AMD Athlon II N350 vs Intel Core i3-2312M vs Intel Core i3-2375M

AMD Athlon II N350

The AMD Athlon II N350 is an entry to mid range dual core processor for laptops. Compared to the faster Phenom II and Turion II processors of 2010, the Athlon II N350 features only a 64 Bit FPU (Floating Point Unit), and not 128 Bit as the Athlon II Desktop. Therefore, some rumors also indicate that the N350 could still be based on K8 parts.

The Athlon II N350 offers an integrated DDR3-1066 (or 800 according to Wikipedia) dual-channel memory controller and a 1.6 GHz HyperTransport 3.0 link (HT3200) to the chipset.

The performance of the Athlon N350 should be on par with a 2.2 GHz clocked Pentium T4400 processor of 2009. 

Intel Core i3-2312M

The Intel Core i3-2310M is a dual core processor for laptops. It is based on the Sandy Bridge architecture and offers Hyperthreading to handle 4 threads at once (for a better usage of the pipeline). Compared to the faster Core i5, the i3 does not offer the Turbo Boost technique for the CPU part and is therefore clocked at 2.1 GHz (max). In difference to the similar Core i3-2310M, the 2312M can be upgraded to the Core i3-2393M which has a 400 MHz higher core frequency and a 1 MB larger last level cache than the Core i3-2312M.

Intel Core i3-2375M

The Intel Core i3-2375M is a power efficient ULV (Ultra Low Voltage) processor for thin and light laptops. The base frequency of 1.5 GHz is relatively low and the CPU does not support Turbo Boost for automatic overclocking. Due to HyperThreading, the i7-2375M is able to handle 4 threads in parallel. Compared to similar clocked Celeron and Pentium models, the i3 features the faster HD 3000 graphics card and offers more enabled features (like Quick Sync). However, compared to the expensive i7 CPUs, the i3 lacks VT-d, Trusted Execution and VPro support. The difference to the similar Core i3-2377M is just the lack of Small Business Advantage (SBA) support (needed for the Ultrabook logo).

Sandy Bridge is the evolutionary successor of the Arrandale architecture. The most notable improvements is the improved Turbo 2.0 (not used for the processing cores in the i3-2375M) and the integration of the graphics card into the 32nm CPU core.

The integrated Intel HD Graphics 3000 is clocked at 350 up to 1000 MHz (Turbo Boost). Due to the slower clock rate without the Turbo, compared to HD Graphics 3000 in 35W and 45W processors (usually clocked at 650 base speed in non LV processors), the performance is noticeable lower.

The performance of the CPU is a bit higher than a similar clocked Arrandale Core i3 ULV and therefore above the 1.33 GHz Core i3-380UM. The average performance of the CPU part is therefore similar to the AMD A4-3320M. Detailed benchmarks can also be found on the CPU page of the Core i3-2377M.

The TDP of 17W (includes the integrated GPU and memory controller) allows the use of the 2375M CPU in small subnotebooks.