Intel Atom Z3775 vs Intel Pentium N3530

Intel Atom Z3775

The Intel Atom Z3775 is a power efficient quad-core SoC for Windows and Android tablets. It is clocked at 1.46 - 2.39 GHz and part of the Bay Trail-T 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 its predecessor.

Compared to the Z3770, the Z3775 is based on the new C0 stepping and offers a slightly increased GPU clock rate.

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 4 CPU cores and a clock speed of 1.46 - 2.39 GHz, the Z3775 is significantly faster than previous Intel Atoms, e.g. the Z2760. The Z3775 even beats some of the Kabini APUs like the AMD A4-5000, as well as ARM SoCs like Tegra 4 and the Snapdragon 800. For everyday tasks such as Internet or Office the performance is adequate, but not for very complex software or modern games.

Graphics

The HD Graphics (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 of up to 778 MHz, the GPU is even slower than the HD Graphics (Ivy Bridge) and comparable to the Qualcomm Adreno 320 (as found in the Snapdragon 600). Therefore, only older and less demanding Windows games will run fluently. However, video acceleration and display resolutions up to 2560 x 1600 pixels are no problem for the chip.

Power Consumption

The entire SoC is rated at an SDP of 2 watts, which indicates a TDP of less than 4 watts. Thus, the chip can be used in passively cooled tablets.

Intel Pentium N3530

The Intel Pentium N3530 is a power efficient quad-core SoC for entry-level notebooks. It is clocked at 2.16 GHz base clock and can boost up to 2.58 GHz (Burst clock speed). The Pentium is 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.

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 4 CPU cores and a clock speed of up to 2.6 GHz, the Pentium N3530 is significantly faster than previous Intel Atoms, e.g. the N2800. According to our benchmark tests, the performance is somewhere between the AMD Kabini APUs A4-5100 and A6-5200. For everyday tasks such as Internet or Office the N3530 is adequate, but not for very complex software or modern games.

Graphics

The HD Graphics (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 of 313 - 896 MHz, the GPU is even slower than the HD Graphics (Ivy Bridge). Therefore, only older and less demanding games will run fluently. Compared to the HD Graphics in the slower Pentium N3510 and N3520, the N3530 is clocked slightly faster (750/854 MHz vs. 896 MHz).

Power Consumption

The entire SoC is rated at a TDP of 7.5 Watts (4.5 SDP - Scenario Design Power). Thus, the chip can be used in compact subnotebooks and convertibles.