The 8th Gen m3-8100Y has two cores, four threads, 5W TDP (up to 8W), 4MB cache, and a 1.1GHz base frequency. The 10th Gen i3-10100Y in the Go 3 has two cores, four threads, 5W TDP (up to 7W), 4MB cache, and a 1.3GHz base frequency. Performance is likely not going to be wildly different if you're coming from a Go 2 with the Pentium chip. The 6500Y does have a larger cache (4MB compared to 2MB) and a slightly higher max frequency for its integrated graphics. The Gold 4425Y in the Go 2 is also a dual-core chip with four threads, with a 6W TDP and 1.7GHz base frequency. The Pentium Gold 6500Y in the Go 3 is a dual-core chip with four threads, 5W TDP (up to 7W), and 1.1GHz base frequency.

The Surface Go 3's CPU choices don't look that impressive on paper. While benchmarks and performance numbers are not plentiful for either of these chips - we will have our own set of numbers once we have a Go 3 in for testing - we can compare them to the older Go 2 CPUs. This isn't a huge bump in power, and it's looking like the same issue of 'barely enough' that we saw in the Surface Go 2 will be true once again. It's now available with either an Intel Pentium Gold 6500Y or a 10th Gen Intel Core i3-10100Y. The Surface Go 3 saw mostly a performance upgrade.

Source: Daniel Rubino / Windows Central (Image credit: Source: Daniel Rubino / Windows Central)

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