Pentium 977 vs i5-2520M

Place in the ranking	2202	2684
Place by popularity	not in top-100	not in top-100
Market segment	Laptop	Laptop
Series	Intel Core i5	Intel Pentium
Power efficiency	3.81	4.01
Architecture codename	Sandy Bridge (2011−2013)	Sandy Bridge (2011−2013)
Release date	1 February 2011 (13 years ago)	1 January 2012 (12 years ago)
Launch price (MSRP)	$225	$134

Detailed specifications

Core i5-2520M and Pentium 977 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	2 (Dual-core)	2 (Dual-core)
Threads	4	2
Base clock speed	2.5 GHz	1.4 GHz
Boost clock speed	3.2 GHz	1.4 GHz
Bus type	DMI 2.0	DMI 2.0
Bus rate	4 × 5 GT/s	4 × 5 GT/s
Multiplier	25	14
L1 cache	64K (per core)	64K (per core)
L2 cache	256K (per core)	256K (per core)
L3 cache	3 MB (shared)	2 MB (shared)
Chip lithography	32 nm	32 nm
Die size	149 mm²	131 mm²
Maximum core temperature	100 °C	100 °C
Number of transistors	624 million	504 million
64 bit support	+	+
Windows 11 compatibility	-	-

Compatibility

Information on Core i5-2520M and Pentium 977 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 (Uniprocessor)
Socket	PPGA988	FCBGA1023
Power consumption (TDP)	35 Watt	17 Watt

Technologies and extensions

Technological solutions and additional instructions supported by Core i5-2520M and Pentium 977. You'll probably need this information if you require some particular technology.

Instruction set extensions	Intel® AVX	Intel® SSE4.1, Intel® SSE4.2
AES-NI	+	-
FMA	+	+
AVX	+	-
vPro	+	no data
Enhanced SpeedStep (EIST)	+	+
My WiFi	+	-
Turbo Boost Technology	2.0	-
Hyper-Threading Technology	+	-
Idle States	+	+
Thermal Monitoring	+	+
Flex Memory Access	+	+
Demand Based Switching	-	-
FDI	+	+
Fast Memory Access	+	+

Security technologies

Core i5-2520M and Pentium 977 technologies aimed at improving security, for example, by protecting against hacks.

TXT	+	-
EDB	+	+
Identity Protection	+	-
Anti-Theft	+	-

Virtualization technologies

Virtual machine speed-up technologies supported by Core i5-2520M and Pentium 977 are enumerated here.

AMD-V	+	-
VT-d	+	-
VT-x	+	-
EPT	+	no data

Memory specs

Types, maximum amount and channel quantity of RAM supported by Core i5-2520M and Pentium 977. Depending on the motherboard, higher memory frequencies may be supported.

Supported memory types	DDR3	DDR3
Maximum memory size	16 GB	16.38 GB
Max memory channels	2	2
Maximum memory bandwidth	21.335 GB/s	21.335 GB/s

Graphics specifications

General parameters of integrated GPUs, if any.

Integrated graphics card Compare	Intel HD Graphics 3000	Intel HD Graphics for 2nd Generation Intel Processors
Quick Sync Video	+	-
Clear Video HD	+	-
Graphics max frequency	1.3 GHz	1 GHz
InTru 3D	+	-

Graphics interfaces

Available interfaces and connections of Core i5-2520M and Pentium 977 integrated GPUs.

Number of displays supported	2	2
eDP	+	+
DisplayPort	+	+
HDMI	+	+
SDVO	+	+
CRT	+	+

Peripherals

Specifications and connection of peripherals supported by Core i5-2520M and Pentium 977.

PCIe version	2.0	2.0
PCI Express lanes	16	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.

i5-2520M 1.41
+95.8%

Pentium 977 0.72

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.

i5-2520M 2239
+95%

Pentium 977 1148

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.

i5-2520M 3542
+147%

Pentium 977 1435

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.

i5-2520M 18
+211%

Pentium 977 56

Cinebench 11.5 64-bit multi-core

Cinebench Release 11.5 Multi Core is a variant of Cinebench R11.5 which uses all the processor threads. A maximum of 64 threads is supported in this version.

i5-2520M 3
+165%

Pentium 977 1