Mobile processor B960 belongs to the Pentium series of devices, was released in 2011. It was great for creating entry-level laptops with a high degree of autonomy. It is the characteristics and possible cases of using such a chip that this material will be devoted to.
Appointment
As previously noted, the B960 processor at the time of release was an entry-level device. Therefore, personal computers based on it initially could not provide a high level of performance. But at the same time, their autonomy was at a very, very good level. As a result, such a chip is most optimally involved in solving the least resource-intensive tasks. The latter can be safely attributed to various office utilities, browsers and the toys that are the simplest with respect to the hardware resources of a PC. That is exactly what computers based on this chip are used to this day.
Main characteristics
The Intel Pentium B960 processor belongs to the second revision of the Core microarchitecture, code-named Sandy Bridge. This semiconductor crystal was produced using 32 nm technology and included 504 million different transistor components. The composition of this CPU included 2 blocks of processing program code. Each of them operated at a nominal frequency of 2.2 GHz. The thermal package of the CPU did not exceed 35 W, and its maximum temperature was limited to 85 ° C. It is also necessary to note the important point that this microprocessor was intended to be installed in the PGA988 socket. In order to minimize production costs, some manufacturers soldered it to the system board, and some still equipped the PC with such a processor socket. The latest version is more convenient for the reason that it allows further modernization of the computing system.
Cache. RAM
The B960 processor was equipped with a cache system, which included three levels. The first of them can accommodate 128 KB of information and data. It was divided into two equal clusters of 64 Kb. The latter were tied to a specific computing resource of the chip. The size of the second level has been increased to 512 Kb. It was divided into two parts of 256 KB, tied to a specific CPU core. The third cache level was 2 MB. This fast memory was common not only for the computing cores of the chip, but also for the integrated graphics accelerator. This modification of the microprocessor could only address 16 GB of RAM. As RAM, you can use only DDR3 modules, the operating frequencies of which should be 1.333 GHz or 1.6 GHz.
Graphics subsystem
The Intel B960 processor included an integrated video core. Its name is HD Graphics. Hardware specifications allowed solving only the simplest tasks, as well as the computing part of the CPU. The video card could display a picture on two monitors at the same time, and its computing cores functioned at frequencies from 650 MHz to 1.15 GHz. It should also be noted that there is an HDMI port accelerator in the specifications. With it, the picture could be seen not only on the monitor, but also on any modern TV.
Cost. Reviews
In 2011–2013 mobile PCs based on the Pentium B960 processor could be bought for 300-450 dollars (20,000 rubles). The price depended on the diagonal and the degree of equipment of the mobile computing system. Now, such laptops in a new state are no longer available. But in supported form, such a device can be purchased for 150-200 dollars (13,000 rubles). The advantages of this CPU model include:
- Energy efficiency.
- Reliability.
- Low cost.
- An acceptable level of performance for solving the most common software tasks at the moment.
- The presence of an integrated accelerator with a comparable level of performance relative to the computational part.
- Cache memory includes three levels.
The disadvantages of the owners include the following:
- Inability to purchase a new PC.
- Outdated platform.
Conclusion
As part of this review, the B960 processor was reviewed. As previously noted, it belongs to the Pentium series of microprocessors. This fact alone indicates that this chip specialized in the implementation of the least resource-intensive tasks. At the same time, the battery life of such PCs was quite long. Exactly in general terms, this semiconductor solution can be characterized today. Its key minus is the outdated hardware platform by today's standards.