Please explain to me Intel CPU Line up please

Mir96TA

Golden Member
Oct 21, 2002
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Way back then it was just a CPU .... then add DX which mean match co is in there. Then add line call M which mean mobile. Then add Celeron which mean cripple cache size and speed and some missing instruction.
Since i 3/5/7 came in the picture I am at very lost
some are dual core some are with Turbo some are quad core with HT
some are Pentium and some are Celeron and sore are S
can somebody please clarify intel CPU line specially Mobile side of the CPU class
Thanks
 

Yuriman

Diamond Member
Jun 25, 2004
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In desktop chips:

Celeron/Pentium = dual core, no HT, no turbo, no AVX/AVX2 instructions
i3 = dual core + HT, no turbo, AVX + AVX2
i5 = quad core + turbo, no HT, AVX + AVX2
i7 = quad core + HT + turbo, AVX + AVX2

In the mobile world, an i3 is a dual core + HT without turbo, an i5 is usually (always?) a dual core + HT + turbo, and an i7 can either be a dual core + HT + turbo or a quad core + HT + turbo. The mobile lineup doesn't make a lot of sense to me either.

In the desktop world, i7's have more cache than i5's (8MB vs 6MB), which in turn have more cache than i3's (3MB). Pentiums and Celerons can have either 3MB or 2MB of cache, depending on the model.

Pentiums and Celerons are generally considered to be very crippled because of the exclusion of AVX instructions.
 

pw257008

Senior member
Jan 11, 2014
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ok, on the mobile side:
i7-Q: quad core, HT and turbo boost
i7 not followed by Q: dual core, HT and turbo boost
i5: dual core, HT and turbo boost, lower boost clock than comparable i7.
i3: dual core, HT
Pentium and Celeron: dual core

Then the lines are divided into:
X: only on certain high performance i7s quad core i7s. If I'm not mistaken, these have the highest clocks and higher TDP than the QM parts.
M: standard voltage, highest performance, highest TDP. Base clocks usually between 2.2 and 2.5 Ghz
U: low voltage, lower TDP, performance hit not as great on i5s and i7s with turbo. base clocks usually around 1.8 or 1.9 Ghz
Y: ultra low voltage, lowest TDP, again, performance hit not as great on i5s and i7s given turbo. base clocks usually around 1.2-1.3 Ghz

On most of the parts, the base clock for the Celerons are lower than the average range.

That's on the CPU side. There are differences on the iGPU side too. Usually parts with "50" versus "00" at the end have better GPUs, and the Celeron and Pentium lines have worse GPUs than the i3+, but I don't know the specifics offhand.
 

witeken

Diamond Member
Dec 25, 2013
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I think it's quite understandable, and Wikipedia can help a lot: Haswell (microarchitecture). If you don't want to look at Wikipedia for some reason, here's short summary:

Desktop:
Basically, you have, from low-end to high-end:
Celeron -> Pentium -> i3: dualcores with more cache, higher clock speeds, ISA, hyperthreading...
i3 -> i5: quadcore, but no more hyperthreading
i5 -> i7: quadcore with hyperthreading and more cache

Depending on SKU, there are also differences in feature set, clock speeds, graphics,...

Naming:
The first of the 4 numbers represents the generation. Haswell is the 4th generation Core.
K means unlocked; S and T mean lower TDP; R means Iris Pro (BGA).

Mobile:
Celeron -> i7: same as desktop: more cache, higher clock speeds and so on; just look at the chart of Wikipedia. Biggest difference is that i5 is dualcore with hyperthreading instead of quadcore.

Naming:
M means a general mobile processor with ~37/47W TDP; Q: quadcore; X: extreme; U means low TDP (for ultrabooks and such); Y is lowest TDP, for tablets.
 

pw257008

Senior member
Jan 11, 2014
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Oh, but there are also now Pentiums and Celerons based on the Atom architecture. These have J in front of the model number (eg Pentium J2900). These can be dual core or quad core, and have lower single threaded performance than the Core line of Pentiums and Celerons, but can top some SKUs in multithreaded performance (especially comparing Atom quads versus the dual core no HT Y parts).
 

Mir96TA

Golden Member
Oct 21, 2002
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Which is faster Celeron or Pentium ?
What are S and T Class are they for Mobil ?
I understand K unlock CPU and expensive
What are E and L which is Faster ?
Can i7 mobile slower then i5 same Gen Family ?
 

Mir96TA

Golden Member
Oct 21, 2002
1,950
37
91
I think it's quite understandable, and Wikipedia can help a lot: Haswell (microarchitecture). If you don't want to look at Wikipedia for some reason, here's short summary:

Desktop:
Basically, you have, from low-end to high-end:
Celeron -> Pentium -> i3: dualcores with more cache, higher clock speeds, ISA, hyperthreading...
i3 -> i5: quadcore, but no more hyperthreading
i5 -> i7: quadcore with hyperthreading and more cache

Depending on SKU, there are also differences in feature set, clock speeds, graphics,...

Naming:
The first of the 4 numbers represents the generation. Haswell is the 4th generation Core.
K means unlocked; S and T mean lower TDP; R means Iris Pro (BGA).

Mobile:
Celeron -> i7: same as desktop: more cache, higher clock speeds and so on; just look at the chart of Wikipedia. Biggest difference is that i5 is dualcore with hyperthreading instead of quadcore.

Naming:
M means a general mobile processor with ~37/47W TDP; Q: quadcore; X: extreme; U means low TDP (for ultrabooks and such); Y is lowest TDP, for tablets.

Do you know I have seen i3 Dual Core mobile which is almost as fast as a i5 Dual and i7 mobile in between i5 and i3 (Mobile class) they all had HT. i3 didn't had Turbo!
 

ninaholic37

Golden Member
Apr 13, 2012
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Oh, but there are also now Pentiums and Celerons based on the Atom architecture. These have J in front of the model number (eg Pentium J2900). These can be dual core or quad core, and have lower single threaded performance than the Core line of Pentiums and Celerons, but can top some SKUs in multithreaded performance (especially comparing Atom quads versus the dual core no HT Y parts).
Yup, and N for mobile Atoms (eg. Celeron N28xx/N29xx, Pentium N35xx):

http://ark.intel.com/products/series/76755/Intel-Celeron-Processor-N2000-Series-for-Mobile
http://ark.intel.com/products/series/76756/Intel-Pentium-Processor-N3000-Series-for-Mobile