this way you can reach more users who need it.