Intel Celeron N5095A vs Intel Core i7-7700HQ

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.

Intel Core i7-7700HQ

Der Intel Core i7-7700HQ ist ein schneller Quad-Core-Prozessor für Notebooks auf Basis der Kaby-Lake-H-Architektur (7. Generation Core), der im Jänner 2017 auf der CES vorgestellt wurde. Er ist der Nachfolger des Core i7-6700HQ der Skylake Generation und wird im verbesserten 14nm+ Verfahren gefertigt und taktet dadurch um 200 MHz höher bei gleichem TDP. Die Architektur wurde nicht verändert, nur die Video-Engine erhielt ein Update in Kaby Lake (siehe unseren Kaby-Lake-Artikel). Im Vergleich zu den stärkeren Quad-Core CPUs der Kaby Lake Generation, bietet der 7700HQ nur 6 MB und nicht 8 MB Level 3 Cache.

Die integrierte Grafikeinheit hört nun auf den Namen Intel HD Graphics 630, welche sich jedoch bezüglich Architektur nicht von der 530er in Skylake Quads unterscheidet und maximal etwas höher getaktet wird.

Performance

Durch den 200 MHz höheren Takt (5,5 - 7,6% je nach Boost) erhöht sich die Performance der CPU in etwa auf das Niveau des Core i7-6970HQ (2,8 - 3,7 GHz jedoch mit 128 MB eDRAM).

Leistungsaufnahme

Entsprechend seiner TDP von 45 Watt ist der Chip vorrangig in größeren Notebooks ab etwa 15 Zoll zu finden. Optional kann die TDP auch auf 35 Watt abgesenkt werden (cTDP down), was allerdings die Performance mindert.