Dual-Core CPUs not going away it seems

Following the release of Intel 300, the company is now introducing a bit faster version.

As we know, Intel has discontinued its Celeron and Pentium brands with the release of the Raptor Lake series. This segmentation was unnecessary at this point, considering Core SKUs were the vast majority, and there were only a handful of Pentium/Celeron models in each generation. However, Intel still wants to maintain this entry-level segment, which is where the “XXX Processor” naming applies.

The Intel 310 Processor follows the release of the Intel 300 in early 2024. It was known that Intel was working on such SKUs since mid-2023, and to everyone’s surprise, the company followed with its plans to launch this new processor.

Contrary to what one might expect, the 300 and 310 are desktop CPUs. They take a similar approach to the Alder Lake-N series, which are based entirely on Efficient (small) cores. The 300/310 models do not have such a heterogeneous design either, but they are based on the Performance (large) cores. Only two cores are used on these models:

Intel 310 Processor, Source: Geekbench

The 300 features a base frequency of 3.9 GHz, while the 310 appears to reach a 4.1 GHz frequency, making it not much faster. It’s worth noting that neither has a turbo clock. The only good news is that both support hyperthreading.

So what’s the use for such SKUs? Intel says that the series targets PC/Client/Tablet, although the latter contradicts the desktop format. Perhaps they are good for embedded systems where basic functionality is required. These CPUs still have integrated graphics enabled (UHD Graphics 710), which is a 16 EU version of the Xe-LP core. It is hardly enough to do anything with 3D graphics, but it can output up to a 5K 120 Hz image and supports popular video codecs, enough for large wall displays.

Source: Geekbench via Wccftech