14 DAY TRIAL // There was a time when all Intel CPU series involving the word “Trail” were made exclusively, or nearly so, out of Atom-branded central processing units and/or SoCs (system-on-chip devices), but nowadays it seems like Celeron and Pentium dominate the line instead. Here are the newest arrivals.
There are four new of them in the “Bay Trail” line, only one of which happens to bear the Pentium brand. As it turns out, that is the best of the lot as well, which is oddly fitting.
The chips are the sort of processors you can expect to find in upcoming tablets and low-end PCs, like netbooks if anyone is even making those anymore.
After all, they subsist on a very low amount of power even when compared to the Ultra Low Voltage Core i7 and Core i5 chips that make up the newest additions to the Haswell line.
The Pentium N3540, for example, is a quad-core unit ($161 / €119) with 2.16 GHz base frequency and 2.66 GHz top clock, plus 2 MB cache memory (L2) and an integrated graphics processor (iGP) with 313 / 896 MHz clock. And despite all that, it can function on 7.5W.
The Celeron N2940 has the same core count, cache memory and TDP as above, but 1.83 / 2.25 GHz clocks and an iGP with 313 / 854 MHz. Its price is of $107 / €79.
The Celeron N2840 is where things get strange, as the chip is a dual-core with 1 MB cache and 311 / 792 MHz GPU, but has the same TDP of 7.5W and price of $107 / €79. The 2.16 / 2.58 GHz clocks are its only saving grace.
At least things get back to normal with the Celeron N2808, which is also a dual-core unit with 1 MB cache, but a TDP of 4.3W. Its performance is of 1.58 / 2.25 GHz for the CPU cores and 311 / 792 MHz for the integrated graphics, while the price is, again, $107 / €79.
None of the new Bay Trail CPUs possesses Hyper-Threading technology, meaning that the OS won't see double the number of logical cores when booting up. They are, however, manufactured on the same 22nm production process as the Haswell line.
You won't find any of these low-power CPUs up for sale anywhere. Instead, they will be featured in upcoming tablets, laptops, nettops and other devices that may need x86-based chips of this variety.
