Intel Processor N-series CPU specifications leaked — Intel dishes up paltry clock speed improvements

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Alder Lake dies hard.

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It has been a while since Intel abandoned its long-adored and nostalgic Celeron and Pentium brandings - merging them into what we know today as the "Intel Processor." For the uninitiated, this lineup of CPUs caters to thin and light laptops and the mini-PC market with fanless 6/7W designs. Per momomo_us on X, Intel is planning to refresh its N-series offerings, but don't get your hopes up since they are likely based on Alder Lake silicon.

Under the Alder Lake-N series, Intel launched several processors using an all-efficient core layout under the hood last year. Like their leaked Core 200U/H brethren, Intel is allegedly prepping to refresh these CPUs as well - both rumored to be based on Alder Lake. This is slightly disappointing since home server enthusiasts would have loved to get their hands on a sub-10W Arrow Lake CPU, but that doesn't seem to be the case, at least yet.

Anyhow, let's go over the specifications. The new Intel N-series chips are clocked marginally higher than their predecessors. The cache layout (at least for the L3 cache) remains the same - at 6MB for each processor. The Core 3 N300 CPUs are poised to offer better performance than their N200 series counterparts, partly due to a doubling of the core count. We are unaware of the exact number of cores, but since this series is probably a refresh, we'll assume they are on par with the last generation.

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SpecificationsIntel Processor N150 (New)Intel Processor N100Intel Processor N250 (New)Intel Processor N200Intel Core 3 Processor N350 (New)Intel Core i3-N300Intel Core 3 Processor N355 (New)Intel Core i3-N305
Cores4?44?48?88?8
Boost Clocks3.6 GHz3.4 GHz3.8 GHz3.7 GHz3.9 GHz3.8 GHz3.9 GHz3.8 GHz
L3 Cache6MB6MB6MB6MB6MB6MB6MB6MB

The Core i3-N305 has a max turbo power of 15W, so it is safe to assume that the Core 3 N355 boasts similar traits. But at two times the power, you only get a minor 100 MHz bump in the clocks.

This is food for thought, but one can only imagine the efficiency Intel's Skymont can deliver at these levels. Sadly, it appears that packaging and other financial constraints are restricting Intel. Then again, lightweight Chromebooks, embedded devices, NAS, and other low-power systems don't exactly need all the horsepower available—you wouldn't use a sledgehammer to crack a nut.

Interested consumers should wait until CES 2025 when Team Blue is expected to reveal its Core Ultra 200U/H, Core 200U/H, Core Ultra 200S non-K, and possibly even these new N-series processors.

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Hassam Nasir
Hassam Nasir
Contributing Writer

Hassam Nasir is a die-hard hardware enthusiast with years of experience as a tech editor and writer, focusing on detailed CPU comparisons and general hardware news. When he’s not working, you’ll find him bending tubes for his ever-evolving custom water-loop gaming rig or benchmarking the latest CPUs and GPUs just for fun.

28 Comments Comment from the forums
  • Jame5
    It has been a while since Intel abandoned its long-adored and nostalgic Celeron and Pentium brandings

    Pentium being adored/nostalgic maybe. Celeron has always been synonymous with junk bargain bin low performance CPUs.
    Reply
  • thestryker
    Jame5 said:
    Pentium being adored/nostalgic maybe. Celeron has always been synonymous with junk bargain bin low performance CPUs.
    The generation who grew up with the Celeron debut would beg to differ as the 300A was unprecedented at the time. Intel made sure to never repeat that mistake again though.

    I believe the Netburst Celerons were also OC frequency record holders for a long time (not that this made them good).
    Reply
  • thestryker
    It's looking like Intel might not update the low power CPUs until it comes time to increase Atom performance. Given that they never shifted to the increased cache from RPL Gracemont and the minimal performance uplift from Crestmont it seems logical the next ones would be based on Skymont/Darkmont. There's no chance Intel would spend the money required to produce them on TSMC N3 which would likely mean waiting for Intel 3 capacity. My bet is that we see a new architecture for these lower performance/power parts no earlier than late 2025, but most likely 2026 sometime.
    Reply
  • Notton
    Honestly, the specs that were leaked are inconsequential.
    The important ones were memory bandwidth, iGPU configuration, and idle power usage.

    I'm guessing it still uses the same 1-ch DDR4 + 1-ch DDR5/LPDDR5 configuration from before
    And I'd be surprised if the iGPU got any bump from 24EU, but it'd be nice for confirmation.

    N100 struggles when rendering 4K video or running 3 monitors.
    Reply
  • cyrusfox
    Notton said:
    Honestly, the specs that were leaked are inconsequential.
    The important ones were memory bandwidth, iGPU configuration, and idle power usage.

    I'm guessing it still uses the same 1-ch DDR4 + 1-ch DDR5/LPDDR5 configuration from before
    And I'd be surprised if the iGPU got any bump from 24EU, but it'd be nice for confirmation.

    N100 struggles when rendering 4K video or running 3 monitors.
    This is exactly the issue, the n line of Intel CPUs are too cut down on memory bandwidth and power throttled to perform as well as they are capable of. Also the pricing of the higher sku is ridiculous to even consider, the n97/n100 are ubiquitous on the low end and for a media consumption/internet machine, more than capable and very efficient.

    All I see here is a minor clock bump refresh, unless pricing of the higher end skus come down to reasonable levels, and/or tdp is tunable, N150 will be the new budget king to fight against the prior offerings, but the performance will still be equivalent to quad core skylake of yore, sufficient but stuttering at times.

    These chips could fly if their wings were not clipped by starving the memory bandwidth and the self throttling the iGPU is hamstrung by the tight TDP limits imposed. Even the higher EU iGPU models perform similarly on the N line, the TDP is the key setting that determines how well the iGPU can perform, Only when it has enough power budget do the higher EU models pull ahead. I have seen many reviews of the n95 with its 16EU besting the N200 with its 32EU (15W TDP vs 6W TDP). On the 6W TDP models, CPU is capable enough and performs well but iGPU will not be able to perform as well as it could if given only a few watts more. These aren't ending up in tablets, so the 6W TDP is ridiculous, 15W is where these all shine, with diminishing returns once you go past 25/30W, I believe Intel wants to keep them in the budget section and not have them cannibalize its low end mobile offerings, so I believe this is intentional handicapping.
    Reply
  • abufrejoval
    Atoms don't make money. Not for Intel and not for the OEMs.

    There have been stories just how much OEMs hated Intel shoving them down their throats in "package deals" they couldn't refuse...

    ...back then, when Intel dominated the PC market and was bent very hard on banning ARM from invading "their" territory from the low end.

    And things aren't getting any better because cores scale down with die shrinks, nearly everything else in an Atom doesn't: they need a full set of connectivity and that won' shrink.

    So Intel could do chips with lots of Atom cores, roughly four E-cores for every P. But those would poison the entry server market, which is already pretty much disappearing anyway via the clouds. And gamers would only buy them for their NAS.

    16 or 32 core Atoms for the price of an entry level notebook chip, would be kind of attractive for "edge" use cases such as home-infra µ-servers. But investing engineering resources into such a product makes ever less sense for Intel, because nobody wants to pay a lot of money for that.

    Snow Ridge Atom-P SoCs are made by Intel for niches like that, but very pricey and very niche with slow refreshes if any.

    If you're looking for something economical there, you're probably better off getting an older generation Zen APU, mobile and soldered to some ITX or NUC board or even in a socket with cheap mainboard: there is tons of really cheap deals from China, where these systems evidently flourish also on the local market. Some of these include lots of SATA and Ethernet ports so you can combine them for NAS, firewall and VM server, while they still use little power and are way more economical than what Intel offers new.
    Reply
  • thestryker
    cyrusfox said:
    Also the pricing of the higher sku is ridiculous to even consider
    The publicly available pricing and what is on Ark is not accurate. I don't know what the benefit of this obfuscation is other than maybe giving OEMs cover for higher prices. I got a passively cooled router box with an N305 and 6x 2.5gb NICs for around $275 shortly after the CPU became available. This was about $80 more than the same thing with N100 at the time.
    cyrusfox said:
    These chips could fly if their wings were not clipped by starving the memory bandwidth and the self throttling the iGPU is hamstrung by the tight TDP limits imposed.
    From my experience the TDP limit is the big problem so long as DDR5 is being used. The CPU boost clocks are so high that they'll easily use up all of the available power and prevent the IGP from boosting. The N97 is definitely the best 4 core model even with the lower CPU boost clock, assuming you can cool it, due to the 12W TDP and higher IGP boost (it has 24 EUs). The N95 IGP boost clock is the same as the N97 which is what lets it compete with the N200 despite half the EUs. This is also what makes the N300 a bad joke compared to the N305 (N305 is definitely the best ADL-N and I assume the N355 will supplant this based on clocks).
    Reply
  • usertests
    thestryker said:
    There's no chance Intel would spend the money required to produce them on TSMC N3 which would likely mean waiting for Intel 3 capacity. My bet is that we see a new architecture for these lower performance/power parts no earlier than late 2025, but most likely 2026 sometime.
    You nailed it. They are a product that can exist as long as they use a cheap Intel node. Crestmont is of no consequence, Skymont is a huge leap.

    If we saw Atom die off, and lower mobile SKUs (Meteor Lake-U equivalent) migrate down in price to take its place, that could be good too. Alder/Raptor Lake mobile is being refreshed yet again. An Intel Core 250U gives you 2+8 cores, dual-channel memory, and 96 execution units instead of 32. I don't think these dies are even much larger than the Alder Lake-N die.
    Reply
  • watzupken
    I feel this is a product that don’t sell well and so don’t get attention or resources to improve it. The key benefits are its low power requirement and AV1 support, but I don’t find the price competitive for the performance it offers. Even cheaper AMD SOC like the 5600u will run circles around it when it comes to CPU and GPU performance.
    Reply
  • thestryker
    usertests said:
    If we saw Atom die off, and lower mobile SKUs (Meteor Lake-U equivalent) migrate down in price to take its place, that could be good too.
    I think it'd actually be more likely that the 2P/8E silicon died off and was replaced with Skymont or better E-core only parts. I don't really think either is particularly likely at this point, but Intel has not used hybrid for any of their enterprise SKUs yet and Atoms very much are enterprise focused.
    usertests said:
    An Intel Core 250U gives you 2+8 cores, dual-channel memory, and 96 execution units instead of 32. I don't think these dies are even much larger than the Alder Lake-N die.
    They actually are significantly larger even though they don't share a die with the larger mobile CPUs as they also have over double the PCIe lanes and Thunderbolt integrated too. The ADL-N CPUs are all based on the 8 E-core 32 EU die, but even then I'd be very surprised if they broke half the size.
    Reply