Intel Core i5-8365U vs Intel Celeron N5095A

Intel Core i5-8365U

The Intel Core i5-8365U is a power efficient quad-core SoC for notebooks and Ultrabooks based on the Whiskey Lake generation and was announced in April 2019 as part of two vPro capable CPUs of the WHL-U series. Compared to the similar named Kaby Lake-R processors (e.g. Core i5-8250U), the Whiskey Lake CPUs are now produced in a further improved 14nm process (14nm++) and offer higher clock speeds. The architecture and features are the same. The i5-8365U offers e.g. high Turbo clock speeds of 4.1 GHz (versus 3.4 GHz of the i5-8250U) for a single core. The integrated GPU is still named Intel UHD Graphics 620 and the dual-channel memory controller still supports the same RAM speeds as Kaby-Lake-R (DDR4-2400 / LPDDR3-2133). Thermal Velocity Boost is not supported (only in the Core i7-8565U).

Compared to the predecessor, the Core i5-8265U, the i5-8365U offers a 200 MHz higher Turbo Boost. As the i5-8365U first appeared in a Thinkpad, the CPU most likely supports vPRO for additional hardware management features.

The Whiskey Lake SoCs are used with a new PCH produced in 14nm that supports USB 3.1 Gen 2 (10 Gbps) and CNVi WiFi/BT parts.

Architecture

Intel basically uses the same micro architecture compared to Skylake and Kaby Lake, so the per-MHz performance does not differ. That means Whiskey Lake is a Kaby Lake chip manufactured in the improved 14nm++ process.

Performance

The performance of the i5-8365U depends on the cooling solution of the laptop and the defined TDP limits for short and long term performance. We already saw big differences for Kaby Lake-R (e.g., i7-8550U benchmarks), especially for long term (sustained) performance. Therefore, it will be interesting to see how the additionalTurbo  clock speed can be made use of. Compared to the Core i5-8265U (see for benchmarks), the 200 MHz higher Turbo Boost should result in some gains in single core benchmarks.

Graphics

The integrated Intel UHD Graphics 620 (Intel Gen 9.5) is untouched from the 8th Gen Kaby Lake chips. With fast dual-channel memory it can reach the performance of a dedicated GeForce 920M.

Contrary to Skylake, Kaby Lake and Whiskey Lake now also supports H.265/HEVC Main 10 with a 10-bit color depth as well as Google's VP9 codec. The dual-core Kaby Lake processors announced in January should also support HDCP 2.2.

Power Consumption

The chip is manufactured in a further improved 14nm process with FinFET transistors (14nm++), the same as the 8th Gen Coffee Lake processors. Intel still specifies the TDP with 15 Watts, which is typical for ULV chips. Depending on the usage scenario, the TDP can vary between 7.5 (cTDP Down) and 25 Watts.

Intel Celeron N5095A

The Celeron N5095A is an inexpensive quad-core SoC of the Jasper Lake product family designed for use in affordable SFF desktops and laptops. It features four Tremont CPU cores running at 2 GHz that Boost to up to 2.9 GHz with no thread-doubling Hyper-Threading technology in sight. A pretty basic iGPU is present as well.

The only difference between the N5095A and the N5095 is that the former comes with support for more proprietary Intel technologies such as the Smart Sound DSP, Wake on Voice and HD Audio.

Architecture and Features

Tremont brings many improvements over Goldmont Plus, the architecture that we know from the N5030 and myriads of other N-class CPUs. An up to 30% boost in single-thread performance is to be expected thanks to smarter prefetchers, branch prediction improvements and other refinements, according to Intel. These new chips are physically larger than their immediate predecessors as a result. Either way, this is still a "small" core rather than a "big" one according to ChipsAndCheese.

The Celeron has 1.5 MB of L2 and 4 MB of L3 cache and is compatible with DDR4-2933 and LPDDR4x-2933 memory or slower. Support for Intel CNVi Wi-Fi 6 modules is baked into the chip, as are 8 PCIe 3.0 lanes for NVMe SSD speeds up to 3.9 GB/s. USB 4 or Thunderbolt aren't supported however.

Please also note that the Celeron gets soldered to the motherboard (BGA1338 socket interface) for good and is thus not user-replaceable.

Performance

While we haven't tested a single system featuring the N5095A as of Sep 2024, we have done several reviews of computers/laptops powered by the N5095. CPU performance should be pretty much identical between the two. Therefore, we fully expect the chip to be about as fast as the Core i3-10110U, Core i3-1005G1, Celeron N5105 and also the Ryzen 3 3200U in multi-threaded workloads. Which is just enough for the most basic of tasks in late 2024.

Performance will get a significant hit if the power target is set to 10 W or 6 W instead of the Intel-recommended 15 W value.

Graphics

The DirectX 12.1-capable 16 EU UHD Graphics runs at up to 750 MHz and is in many respects similar to what Ice Lake CPUs come equipped with. This graphics adapter is capable of driving up to 3 SUHD displays simultaneously; HEVC, AVC, VP9, MPEG-2 and other popular video codecs can all be hardware-decoded. AV1 and VVC can't.

As far as gaming is concerned, it is reasonable to expect playable framerates in really old games (like Dota 2 Reborn) provided one sticks to lower resolutions such as HD 720p.

Power consumption

While most N-class chips have a 6 W long-term power target, the Celeron N5095A has a 15 W TDP to mimic much faster U-class Core processors. This isn't a great CPU for passively cooled designs.

The N5095A is built with the same 10 nm Intel process as Ice Lake-U processors for pretty unimpressive power efficiency, as of late 2024.