Intel Core i3-N300 vs Intel Pentium Silver J5040

Intel Core i3-N300

The Intel Core i3-N305 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 8 efficient cores (E-cores, Gracemont architecture). The chip does not support HyperThreading and clocks with up to 3.8 GHz (single core, 3 GHz all core Turbo). 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 performance depends on the cooling and TDP settings and should be somewhere similar to the old  Alder Lake Pentium 8500 (1 performance core, 4 efficiency cores, max. 4.4 GHz and 8 MB L3-cache). The multi-threaded performance should be quite good with the 8 cores but will suffer due to the low TDP. Single thread performance will suffer due to the missing P-cores and relatively low boost clock speeds.

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 offersall 32 EUs (Execution Units) operating at up to 1.25 GHz. In addition to the single channel memory, the gaming performance is very limited of the iGPU.

Power consumption

The i3 has a base power consumption of 7 W and is therefore even suited for fanless cooling. The CPU is built with a further improved 10nm SuperFin process at Intel (called Intel 7).

Intel Pentium Silver J5040

The Intel Pentium Silver J5040 is a quad-core SoC primarily for inexpensive mini-PCs and was announced late 2019. It runs at 2 GHz (base) to 3.2 GHz (single core burst) and is based on the Gemini Lake platform (refresh). Similar to the Apollo Lake predecessor, the chip is manufactured in a 14 nm process with FinFETs but offers slightly improved processor cores, double the amount of L2 cache, a smaller package, a better GPU architecture and a partly integrated WiFi support. Besides four CPU cores, the chip also includes a DirectX 12 capable GPU as well as a DDR4/LPDDR4 memory controller (dual-channel, up to 2400 MHz). The SoC is not replaceable as it is directly soldered to the mainboard.

Architecture

The processor architecture is still called Goldmont Plus. Compared to the older Goldmont cores in Apollo Lake, they feature an increased level 2 cache (to 4 MB). That means the per-clock-performance should be a bit better, but not near the Core CPUs like Kaby Lake Y.

Performance

Thanks to the higher clock speed and TDP, the Pentium J5040 is slightly faster than the mobile counterpart, the Pentium Silver N5030. Compare to AMD, it ranks on average slightly higher compared to the Athlon Silver 3050e (Zen based Dual-Core) that wins in single-core tests but looses out in multi-threaded tests. Intel Core i3 from 2019 (like the i3-1005G1) are clearly faster and win even in multi-threaded tests easily although being only dual-core CPUs.

GPU Performance

The UHD Graphics 605 (Gemini Lake) is based on Intel's Gen9 architecture, which supports DirectX 12 and is also used for the Kaby Lake / Skylake / Apollo Lake graphics adapters (like HD Graphics 520). Equipped with 18 EUs and a clock of up to 800 MHz, the performance should be roughly on par with the older HD Graphics 5300 and HD Graphics 505 (Apollo Lake).

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 J-variant of the Gemini Lake SoCs are specified at 10W TDP and therefore higher than the mobile N variants (6 Watt).