Pentium B960 vs Phenom II X3 N850
Aggregate performance score
Phenom II X3 N850 outperforms Pentium B960 by a significant 29% based on our aggregate benchmark results.
Primary details
Comparing Phenom II X3 N850 and Pentium B960 processor market type (desktop or notebook), architecture, sales start time and price.
| Place in the ranking | 2580 | 2752 |
| Place by popularity | not in top-100 | not in top-100 |
| Market segment | Laptop | Laptop |
| Series | 3x AMD Phenom II | Intel Pentium |
| Architecture codename | Champlain (2010−2011) | Sandy Bridge (2011−2013) |
| Release date | 4 October 2010 (13 years ago) | 2 October 2011 (12 years ago) |
| Launch price (MSRP) | no data | $134 |
Detailed specifications
Phenom II X3 N850 and Pentium B960 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 | 3 (Tri-Core) | 2 (Dual-core) |
| Threads | 3 | 2 |
| Base clock speed | no data | 2.2 GHz |
| Boost clock speed | 2.2 GHz | 2.2 GHz |
| Bus type | no data | DMI 2.0 |
| Bus rate | 3600 MHz | 4 × 5 GT/s |
| Multiplier | no data | 22 |
| L1 cache | 384 KB | 64K (per core) |
| L2 cache | 1.5 MB | 256K (per core) |
| L3 cache | no data | 2 MB (shared) |
| Chip lithography | 45 nm | 32 nm |
| Die size | no data | 131 mm2 |
| Maximum core temperature | no data | 85 °C |
| Number of transistors | no data | 504 million |
| 64 bit support | + | + |
| Windows 11 compatibility | - | - |
Compatibility
Information on Phenom II X3 N850 and Pentium B960 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 | no data | 1 (Uniprocessor) |
| Socket | S1 (S1g4) | FCPGA988,PGA988 |
| Power consumption (TDP) | 35 Watt | 35 Watt |
Technologies and extensions
Technological solutions and additional instructions supported by Phenom II X3 N850 and Pentium B960. You'll probably need this information if you require some particular technology.
| Instruction set extensions | 86x MMX(+), 3DNow!(+), SSE(1,2,3,4A),-64, AMD-V | Intel® SSE4.1, Intel® SSE4.2 |
| FMA | - | + |
| Enhanced SpeedStep (EIST) | no data | + |
| My WiFi | no data | - |
| Turbo Boost Technology | no data | - |
| Hyper-Threading Technology | no data | - |
| Idle States | no data | + |
| Thermal Monitoring | - | + |
| Flex Memory Access | no data | + |
| Demand Based Switching | no data | - |
| FDI | no data | + |
| Fast Memory Access | no data | + |
| Status | no data | Discontinued |
Security technologies
Phenom II X3 N850 and Pentium B960 technologies aimed at improving security, for example, by protecting against hacks.
| TXT | no data | - |
| EDB | no data | + |
| Anti-Theft | no data | - |
Virtualization technologies
Virtual machine speed-up technologies supported by Phenom II X3 N850 and Pentium B960 are enumerated here.
| AMD-V | + | - |
| VT-d | no data | - |
| VT-x | no data | - |
Memory specs
Types, maximum amount and channel quantity of RAM supported by Phenom II X3 N850 and Pentium B960. Depending on the motherboard, higher memory frequencies may be supported.
| Supported memory types | DDR3 | DDR3 |
| Maximum memory size | no data | 16 GB |
| Max memory channels | no data | 2 |
| Maximum memory bandwidth | no data | 21.335 GB/s |
Graphics specifications
General parameters of integrated GPUs, if any.
| Integrated graphics card | no data | Intel® HD Graphics for 2nd Generation Intel® Processors |
| Graphics max frequency | no data | 1.1 GHz |
Graphics interfaces
Available interfaces and connections of Phenom II X3 N850 and Pentium B960 integrated GPUs.
| Number of displays supported | no data | 2 |
| eDP | no data | + |
| DisplayPort | - | + |
| HDMI | - | + |
| SDVO | no data | + |
| CRT | no data | + |
Peripherals
Specifications and connection of peripherals supported by Phenom II X3 N850 and Pentium B960.
| PCIe version | no data | 2.0 |
| PCI Express lanes | no data | 16 |
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.
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.
Cinebench 10 32-bit single-core
Cinebench R10 is an ancient ray tracing benchmark for processors by Maxon, authors of Cinema 4D. Its single core version uses just one CPU thread to render a futuristic looking motorcycle.
Cinebench 10 32-bit multi-core
Cinebench Release 10 Multi Core is a variant of Cinebench R10 using all the processor threads. Possible number of threads is limited by 16 in this version.
3DMark06 CPU
3DMark06 is a discontinued DirectX 9 benchmark suite from Futuremark. Its CPU part contains two scenarios, one dedicated to artificial intelligence pathfinding, another to game physics using PhysX package.
wPrime 32
wPrime 32M is a math multi-thread processor test, which calculates square roots of first 32 million integer numbers. Its result is measured in seconds, so that the less is benchmark result, the faster the processor.
Pros & cons summary
| Performance score | 0.81 | 0.63 |
| Recency | 4 October 2010 | 2 October 2011 |
| Physical cores | 3 | 2 |
| Threads | 3 | 2 |
| Chip lithography | 45 nm | 32 nm |
Phenom II X3 N850 has a 28.6% higher aggregate performance score, and 50% more physical cores and 50% more threads.
Pentium B960, on the other hand, has an age advantage of 11 months, and a 40.6% more advanced lithography process.
The Phenom II X3 N850 is our recommended choice as it beats the Pentium B960 in performance tests.
Should you still have questions on choice between Phenom II X3 N850 and Pentium B960, ask them in Comments section, and we shall answer.
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