Intel Core i3-N305 vs Intel Celeron J3455

Intel Core i3-N305

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. 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

We have not tested a single system built around the N305, as of September 2023. Expect the chip to be 50% to 100% faster than the N95 (4 cores, 4 threads, up to 3.4 GHz).

Your mileage may vary depending on how high the CPU power limits are and how competent the cooling solutuion of your system is.

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 15 W and can be configured down to 9 W. The CPU is built with a further improved 10nm SuperFin process at Intel (called Intel 7).

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.