Intel Broadwell Architecture Preview: A Glimpse into Core M
by Ryan Smith on August 11, 2014 12:01 PM ESTClosing Thoughts
Wrapping up our preview of the Broadwell architecture and Intel’s Core M processor, the bulk of Intel’s presentation and focus today is on the latter, so that is where we’ll start.
Core M is not a make-or-break product for Intel, but none the less it is a very important one. Mobile devices – be it tablets, slates, transformers, 2-in-1s etc – are continuing to increase in popularity, and as we’ve seen with ARM based tablets so far they form a market that has continued to grow and continued to erode the x86 laptop market that Intel has dominated for so long. Though laptops as a category are not going anywhere any time soon, their erosion means that Intel needs to get into mobile devices if they want to maintain their sales and their stature. To that end it’s not too late for Intel to break into this market and turn things around, but if they’re going to succeed then they need to make their move sooner or later, and this is where Core M fits in.
It’s telling then that while Intel is going after this market with a Core architecture, they are doing so under a different Core brand. Core M doesn’t just represent a new low powered Core CPU, but in Intel’s eyes is another product entirely. One that is so different that it does away with the Core i3/i5/i7 convention entirely and gets its own brand name and own product numbers. Core M is still Core, but it is nearly unrecognizable compared to the Core of even 4 years ago.
As far as the Core M product is concerned then, while Intel’s plans are grand they are not without merit. Backed by Intel’s new 14nm process and the Broadwell architecture, Core M looks like it should finally resolve the issues that dogged even Haswell-Y by bringing down power consumption even further while improving on Intel’s already strong performance, and getting the resulting processor in an SoC small enough to be usable in even the thinnest mobile devices. In fact from a technical perspective there’s little reason to doubt Core M; we’ll still have to wait to see just how good the resulting retail products are, but there shouldn’t be any technical reason for why it can’t be put into a mobile device comparable to today’s 10”+ tablets. Intel’s own Llama Mountain reference design can vouch for that much, showcasing the viability of Core M in a 12.5” tablet that’s just 7.2mm thick.
Intel's Llama Mountain, a Core M form factor reference design
More likely what will determine Core M’s fate and Intel’s ability to completely break into the mobile device market will be pricing. Intel’s profit margins are somewhat legendary in the computer industry, and a big part of that profitability has come from the high prices Intel has enjoyed from products such as their Core processors. Core M, like the other Cores before it, will still be an upscale product – a higher priced, higher performance alternative to Intel’s mass-market Atom processors. And while that makes plenty of sense on paper, in the real world Intel has to face the AllWinners and other ARM vendors of the world who are happy to sell their ARM SoCs at significantly lower margins, which can have a knock-on effect even if they can’t compete with Intel on overall performance. At this point it’s far too early to call this, especially when Intel isn’t even discussing Core M pricing at this time, but it’s a subject that Intel will have to consider carefully as “good enough” ARM devices will continue to be the biggest threat to Intel’s position in the CPU market.
Moving on, while today’s release from Intel only offers us a preview of what Intel will be delivering with their Broadwell architecture, what Intel has presented thus far looks to continue Intel’s tradition of relentless execution. As a tick Broadwell is a small but respectable improvement in Intel’s Core architecture, with the expected 5% IPC improvement in-line with previous ticks. For more traditional desktops and laptops it won’t radically change the world, but then it never was meant to. The biggest question for these parts will be whether Broadwell will improve on Haswell’s clockspeeds at all – a clockspeed boost made possible by Intel’s 14nm process – or if we’re going to hold steady similar to what we saw with the last tick, Ivy Bridge.
Meanwhile Broadwell’s GPU improvements are more significant, and in the race to further improve what’s essentially the baseline for PC GPU performance it is always welcome. Furthermore the fact that Intel is now at API feature parity with discrete GPUs is a big deal for Intel and it is a big deal for iGPUs as a whole. What we still want to see is more performance; a single slice seems just about right for Core M, but if we’re talking about larger laptop and desktop parts it would be very nice to see something akin to GT3 become baseline, especially with the die size savings Intel will be seeing from the 14nm process.
Finally, from here the rest of Intel’s 2014 should be rather busy. Next month is Intel’s Fall IDF 2014, at which point we expect we’ll be given a deeper look at Broadwell’s architecture. Past that the first Broadwell-Y based Core M processors will be on the shelves for the holidays, and with it our chance to see Broadwell and Intel’s 14nm process in action. However that will also be our only chance to see Broadwell in action this year; while Core M will ship in time for the holidays, the rest of the Broadwell lineup will not appear until 2015.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
158 Comments
View All Comments
psyq321 - Tuesday, August 12, 2014 - link
Actually, apart from power-users I fail to see any tangible improvements in performance of modern CPUs that matter to desktop/notebook usage, Intel or otherwise.In the mobile space, it is improvements in GPU which mattered, but even that will eventually flatten once some peak is reached since graphics improvements on 4" / 5" screen can only matter to wide audiences up to some point.
However, there are surely enough customers that do look forward to more power - this is workstation and server market. Skylake and its AVX512 will matter to scientists and its enormous core count in EP (Xeon) version will matter to companies (virtualization, etc.).
Standard desktop, not so much. But, then again, ever since Core 2 Quad 6600 this was the case. If anything, large-scale adoption of SSDs is probably the single most important jump in desktop performance since the days of Conroe.
Khenglish - Monday, August 11, 2014 - link
I find the reduction in die thickness to be a big deal. Maybe this will prevent temperatures from getting out of control when the cpu core area gets cut in half for 14nm. High power 22nm cpus already easily hit 30c temperature difference between the cpu and heatsink.AnnonymousCoward - Tuesday, August 12, 2014 - link
Probably not. I'd guess thermal dissipation is the same.dgingeri - Monday, August 11, 2014 - link
PC sales are down mostly because people can keep their systems longer due to the lack of innovation coming from Intel on desktop chips and the lack of utilizing the current CPU technology by software developers. They could be so much more, if only developers would actually make use of the desktop CPU capabilities for things such as a voice command OS that doesn't need to be trained. Intel would then have a reason to produce more powerful chips that would trigger more PC sales.As it is, the current processor generation is less than 10% faster clock for clock compared to three generations ago. A great many thing aren't any faster at all. Know what? It doesn't even matter because nothing uses that much power these days.
Tablets and smartphones can't take the place of full PCs for most people. Their screens are just too small. Perhaps the younger generations prefer the small form factors right now, but give them a little time, and their eyes won't let them use such things. I can see the move to laptops, especially with 14-15" screens, but trying to show the same content on a 10" screen is just near unusable, and a 5" smartphone screen is just downright impossible. However, desktop PCs still have their place, and that's never going to change.
This push by "investors" for the tablet and smartphone market is just asinine. Broadwell isn't going to help sales all that much. Perhaps, they might sell some more Intel based tablets, but it won't be all that much of an improvement. Tablets have a niche, but it really isn't that much of one.
HanzNFranzen - Monday, August 11, 2014 - link
Tablets are a niche and not much of one? lol yea ok... well while you were asleep in a cave, over 195 million tablets were sold in 2013 between Android/Apple/Microsoft which is just shy of 80 million more than the previous year. World wide PC sales totaled 316M units, so we are talking nearly 2 tablets for every 3 PC's sold. Eh...small niche...dgingeri - Monday, August 11, 2014 - link
yeah, lots of people have them, but how much do they really use them? I have two, one Android and one Windows RT, and I only use them for reading books or for reading the web news while away from home. The Windows unit showed promise, since I could use it to run Office and terminal programs, but I ended up not using it at work anymore because it couldn't use a USB to serial adapter for talking to switches and raid arrays. It ended up being only half useful. They're nice to have for certain things, but they aren't as versatile as a PC. My parents own two, and two PCs, and they use the PCs far more. My older sister has one, and she barely uses it. Her 7 year old uses it to play games most of the time. My nephew has one, and he's only ever used it to read Facebook. It's a telling tale that everyone I've known who has one only has limited used for it.mapesdhs - Monday, August 11, 2014 - link
Point taken, but if people are *buying* them, irrespective of whether they use them,then it doesn't really matter.
Besides, this whole field of mobile computing, smart phones, tablets, now phablets,
etc., it's too soon to be sure where we're heading long-term.
Many people say the copout porting of console games to PCs with little enhancement
is one thing that's harmed PC gaming sales. This may well be true. Now that the newer
consoles use PC tech more directly, perhaps this will be less of an issue, but it's always
down to the developer whether they choose to make a PC release capable of exploiting
what a PC can do re high res, better detail, etc. Wouldn't surprise me if this issue causes
internal pressures, eg. make the PC version too much better and it might harm console
version sales - with devs no doubt eager to maximise returns, that's something they'd
likely want to avoid.
Ian.
az_ - Monday, August 11, 2014 - link
Ryan, could you add a size comparison to an ARM SOC that would be used in a tablet? I wonder how close are Intel in size. Thanks.name99 - Tuesday, August 12, 2014 - link
BDW-Y is 82 mm^2. The PCH looks like it's about a third of that, so total is maybe 115 mm^2 or so.In comparison, Apple A7 is about 100 mm^2.
A7 includes some stuff BDW-Y doesn't, and vice versa, so let's call it a wash in terms of non-CPU functionality.
BDW-Y obviously can perform a LOT better (if it's given enough power, probably performs about the same at the same power budget). On the other hand it probably costs about 10x what an A7 costs.
Krysto - Tuesday, August 12, 2014 - link
Sure, also let's conveniently forget that Broadwell Y benefits not only of 3D transistors, but a 2 generation node shrink, too, compared to A7. Now put A7 on 14nm and 3d transistors...and let's see which does better.This is the issue nobody seems to understand, not even Anand, or just conveniently ignored it when he declared that the "x86 myth is busted". At the time we were talking about a 22nm Trigate Atom vs 28nm planar ARM chip, with Atom barely competing on performance (while costing 2x more, and having half the GPU performance). Yet Anand said the x86 bloat myth is busted...How exactly?! Put them on the same process technology...and then we'll see if x86 myth is indeed busted, or it's still bloated as a pig.