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Sure, the first mini PCs with Intel “Twin Lake” processors started shipping in late 2024. But Intel hadn’t officially confirmed the existence of these chips at the time.
Now Intel is officially launching four new N-series chips designed for low-cost, low-power computers like Chromebooks, budget laptops, and mini PCs. As expected, the new Intel Twin Lake chips are very similar to the Alder Lake-N processors the company has been offering since early 2023. But they’re a little faster.
For example, the Intel Core N150 is basically what you’d get if you took an Intel N100 processor and increased the maximum CPU and GPU frequencies by 200 MHz and 250 MHz, respectively. But architecturally, they’re pretty much the same.
That’s not necessarily a bad thing – Alder Lake-N processors are often used in entry-level computers with starting prices below $200, while still offering decent performance for basic tasks and support for multiple 4K displays, among other features. They’re good solutions for network-attached storage devices, digital signage systems, media center PCs, and other lightweight tasks. The new Twin Lake chips should be at least as good for those purposes, and so far they seem to be priced similarly to their older counterparts.
| Chip | Cores | Threads | Max freq | L3 cache | Intel Graphics (iGPU) | TDP |
| Core 3 N355 | 8 | 8 | 3.9 GHz | 6MB | 32EU / up to 1.35 GHz | 15W |
| Core 3 N350 | 4 | 4 | 3.9 GHz | 6MB | 32 EU / up to 1.35 GHz | 7W |
| Core N250 | 4 | 4 | 3.8 GHz | 6MB | 32EU / up to 1.25 GHz | 6W |
| Core N150 | 4 | 4 | 3.6 GHz | 6MB | 24EU / up to 1 GHz | 6W |
That said, it would have been nice to see Intel address some of the limitations of Alder Lake-N with Twin Lake:
- These chips are still limited to single-channel DDR4-3200, DDR5-4800, or LPDDR5-4800 memory.
- They still have only 9 lanes of PCIe Gen 3 and lack support for newer standards like PCIe 4.0 or 5.0.
- There’s no Thunderbolt support.
Maybe Intel will get around to giving us real next-gen N-series processors in another year or two.
