The Intel Core i5-5250U was a mobile processor with 2 cores, launched in March 2015, at an MSRP of $315. It is part of the Core i5 lineup, using the Broadwell-U architecture with BGA 1168. Thanks to Intel Hyper-Threading the core-count is effectively doubled, to 4 threads. Core i5-5250U has 3 MB of L3 cache and operates at 1600 MHz by default, but can boost up to 2.7 GHz, depending on the workload. Intel is building the Core i5-5250U on a 14 nm production process using 1,900 million transistors. The multiplier is locked on Core i5-5250U, which limits its overclocking capabilities.
With a TDP of 15 W, the Core i5-5250U consumes very little energy. Intel's processor supports DDR3 memory with a dual-channel interface. The highest officially supported memory speed is 1866 MT/s, but with overclocking (and the right memory modules) you can go even higher. For communication with other components in the machine, Core i5-5250U uses a PCI-Express Gen 2 connection. This processor features the Intel HD 6000 integrated graphics solution.
Hardware virtualization is available on the Core i5-5250U, which greatly improves virtual machine performance. Additionally, IOMMU virtualization (PCI passthrough) is supported, so that guest virtual machines may directly use host hardware. Programs using Advanced Vector Extensions (AVX) will run on this processor, boosting performance for calculation-heavy applications. Besides AVX, Intel is including the newer AVX2 standard, too, but not AVX-512.