[noggin]

Isn't the big difference between the N2820 (Bay Trail Celeron) and the 2955U (Haswell Celeron) that the Bay Trails support 3D MVC whereas the Haswell Celerons don't?

AIUI 3D MVC decode functionality was limited to Core i3 and above Haswells, with Celerons and Pentium Core-based devices (Haswell etc.) not supporting it? I'm happy to be proved wrong - but ISTR that 3D decode was one of the platform differentiators to drive people to Core-i3 etc.

I totally agree that there is zero point switching from a Haswell Celeron to a Bay Trail Celeron unless you want to use the new 3D MVC decode that has appeared in Windows Kodi recently. However given that this is a 3D thread that may well be the reason?

You are probably right. I'm pretty sure the Haswell Celeron hardware actually supports it. Intel just has disabled it in the Windows drivers, though I suppose they could have used efuses or laser cut traces to disable it at the chip level.

Intel didn't disable it in hardware. It's just a driver limitation in Windows. I tested setting frame-packed 3D 1080@24p output in Linux and it worked fine on the 2955U Chromebox. Based on their online database, they re-enabled it in Windows starting with the Broadwell Celerons like this one.

It's similar to the whole HD Audio passthrough issue where some chips work fine in Linux but not in Windows. No idea why Intel plays these games.

Was it Frame Packed output or MVC decode that you checked? (Or is MVC decode done in software in Intel drivers rather than hardware?)