Intel Celeron 2950M vs Intel Celeron 2981U

The Intel Celeron 2950M is an entry-level dual-core processor clocked at 2.0 GHz and was launched in Fall 2013. It is based on the Haswell architecture and is manufactured in 22nm. Compared to the Core i3, Core i5 and Core i7 CPUs, many features like Turbo Boost, Hyper-Threading, AVX and AES-NI are disabled.

Haswell is the successor to the Ivy Bridge architecture with improvements on both GPU and CPU performance. The CPUs are produced in 22nm and offer an optimized branch prediction as well as additional execution ports, improving performance per clock by almost 10 percent.

The performance of the Celeron 2950M is slightly below the old and somewhat higher clocked Ivy Bridge-based Pentium 2020M. The CPU has sufficient power for office and multimedia purposes as well as most other applications.

The integrated HD Graphics (Haswell) offers 10 Execution Units (EUs) clocked at 400 - 1100 MHz, making it somewhat faster than the former HD Graphics (Ivy Bridge). However, the HD Graphics (Haswell) is significantly slower than the HD Graphics 4600 found on a number of other Haswell dual-cores.

The Celeron 2950M is rated at a TDP of 37 W including the graphics card, memory controller and the VRMs. Therefore, the CPU is suited for medium-sized notebooks 13 - 14 inches or greater.

The Intel Celeron 2981U is an entry level, ULV (ultra low voltage) dual-core processor clocked at 1.6 GHz which has been presented in Q1 2014. It is based on the Haswell architecture and manufactured in 22nm. Compared to the Core i3, Core i5 and Core i7 CPUs, many features like Turbo Boost, Hyper-Threading, AVX and AES-NI are deactivated. In contrast to the very similar Celeron 2980U, the 2981U supports Wireless Display (WiDi) as well as Quick Sync.

Haswell is the successor to the Ivy Bridge architecture with improvements on both GPU and CPU performance. The CPUs are produced in 22nm and offer an optimized branch prediction as well as additional execution ports, improving performance per clock by almost 10 percent.

The performance of the Celeron 2981U is similar to the old and slightly higher clocked Celeron 1037U, which is based on Ivy Bridge. The CPU has sufficient power for most office and multimedia purposes.

The integrated HD Graphics (Haswell) offers 10 Execution Units (EUs) clocked at 200 - 1000 MHz (with Turbo Boost), making it somewhat faster than the former HD Graphics (Ivy Bridge). However, the HD Graphics (Haswell) is significantly slower than the HD Graphics 4400 and HD Graphics 5000 of other Haswell ULV models.

The Celeron 2981U is rated at a TDP of 15 W including graphics card, memory controller, VRMs and the integrated chipset.  Therefore, the CPU is suited for small ultrabooks 11-inches or greater.