Intel Processor N100 vs MediaTek Kompanio 520

Intel Processor N100

The Intel Processor N100 is an entry-level mobile CPU for thin and light laptops from the Alder Lake-N series. It was announced in early 2023 and offers no performance cores and 4 of the 8 efficient cores (E-cores, Gracemont architecture). The chip does not support HyperThreading and clocks with 1 to 3.4 GHz. The performance of the E-cores should be similar to old Skylake cores (compare to the Core i7-6700HQ). All cores can use up to 6 MB L3-cache.

Performance

The average N100 in our database delivers unimpressive multi-thread benchmark scores that are most similar to those of the Core i3-1115G4. The chip is fast enough for many day-to-day tasks, but not much more than that; the other thing to keep in mind is that of the two N100-toting systems tested by us as of October 2023, both have rather high CPU power limits. The chip will be noticeably slower if limited to just six or seven Watts.

Features

The Alder Lake-N chips only support single channel memory with up to DDR5-4800, DDR4-3200 or LPDDR5-4800. The chip also supports Quick Sync and AV1 decoding (most likely same engine as in Alder Lake). Furthermore, Wi-Fi 6E and Bluetooth 5.2 are partly integrated (but no Thunderbolt). External chips can be connected via PCIe Gen3 x9 (via the PCH).

The integrated graphics adapter is based on the Xe-architecture and offers only 24 of the 32 EUs (Execution Units) operating at only 450 - 750 MHz. Due to the single channel memory, low clock speeds, and low shader count, the gaming performance of the iGPU is very limited.

Power consumption

The N100 has a base power consumption of only 6 W and is therefore suited for fanless cooling. The CPU is built with a further improved 10nm SuperFin process at Intel (called Intel 7).

MediaTek Kompanio 520

The MediaTek Kompanio 520 is an ARM-based octa-core SoC for ChromeBooks. It integrates eight CPU cores in two clusters. The performance cluster uses two ARM Cortex-A76 with up to 2 GHz. The efficiency cluster uses six small ARM Cortex-A55 cores, also with up to 2 GHz. The memory controller supports LPDDR4x-3733 and the Kompanio supports eMMC 5.1 with Hardware Command Queue for the memory connection.

The integrated graphics card is also from ARM (Mali G52 MC2 2EE) with two cores. The GPU can control a maximum of two displays simultaneously (2520x1080 60Hz internal and 1920x1080 60Hz external).

Wi-Fi is not directly integrated, but the combination with the MediaTek Filogic Wi-Fi 6 chip is intended.

The chip is manufactured in the older 7nm process.