Intel Core i5-1155G7 vs Intel Celeron J4025

Intel Core i5-1155G7

The Intel Core i5-1155G7 is a power efficient quad-core SoC for laptops and Ultrabooks based on the Tiger Lake-U generation that was announced in mid 2021 as part of the refresh. It integrates four Willow Cove processor cores (8 threads thanks to HyperThreading). The base clock speed depends on the TDP settings and ranges from 1 GHz (12 Watt TDP) up to 2.5 GHz (28 Watt). Boost clock speed is 4.5 GHz.

Tiger Lake SoCs add PCIe 4 support (4 lanes), AI hardware acceleration, and the partial integration of Thunderbolt 4 / USB 4 and Wifi 6 in the chip.

Another novelty is the integrated Xe graphics adapter with 80 EUs based on the completely new Gen 12 architecture. It offers a significantly higher performance compared to the older Iris Plus G7 (Ice Lake).

Performance

The average 1155G7 in our database proves to be a very decent mid-range processor, as of mid 2022, trading blows with the Core i7-10810U and the Ryzen 5 4500U as far as multi-thread benchmark scores are concerned. While perhaps not the best option for power users, this Core i5 will make most consumers happy, providing for short load times and generally pain-free experience.

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

Power consumption

This Core i5 series chip has a default TDP, also known as the long-term power limit, of 12 W to 28 W, the expectation being that laptop makers will go for a higher value in exchange for higher performance. Either way, this is a tad too high to allow for passively cooled designs.

The i5-1155G7 is built with Intel's third-gen 10 nm process marketed as SuperFin for lower-than-average, as of early 2023, energy efficiency.

Intel Celeron J4025

The Intel Celeron J4025 is an energy-efficient, dual-core processor (SoC) of the Gemini Lake Refresh product family; as such, it is designed for use in mini-PCs of the most affordable flavor. The Celeron was launched in Q4 2019. Its CPU cores run at 2 GHz to 2.9 GHz (single core boost). Other key specs include a DDR4/LPDDR4 memory controller (up to 2,400 MHz and up to 8 GB, with independent reports claiming as much as 32 GB will work just fine) and the integrated UHD Graphics 600 graphics adapter.

Architecture

Just like Apollo Lake family products, the ever-popular N3350 included, Celeron J4025 is manufactured by Intel on a 14 nm process. What makes these newer Celerons different are the slightly improved processor cores with double the L2 cache and also, somewhat counterintuitively, their smaller chip area.

The Goldmont Plus microarchitecture is familiar to us from Gemini Lake processors like the N4000. A moderately large 4 MB L2 cache features prominently on the rather short list of Goldmont Plus' strong sides, allowing for a marginal increase in performance-per-MHz figures compared to Goldmont. Still, Gemini Lake Refresh processors are a clear step-down from the Core i3/i5/i7/i9 series processors, both in performance and in features.

J4025 has six PCI-Express 2.0 lanes at its disposal. While very few J4025-based SBCs, nettops and laptops feature an NVMe M.2 slot, you can use an NVMe SSD as a boot drive with this processor (read/write rates will be limited to 2 GB/s though). Furthermore, partial Wi-Fi 5 support is built into the CPU. The Celeron also supports up to eight USB 3.0 ports and two SATA III storage devices.

Please note this is not a user-replaceable CPU. They solder it straight on to the motherboard for good (FCBGA1090 socket interface).

Performance

The Celeron J4025 is positioned in the lower entry level and only slightly faster than the mobile Celeron N4020. Therefore, it is best suited for basic tasks like word processing and web browsing with just two or three tabs open.

Graphics

The UHD Graphics 600 is based on Intel's Generation 9 architecture, much like HD Graphics 520 or UHD Graphics 615 or so many other widespread Intel iGPUs.

Just like HD Graphics 500, the UHD Graphics 600 supports DX 12 and has 12 EUs clocked at up to 650 MHz. The Iris Plus G7 iGPU that certain 10th Gen Ice Lake processors have packs 64 EUs, for reference. As a low-end solution, UHD Graphics 600 will let you play some seriously old titles, but that's about it.

Perhaps more importantly, this graphics solution will let you run up to 3 monitors with resolutions as high as 4096x2160@60. Furthermore, it will have no trouble HW-decoding AVC, HEVC and VP9 videos. The newer AV1 codec will be decoded via software, with the limited CPU horsepower imposing a hard limit on the video resolution that can be played back without stuttering. 1080p60 YouTube videos are out of reach while 720p25 videos run fine, to give you an example.

Power Consumption

As a J-series CPU, the TDP is rated at 10 Watts and therefore 4 W higher than the mobile N4020.