Pentium 957 vs Xeon E3-1220 v3

Primary details

Comparing Xeon E3-1220 v3 and Pentium 957 processor market type (desktop or notebook), architecture, sales start time and price.

Place in the ranking	1589	3003
Place by popularity	not in top-100	not in top-100
Cost-effectiveness evaluation	1.80	no data
Market segment	Server	Laptop
Series	no data	Intel Pentium
Power efficiency	3.87	2.17
Architecture codename	Haswell-WS (2013−2014)	Sandy Bridge (2011−2013)
Release date	2 June 2013 (11 years ago)	19 June 2011 (13 years ago)
Launch price (MSRP)	$239	$134

Cost-effectiveness evaluation

Performance per price, higher is better.

Detailed specifications

Xeon E3-1220 v3 and Pentium 957 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	4 (Quad-Core)	2 (Dual-core)
Threads	4	2
Base clock speed	3.1 GHz	1.2 GHz
Boost clock speed	3.5 GHz	1.2 GHz
Bus type	no data	DMI 2.0
Bus rate	5 GT/s	4 × 5 GT/s
Multiplier	no data	12
L1 cache	64 KB (per core)	64K (per core)
L2 cache	256 KB (per core)	256K (per core)
L3 cache	8192 KB (shared)	2 MB (shared)
Chip lithography	22 nm	32 nm
Die size	160 mm2	131 mm2
Maximum core temperature	no data	100 °C
Number of transistors	1,400 million	504 million
64 bit support	+	+
Windows 11 compatibility	-	-

Compatibility

Information on Xeon E3-1220 v3 and Pentium 957 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	1 (Uniprocessor)
Socket	FCLGA1150	FCBGA1023
Power consumption (TDP)	80 Watt	17 Watt

Technologies and extensions

Technological solutions and additional instructions supported by Xeon E3-1220 v3 and Pentium 957. You'll probably need this information if you require some particular technology.

Instruction set extensions	Intel® SSE4.1, Intel® SSE4.2, Intel® AVX2	Intel® SSE4.1, Intel® SSE4.2
AES-NI	+	-
FMA	-	+
AVX	+	-
vPro	+	no data
Enhanced SpeedStep (EIST)	+	+
My WiFi	no data	-
Turbo Boost Technology	2.0	-
Hyper-Threading Technology	-	-
TSX	+	-
Idle States	+	+
Thermal Monitoring	+	+
Flex Memory Access	+	+
SIPP	+	-
Demand Based Switching	no data	-
FDI	no data	+
Fast Memory Access	+	+

Security technologies

Xeon E3-1220 v3 and Pentium 957 technologies aimed at improving security, for example, by protecting against hacks.

TXT	+	-
EDB	+	+
Secure Key	+	no data
Identity Protection	+	-
OS Guard	+	no data
Anti-Theft	+	-

Virtualization technologies

Virtual machine speed-up technologies supported by Xeon E3-1220 v3 and Pentium 957 are enumerated here.

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

Memory specs

Types, maximum amount and channel quantity of RAM supported by Xeon E3-1220 v3 and Pentium 957. Depending on the motherboard, higher memory frequencies may be supported.

Supported memory types	DDR3, DDR4	DDR3
Maximum memory size	32 GB	8.01 GB
Max memory channels	2	2
Maximum memory bandwidth	25.6 GB/s	21.335 GB/s
ECC memory support	+	-

Graphics specifications

General parameters of integrated GPUs, if any.

Integrated graphics card	no data	Intel HD Graphics (Sandy Bridge) (350 - 800 MHz)
Graphics max frequency	no data	800 MHz

Graphics interfaces

Available interfaces and connections of Xeon E3-1220 v3 and Pentium 957 integrated GPUs.

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

Peripherals

Specifications and connection of peripherals supported by Xeon E3-1220 v3 and Pentium 957.

PCIe version	3.0	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.

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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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Pros & cons summary

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Performance score	3.27	0.39
Recency	2 June 2013	19 June 2011
Physical cores	4	2
Threads	4	2
Chip lithography	22 nm	32 nm
Power consumption (TDP)	80 Watt	17 Watt

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Should you still have questions on choice between Xeon E3-1220 v3 and Pentium 957, ask them in Comments section, and we shall answer.

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