Athlon Silver 3050U vs i5-540M

Place in the ranking	2369	1962
Place by popularity	not in top-100	not in top-100
Market segment	Laptop	Laptop
Series	Intel Core i5	AMD Picasso (Ryzen 3000 APU)
Power efficiency	3.07	11.91
Architecture codename	Arrandale (2010−2011)	Dali (Zen) (2020)
Release date	7 January 2010 (14 years ago)	6 January 2020 (4 years ago)
Launch price (MSRP)	$257	no data

Detailed specifications

Core i5-540M and Athlon Silver 3050U 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	2.53 GHz	2.3 GHz
Boost clock speed	3.07 GHz	3.2 GHz
Bus type	DMI 1.0	no data
Bus rate	1 × 2.5 GT/s	no data
Multiplier	19	23
L1 cache	128 KB	192 KB
L2 cache	512 KB	1 MB
L3 cache	3 MB (shared)	4 MB
Chip lithography	32 nm	14 nm
Die size	81+114 mm²	no data
Maximum core temperature	105 °C	95 °C
Number of transistors	382+177 Million	4500 Million
64 bit support	+	+
Windows 11 compatibility	-	+

Compatibility

Information on Core i5-540M and Athlon Silver 3050U 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)	no data
Socket	BGA1288,PGA988	FP5
Power consumption (TDP)	35 Watt	15 Watt

Technologies and extensions

Technological solutions and additional instructions supported by Core i5-540M and Athlon Silver 3050U. You'll probably need this information if you require some particular technology.

Instruction set extensions	Intel® SSE4.1, Intel® SSE4.2	MMX, SSE, SSE2, SSE3, SSSE3, SSE4A, SSE4.1, SSE4.2, AVX, AVX2, BMI2, ABM, FMA, ADX, SMEP, SMAP, CPB, AES-NI, RDRAND, RDSEED, SHA, SME
AES-NI	+	+
FMA	+	+
AVX	-	+
vPro	+	no data
Enhanced SpeedStep (EIST)	+	no data
Turbo Boost Technology	+	no data
Hyper-Threading Technology	+	no data
Idle States	+	no data
Thermal Monitoring	+	-
Flex Memory Access	+	no data
PAE	36 Bit	no data
FDI	+	no data
Fast Memory Access	+	no data
Precision Boost 2	no data	+

Security technologies

Core i5-540M and Athlon Silver 3050U technologies aimed at improving security, for example, by protecting against hacks.

TXT	+	no data
EDB	+	no data

Virtualization technologies

Virtual machine speed-up technologies supported by Core i5-540M and Athlon Silver 3050U are enumerated here.

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

Memory specs

Types, maximum amount and channel quantity of RAM supported by Core i5-540M and Athlon Silver 3050U. Depending on the motherboard, higher memory frequencies may be supported.

Supported memory types	DDR3	DDR4
Maximum memory size	8 GB	32 GB
Max memory channels	2	2
Maximum memory bandwidth	17.051 GB/s	38.397 GB/s
ECC memory support	-	+

Graphics specifications

General parameters of integrated GPUs, if any.

Integrated graphics card	Intel® HD Graphics for Previous Generation Intel® Processors	AMD Radeon RX Vega 2
Clear Video	+	no data
Clear Video HD	+	no data
Graphics max frequency	766 MHz	no data

Graphics interfaces

Available interfaces and connections of Core i5-540M and Athlon Silver 3050U integrated GPUs.

Number of displays supported

no data

Peripherals

Specifications and connection of peripherals supported by Core i5-540M and Athlon Silver 3050U.

PCIe version	2.0	3.0
PCI Express lanes	16	12

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.

i5-540M 1.18

Athlon Silver 3050U 1.96
+66.1%

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.

i5-540M 1808

Athlon Silver 3050U 2992
+65.5%

GeekBench 5 Single-Core

GeekBench 5 Single-Core is a cross-platform application developed in the form of CPU tests that independently recreate certain real-world tasks with which to accurately measure performance. This version uses only a single CPU core.

i5-540M 374

Athlon Silver 3050U 777
+108%

GeekBench 5 Multi-Core

GeekBench 5 Multi-Core is a cross-platform application developed in the form of CPU tests that independently recreate certain real-world tasks with which to accurately measure performance. This version uses all available CPU cores.

i5-540M 718

Athlon Silver 3050U 1350
+88%

Gaming performance

Pros & cons summary

Performance score	1.18	1.96
Recency	7 January 2010	6 January 2020
Threads	4	2
Chip lithography	32 nm	14 nm
Power consumption (TDP)	35 Watt	15 Watt

i5-540M has 100% more threads.

Athlon Silver 3050U, on the other hand, has a 66.1% higher aggregate performance score, an age advantage of 9 years, a 128.6% more advanced lithography process, and 133.3% lower power consumption.

The Athlon Silver 3050U is our recommended choice as it beats the Core i5-540M in performance tests.

Should you still have questions on choice between Core i5-540M and Athlon Silver 3050U, ask them in Comments section, and we shall answer.