Thanks to AMD and its Zen architecture, we can all now enjoy processors with six or more cores for very little money. The current generation of consoles has eight cores and 16 threads. After all, it’s 2024, not 2004. Intel is unaware of this, having launched the 310 chip of the same name, loaded to the brim with a mind-blowing two P cores and all the rest are hopeless.
The first benchmark test of a powerful processor, Geekbench v6 the result was noticed by Leaks (By Wccftech) and achieved a single-core score of 2152 and a multi-core score of 4254. That first number is pretty decent — but it should be, since the Intel 310 is a Raptor Lake chip with a fixed clock speed of 4.1 GHz. Well, technically it’s an Alder Lake chip, but that’s just an aside.
This multithreading result may seem pretty destitute, but no quad-threaded processor will set any multithreading records. Quick Search Geekbench Database The popular Ryzen 5 5600X (six-core, 12-thread) processor scores in the 8000-9000 range — so Intel’s 310 score isn’t that bad if we just look at the raw numbers.
This is not the first dual-core chip that Intel has introduced to the market in recent times, as Intel® 300 came out earlier this year. The novel 310 is the same processor, albeit with a 200MHz higher clock speed, and while there’s no pricing yet for the novel model, the Intel 300 has an MSRP of $82 to $92.
But what good is a dual-core processor in 2024? Well, you definitely won’t be playing high-end games on it (it would be a fun exercise to see how badly it handles the latest games), but it should be fine for delicate office tasks, web browsing, and a bit of multimedia consumption. Any app that only loads a single core will be fine.
Personally, I’d rather have some performance in reserve and throw a Ryzen 3 4100 into a budget-friendly AM4 motherboard and I’d get four cores, eight threads and a very nice chip for under $70 (Amazon, New egg). However, such a setup would still require a graphics card, and the Intel 310 has some iGPU, so you’d save a lot of money there.
And speaking of AMD, there is a report on it Weibo (By Video cards) that it plans to release at least one version of the previous-generation APU without an NPU. While the Ryzen 7 8845HS has a neural processing unit capable of 16 TOPs, the apparently dubbed 8745HS won’t have a dedicated NPU.
This is something we see a lot in the desktop CPU market, and the models with the F suffix are chips that have flaws in the integrated GPU. Instead of throwing it away, the GPU is completely disabled and the product is then sold as a fully functional CPU, albeit without a graphics chip.
Considering AMD’s Hawk Point chips don’t have enough AI-TOPs to meet Microsoft’s criteria for the Copilot+ AI, you’re not missing out on anything by getting a laptop with the 8745HS. Whether or not it will be available worldwide is another matter.
If you’re wondering why I mentioned this, it’s because I’m not sure if the Intel 300/310 chips are purpose-built dual-core chips or if they’re Processor i3 13100 processors with all E cores and most P cores disabled, similar to the Ryzen 7 8745HS with the NPU disabled.
It wouldn’t make any difference to how well the processor would perform, but it would be pretty frosty if Intel actually made a proper dual-core chip instead of just collecting garbage barrels of questionable Alder Lake wafers. If any of you, my esteemed readers, come across one, please try to remove the heatsink and show the world exactly what this chip looks like.
