Pentium 997: specs and benchmarks

Summary

Intel started Pentium 997 sales 1 September 2012 at a recommended price of $134. This is a Sandy Bridge architecture notebook processor primarily aimed at office systems. It has 2 cores and 2 threads, and is based on 32 nm manufacturing technology, with a maximum frequency of 1600 MHz and a locked multiplier.

Compatibility-wise, this is FCBGA1023 processor with a TDP of 17 Watt. It supports DDR3 memory.

Primary details

Pentium 997 processor market type (desktop or notebook), architecture, sales start time and pricing.

Place in the ranking	2882
Place by popularity	not in top-100
Market segment	Laptop
Series	Intel Pentium
Power efficiency	2.84	of 100.00 (Ryzen Z1 Extreme)
Architecture codename	Sandy Bridge (2011−2013)
Release date	1 September 2012 (12 years ago)
Launch price (MSRP)	$134	of 17,906 (Xeon Platinum 8280L)

Detailed specifications

Basic microprocessor parameters such as number of cores, number of threads, base frequency and turbo boost clock, lithography, cache size and multiplier lock state. These parameters can generally indicate CPU performance, but to be more precise you have to review its test results.

Physical cores	2 (Dual-core)
Threads	2
Base clock speed	1.6 GHz	of 4.7 GHz (FX-9590)
Boost clock speed	1.6 GHz	of 6.2 GHz (Core i9-14900KS)
Bus type	DMI 2.0
Bus rate	4 × 5 GT/s
Multiplier	16	of 42 (Core i7-7700K)
L1 cache	64K (per core)	of 80 KB (EPYC 9965)
L2 cache	256K (per core)
L3 cache	2 MB (shared)	of 1152 MB (EPYC 9684X)
Chip lithography	32 nm	of 3 nm (Apple M3 Max 16-Core)
Die size	131 mm2
Maximum core temperature	100 °C	of 110 °C (Atom x7-E3950)
Number of transistors	504 million	of 135,240 million (EPYC 9684X)
64 bit support	+
Windows 11 compatibility	-

Compatibility

Information on Pentium 997 compatibility with other computer components and devices: 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)	of 8 (Opteron 842)
Socket	FCBGA1023
Power consumption (TDP)	17 Watt	of 500 Watt (Xeon 6960P)

Technologies and extensions

Technological capabilities and additional instructions supported by Pentium 997. You'll probably need this information if you require some particular technology.

Instruction set extensions	Intel® SSE4.1, Intel® SSE4.2
FMA	+
Enhanced SpeedStep (EIST)	+
My WiFi	-
Turbo Boost Technology	-
Hyper-Threading Technology	-
Idle States	+
Thermal Monitoring	+
Flex Memory Access	+
Demand Based Switching	-
FDI	+
Fast Memory Access	+

Security technologies

Processor technologies aimed at improving security, for example, by protecting against hacks.

TXT	-
EDB	+
Anti-Theft	-

Virtualization technologies

Supported virtual machine optimization technologies. Some are specific to Intel only, some to AMD.

VT-d	-
VT-x	-

Memory specs

Types, maximum amount and channel number of RAM supported by Pentium 997's memory controller. Depending on the motherboard, higher memory frequency may be supported.

Supported memory types	DDR3
Maximum memory size	16 GB	of 6 TiB (EPYC 9124)
Max memory channels	2	of 12 (Xeon Platinum 9221)
Maximum memory bandwidth	21.335 GB/s	of 460.8 GB/s (EPYC 9124)

Graphics specifications

General parameters of a GPU integrated into Pentium 997.

Integrated graphics card	Intel HD Graphics for 2nd Generation Intel Processors
Clear Video HD	-
Graphics max frequency	1 GHz
InTru 3D	-

Graphics interfaces

Available interfaces and connections of Pentium 997's integrated GPU.

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

Peripherals

Specifications and connection types of supported peripherals.

PCIe version	2.0	of 5.0 (Core i9-12900K)
PCI Express lanes	16	of 128 (EPYC 7551P)

Benchmark performance

Single-core and multi-core benchmark results of Pentium 997. Overall benchmark performance is measured in points in 0-100 range, higher is better.

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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.

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Closest competitors

Pentium 997's performance relative to its closest rivals among notebook CPUs.

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