Celeron M 540 vs Pentium B960

Place in the ranking	2778	3058
Place by popularity	not in top-100	not in top-100
Market segment	Laptop	Laptop
Series	Intel Pentium	Celeron M
Power efficiency	1.68	1.07
Architecture codename	Sandy Bridge (2011−2013)	Merom (2006−2008)
Release date	2 October 2011 (13 years ago)	1 October 2007 (17 years ago)
Launch price (MSRP)	$134	no data

Detailed specifications

Pentium B960 and Celeron M 540 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)	1 (Single-Core)
Threads	2	1
Base clock speed	2.2 GHz	no data
Boost clock speed	2.2 GHz	1.86 GHz
Bus type	DMI 2.0	no data
Bus rate	4 × 5 GT/s	533 MHz
Multiplier	22	no data
L1 cache	64K (per core)	no data
L2 cache	256K (per core)	1 MB
L3 cache	2 MB (shared)	no data
Chip lithography	32 nm	65 nm
Die size	131 mm²	no data
Maximum core temperature	85 °C	no data
Number of transistors	504 million	no data
64 bit support	+	+
Windows 11 compatibility	-	-

Compatibility

Information on Pentium B960 and Celeron M 540 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	FCPGA988,PGA988	no data
Power consumption (TDP)	35 Watt	30 Watt

Technologies and extensions

Technological solutions and additional instructions supported by Pentium B960 and Celeron M 540. You'll probably need this information if you require some particular technology.

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

Security technologies

Pentium B960 and Celeron M 540 technologies aimed at improving security, for example, by protecting against hacks.

TXT	-	no data
EDB	+	no data
Anti-Theft	-	no data

Virtualization technologies

Virtual machine speed-up technologies supported by Pentium B960 and Celeron M 540 are enumerated here.

VT-d	-	no data
VT-x	-	no data

Memory specs

Types, maximum amount and channel quantity of RAM supported by Pentium B960 and Celeron M 540. Depending on the motherboard, higher memory frequencies may be supported.

Supported memory types	DDR3	no data
Maximum memory size	16 GB	no data
Max memory channels	2	no data
Maximum memory bandwidth	21.335 GB/s	no data

Graphics specifications

General parameters of integrated GPUs, if any.

Integrated graphics card	Intel HD Graphics for 2nd Generation Intel Processors	no data
Graphics max frequency	1.1 GHz	no data

Graphics interfaces

Available interfaces and connections of Pentium B960 and Celeron M 540 integrated GPUs.

Number of displays supported	2	no data
eDP	+	no data
DisplayPort	+	-
HDMI	+	-
SDVO	+	no data
CRT	+	no data

Peripherals

Specifications and connection of peripherals supported by Pentium B960 and Celeron M 540.

PCIe version	2.0	no data
PCI Express lanes	16	no data

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.

Pentium B960 0.62
+82.4%

Celeron M 540 0.34

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.

Pentium B960 985
+81.7%

Celeron M 540 542

Cinebench 10 32-bit single-core

Cinebench R10 is an ancient ray tracing benchmark for processors by Maxon, authors of Cinema 4D. Its single core version uses just one CPU thread to render a futuristic looking motorcycle.

Pentium B960 2851
+63.5%

Celeron M 540 1744

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.

Pentium B960 2231
+178%

Celeron M 540 803

Gaming performance

Pros & cons summary

Performance score	0.62	0.34
Recency	2 October 2011	1 October 2007
Physical cores	2	1
Threads	2	1
Chip lithography	32 nm	65 nm
Power consumption (TDP)	35 Watt	30 Watt

Pentium B960 has a 82.4% higher aggregate performance score, an age advantage of 4 years, 100% more physical cores and 100% more threads, and a 103.1% more advanced lithography process.

Celeron M 540, on the other hand, has 16.7% lower power consumption.

The Pentium B960 is our recommended choice as it beats the Celeron M 540 in performance tests.

Should you still have questions on choice between Pentium B960 and Celeron M 540, ask them in Comments section, and we shall answer.