Pentium Silver N6000 vs Atom C3958

Place in the ranking	1746	1950
Place by popularity	not in top-100	not in top-100
Cost-effectiveness evaluation	0.55	no data
Market segment	Server	Laptop
Series	Intel Atom	no data
Power efficiency	7.56	30.40
Architecture codename	Goldmont (2016−2017)	Jasper Lake (2021)
Release date	15 August 2017 (7 years ago)	11 January 2021 (3 years ago)
Launch price (MSRP)	$449	no data

Cost-effectiveness evaluation

Performance per price, higher is better.

no data

Detailed specifications

Atom C3958 and Pentium Silver N6000 basic parameters such as number of cores, number of threads, base frequency and turbo boost clock, lithography, cache size and multiplier lock state. These parameters indirectly say of CPU speed, though for more precise assessment you have to consider their test results.

Physical cores	16 (Hexadeca-Core)	4 (Quad-Core)
Threads	16	4
Base clock speed	2 GHz	1.1 GHz
Boost clock speed	2 GHz	3.3 GHz
Multiplier	20	no data
L1 cache	896 KB	no data
L2 cache	16 MB	1.5 MB
L3 cache	16 MB	4 MB
Chip lithography	14 nm	10 nm
Maximum core temperature	83 °C	105 °C
64 bit support	+	+
Windows 11 compatibility	-	+

Compatibility

Information on Atom C3958 and Pentium Silver N6000 compatibility with other computer components: motherboard (look for socket type), power supply unit (look for power consumption) etc. Useful when planning a future computer configuration or upgrading an existing one. Note that power consumption of some processors can well exceed their nominal TDP, even without overclocking. Some can even double their declared thermals given that the motherboard allows to tune the CPU power parameters.

Number of CPUs in a configuration	1 (Uniprocessor)	1
Socket	FCBGA1310	FCBGA1338
Power consumption (TDP)	31 Watt	6 Watt

Technologies and extensions

Technological solutions and additional instructions supported by Atom C3958 and Pentium Silver N6000. You'll probably need this information if you require some particular technology.

Instruction set extensions	no data	Intel® SSE4.2
AES-NI	+	+
Enhanced SpeedStep (EIST)	+	+
QuickAssist	+	no data
Speed Shift	no data	+
Turbo Boost Technology	-	-
Hyper-Threading Technology	-	-
Thermal Monitoring	-	+
GPIO	no data	+
Turbo Boost Max 3.0	no data	-

Security technologies

Atom C3958 and Pentium Silver N6000 technologies aimed at improving security, for example, by protecting against hacks.

TXT	no data	-
EDB	+	no data
Secure Boot	+	no data
Secure Key	+	no data
Identity Protection	-	+
SGX	-	-
OS Guard	+	+

Virtualization technologies

Virtual machine speed-up technologies supported by Atom C3958 and Pentium Silver N6000 are enumerated here.

VT-d	+	+
VT-x	+	+
EPT	+	+

Memory specs

Types, maximum amount and channel quantity of RAM supported by Atom C3958 and Pentium Silver N6000. Depending on the motherboard, higher memory frequencies may be supported.

Supported memory types	DDR4: 2400	DDR4
Maximum memory size	256 GB	16 GB
Max memory channels	2	2
Maximum memory bandwidth	38.397 GB/s	no data
ECC memory support	+	-

Graphics specifications

General parameters of integrated GPUs, if any.

Integrated graphics card	no data	Intel UHD Graphics
Quick Sync Video	-	+
Graphics max frequency	no data	850 MHz
Execution Units	no data	32

Graphics interfaces

Available interfaces and connections of Atom C3958 and Pentium Silver N6000 integrated GPUs.

Number of displays supported	no data	3
eDP	no data	+
DisplayPort	-	+
HDMI	-	+
MIPI-DSI	no data	+

Graphics image quality

Maximum display resolutions supported by Atom C3958 and Pentium Silver N6000 integrated GPUs, including resolutions over different interfaces.

4K resolution support	no data	+
Max resolution over HDMI 1.4	no data	4096x2160@60Hz
Max resolution over DisplayPort	no data	4096x2160@60Hz

Graphics API support

APIs supported by Atom C3958 and Pentium Silver N6000 integrated GPUs, sometimes API versions are included.

DirectX	no data	12
OpenGL	no data	4.5

Peripherals

Specifications and connection of peripherals supported by Atom C3958 and Pentium Silver N6000.

PCIe version	3	no data
PCI Express lanes	16	8
USB revision	3	2.0/3.2
Total number of SATA ports	16	no data
Max number of SATA 6 Gb/s Ports	16	2
Number of USB ports	8	14
Integrated LAN	4x10/2.5/1 GBE	-
UART	no data	+

Synthetic benchmark performance

Various benchmark results of the processors in comparison. Overall score is measured in points in 0-100 range, higher is better.

Combined synthetic benchmark score

This is our combined benchmark performance rating. We are regularly improving our combining algorithms, but if you find some perceived inconsistencies, feel free to speak up in comments section, we usually fix problems quickly.

Atom C3958 2.57
+28.5%

Pentium Silver N6000 2.00

Passmark

Passmark CPU Mark is a widespread benchmark, consisting of 8 different types of workload, including integer and floating point math, extended instructions, compression, encryption and physics calculation. There is also one separate single-threaded scenario measuring single-core performance.

Atom C3958 3929
+28.6%

Pentium Silver N6000 3056

Gaming performance

Pros & cons summary

Performance score	2.57	2.00
Recency	15 August 2017	11 January 2021
Physical cores	16	4
Threads	16	4
Chip lithography	14 nm	10 nm
Power consumption (TDP)	31 Watt	6 Watt

Atom C3958 has a 28.5% higher aggregate performance score, and 300% more physical cores and 300% more threads.

Pentium Silver N6000, on the other hand, has an age advantage of 3 years, a 40% more advanced lithography process, and 416.7% lower power consumption.

The Atom C3958 is our recommended choice as it beats the Pentium Silver N6000 in performance tests.

Be aware that Atom C3958 is a server/workstation processor while Pentium Silver N6000 is a notebook one.

Should you still have questions on choice between Atom C3958 and Pentium Silver N6000, ask them in Comments section, and we shall answer.