Pentium 987 vs Pentium B950
Aggregate performance score
Pentium B950 outperforms Pentium 987 by an impressive 54% based on our aggregate benchmark results.
Primary details
Comparing Pentium B950 and Pentium 987 processor market type (desktop or notebook), architecture, sales start time and price.
| Place in the ranking | 2769 | 2976 |
| Place by popularity | not in top-100 | not in top-100 |
| Market segment | Laptop | Laptop |
| Series | Intel Pentium | Intel Pentium |
| Power efficiency | 1.70 | 2.28 |
| Architecture codename | Sandy Bridge (2011−2013) | Sandy Bridge (2011−2013) |
| Release date | 19 June 2011 (13 years ago) | 1 February 2013 (11 years ago) |
| Launch price (MSRP) | $134 | $134 |
Detailed specifications
Pentium B950 and Pentium 987 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 | 2 | 2 |
| Base clock speed | 2.1 GHz | 1.5 GHz |
| Boost clock speed | 2.1 GHz | 1.5 GHz |
| Bus type | DMI 2.0 | DMI 2.0 |
| Bus rate | 4 × 5 GT/s | 4 × 5 GT/s |
| Multiplier | 21 | 15 |
| L1 cache | 64K (per core) | 64K (per core) |
| L2 cache | 256K (per core) | 256K (per core) |
| L3 cache | 2 MB (shared) | 2 MB (shared) |
| Chip lithography | 32 nm | 32 nm |
| Die size | 131 mm2 | 131 mm2 |
| Maximum core temperature | 85 °C | 100 °C |
| Number of transistors | 504 million | 504 million |
| 64 bit support | + | + |
| Windows 11 compatibility | - | - |
Compatibility
Information on Pentium B950 and Pentium 987 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 | PGA988 | FCBGA1023 |
| Power consumption (TDP) | 35 Watt | 17 Watt |
Technologies and extensions
Technological solutions and additional instructions supported by Pentium B950 and Pentium 987. You'll probably need this information if you require some particular technology.
| Instruction set extensions | Intel® SSE4.1, Intel® SSE4.2 | 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
Pentium B950 and Pentium 987 technologies aimed at improving security, for example, by protecting against hacks.
| TXT | - | - |
| EDB | + | + |
| Anti-Theft | - | - |
Virtualization technologies
Virtual machine speed-up technologies supported by Pentium B950 and Pentium 987 are enumerated here.
| VT-d | - | - |
| VT-x | - | - |
Memory specs
Types, maximum amount and channel quantity of RAM supported by Pentium B950 and Pentium 987. 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 | Intel HD Graphics for 2nd Generation Intel Processors | Intel HD Graphics for 2nd Generation Intel Processors |
| Clear Video HD | - | - |
| Graphics max frequency | 1.1 GHz | 1 GHz |
| InTru 3D | - | - |
Graphics interfaces
Available interfaces and connections of Pentium B950 and Pentium 987 integrated GPUs.
| Number of displays supported | 2 | 2 |
| eDP | + | + |
| DisplayPort | + | + |
| HDMI | + | + |
| SDVO | + | + |
| CRT | + | + |
Peripherals
Specifications and connection of peripherals supported by Pentium B950 and Pentium 987.
| 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
TrueCrypt AES
TrueCrypt is a discontinued piece of software that was widely used for on-the-fly-encryption of disk partitions, now superseded by VeraCrypt. It contains several embedded performance tests, one of them being TrueCrypt AES, which measures data encryption speed using AES algorithm. Result is encryption speed in gigabytes per second.
WinRAR 4.0
WinRAR 4.0 is an outdated version of a popular file archiver. It contains an internal speed test, using 'Best' setting of RAR compression on large chunks of randomly generated data. Its results are measured in kilobytes per second.
Pros & cons summary
| Performance score | 0.63 | 0.41 |
| Recency | 19 June 2011 | 1 February 2013 |
| Power consumption (TDP) | 35 Watt | 17 Watt |
Pentium B950 has a 53.7% higher aggregate performance score.
Pentium 987, on the other hand, has an age advantage of 1 year, and 105.9% lower power consumption.
The Pentium B950 is our recommended choice as it beats the Pentium 987 in performance tests.
Should you still have questions on choice between Pentium B950 and Pentium 987, ask them in Comments section, and we shall answer.
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