Intel Celeron J3455 vs Intel Celeron N2808

Intel Celeron J3455

The Intel Celeron J3355 is a quad-core SoC primarily for inexpensive notebooks and Mini-PCs and was announced in late 2016. It runs at 1.5 - 2.3 GHz (Single Core Burst) and is based on the Apollo Lake platform. Similar to the Braswell predecessor, the chip is manufactured in a 14 nm process (P1273) with FinFETs. Besides two CPU cores, the chip also includes a DirectX 12 capable GPU as well as a DDR3L/LPDDR3/LPDDR4 memory controller (dual-channel, up to 1866/2400 MHz).

Architecture

For the first time in a couple of years, Intel completely reworked the CPU architecture of the Atom series. The manufacturer advertises performance gains of roughly 30 percent, but does not reveal any specifics about the individual changes. The new Goldmont architecture should therefore be roughly on par with AMD's Beema/Carrizo-L APUs in terms of per-MHz performance, but it still far behind the more expensive Core CPUs (like Skylake / Kaby Lake).

Performance

The CPU performance of the Celeron J3455 is between the mobile Celeron N3450 and Pentium N4200 in the lower range of mobile processors. Therefore, the CPU is best suited for light tasks with not much multitasking (office, browsing).

GPU Performance

The HD Graphics 500 (Apollo Lake) is based on Intel's Gen9 architecture, which supports DirectX 12 and is also used for the Kaby Lake / Skylake graphics adapters (like HD Graphics 520). Equipped with 12 EUs and a clock of up to 750 MHz, the performance should be roughly on par with the older HD Graphics (Braswell). This means only older and simpler titles will run smoothly.

The chip also includes an advanced video engine with hardware support for the playback of VP9 and H.265 material (8-bit color-depth).

Power Consumption

The Celeron J3455 is specified at 10 Watt TDP and therefore 4 Watts higher than the slightly faster Pentium N4200.

Intel Celeron N2808

The Intel Celeron N2808 is a power efficient dual-core SoC for entry-level notebooks. It is clocked at 1.58 - 2.25 GHz and part of the Bay Trail-M platform. Thanks to the specially optimized 22 nanometer low-power process (P1271) with tri-gate transistors, performance and energy efficiency have been significantly improved compared to previous Intel Atom CPUs. The N2808 supports Intel Quick Sync and Wireless Display.

Architecture

The processor cores are based on the new Silvermont architecture, which is an out-of-order design for the first time. The increased utilization of the pipeline and many other improvements (optimized branch prediction, increased buffers, enhanced decoders) have increased the performance per clock by about 50 percent. At the same time, however, the Hyper-Threading feature of the previous generation has been removed. Other major changes are the support for new instruction set extensions such as SSE 4.1 and 4.2 as well as AES-NI (depending on the model).

Performance

Thanks to the improved performance per clock, the Celeron N2808 is clearly faster than previous Intel Atoms, e.g. the N2800. Depending on the benchmark, the N2808 competes with AMD APUs like the AMD E2-2000. For simple everyday tasks such as Internet or Office the performance is adequate, but not for more complex software or modern games.

Graphics

The graphics unit of Bay Trail is based on the Intel Gen7 architecture, which supports DirectX 11 and is also found in the Ivy Bridge series (e.g. HD Graphics 4000). With only 4 EUs (Execution Units) and a relatively low clock speed (313 - 792 MHz) , the GPU is even slower than the HD Graphics (Ivy Bridge). Therefore, only older and less demanding games will run fluently.

Power Consumption

The entire SoC is rated at a TDP of 4.3 watts (3 W SDP). Thus, the chip can be used in compact subnotebooks.