Analyzing Intel Core M Performance: How 5Y10 can beat 5Y71 & the OEMs' Dilemma
by Brett Howse & Ian Cutress on April 8, 2015 8:00 AM EST3DMark Cloud Gate Results
3DMark Cloud Gate is a benchmark aimed at notebooks and home PCs, and is quite a bit less demanding. It has a DirectX 11 engine but is limited to Direct3D feature level 10, and is compatible with DirectX 10 hardware. The overall run is about three minutes.
There is not much more to be said about the Core i5 at this point. It does an admirable job keeping the GPU frequency almost flat during this benchmark. You can clearly see the Dell Venue 11 Pro ramping up frequencies on the CPU, which cause temperature spikes when this happens. When it throttles the CPU on this workload, it does free up enough thermal room to allow the GPU frequency to be fairly strong. We see a lot of throttling on the ASUS as well, but not quite as pronounced. Once again, on the physics test the GPU is pushed down in frequency to give the CPU more room. The Yoga 3 Pro tries its best but is once again limited by a much lower SoC temperature set point.
On the CPU side, we have a very similar situation to the Sky Diver benchmark. The ASUS once again keeps a higher average CPU frequency than all of the other Core M devices in this test. The Venue 11 is close though.
On the GPU side, the Zenbook and Venue 11 Pro are basically tied. The shorter and less demanding workload lets the Dell keep up despite not having as good of a cooling solution. But, averages are just averages. Clearly the ASUS keeps a substantially higher GPU frequency for much of this test, as is seen in the graph.
The SoC temperatures are actually quite high on the Zenbook in this test, with it coming close to the Venue 11 Pro, but the cooling system clearly is more efficient since the change in temperature on the ASUS is much more gradual than the spikes seen in the Venue 11 Pro. The Yoga 3 Pro tries to stay around 65°C but near the end the temperature does go above their target.
The overall benchmark results for this test are very similar to the previous 3DMark test. The ASUS comes in very close to the Dell Latitude with its Core i5, and the other devices fall back quite a ways. Long sustained GPU workloads are very difficult for both of the 5Y71 devices to handle.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
110 Comments
View All Comments
xilience - Wednesday, April 8, 2015 - link
Minor issue with one of the graphs. PCMark8 Home graph, the temperature scales are different for each device, whereas they look to be the same for all other tests. The numbers are correct, but when quickly comparing graphs it can be confusing to read. THANKS for this great article, it gives a lot of insight into mobile hardware design.digiguy - Wednesday, April 8, 2015 - link
Very interesting article. Core M makes sense (contrary to what some people say in the comments) for those that have the money and want a totally silent device.Having said that, some ultrabooks and core tablets (like my 35W TDP Asus ultrabook or my surface pro 3 i3) are extremely silent, with the fan kicking in only while gaming, which in my opinion is a small concession in exchange for sustained performance (zero throttling in either of the 2 devices).
Also the race to the thinnest device is probably questionable, especially for laptops. Making a smaller device with a bigger screen like Dell did is a great idea, making it thinner and thinner doesn't add much and subtracts performance or adds heat.
What a pity you didn't add the new Macbook to the comparison (probably not available yet). Hope you will do an updated version with it. It will also allow to see how 5y71 performs in a laptop, rather than in a convertible/tablet.
TEAMSWITCHER - Wednesday, April 8, 2015 - link
The problem with just making devices thicker and adding fans is that it compromises portability for only a little in extra performance.For nearly a decade, I carried around a 15" PowerBook or MacBook Pro. Good machines but only mid-range graphic performance. Recently, I slimmed down to an 11" MacBook Air, and I will never...ever...go back to lugging around a larger device.
I also have a desktop Windows Workstation for performance oriented work. It's much faster than any laptop you can buy. Using Drop Box and One Drive I keep files synced between the two machines, and can just hop-up from my Workstation, grab my Mac Book, and hit the door.
Thankfully, my computer budget is large enough to afford a Workstation and a Mac Book - it's actually a necessity for cross-platform developers. I get extreme performance from my workstation and extreme portability from my Mac Book. I don't have to live with compromises, I just have to switch devices.
Refuge - Wednesday, April 8, 2015 - link
I'm all for small form factors and portability, I notice the difference between my 15 inch laptop and my girlfriends 10 inch convertable. It is substantial, but I don't feel that going thinner is the way anymore.The increase in portability I feel personally is purely from the decrease in screen size which naturally lowers the dimensions and weight of the device considerably, but some of these are getting so thin that they are actually uncomfortable, I don't want to hold a blade, or a brick, give me a thing (but not a blade like thin) laptop with a 11 inch screen for on the go work, make it cool, quiet, and perform, and make it like an inch thick, then knock it from $1,000 to $500. I'll buy it everytime.
I feel the same way about phones, I don't want my next one to be thinner, or have a bigger screen.
5 inches fits my hand perfectly, I don't work or game on it. I use it to pass time reading Anandtech or communicating with the world.
I game at home on my SFF that I can easily take to a lan party, or I work on my portable but not paper thin laptop.
I'm happy in all regards honestly. But I suppose this just comes down to personal preference much like how nice peripherals are comes down to taste in the end barring any insufferable design choices.
wallysb01 - Thursday, April 9, 2015 - link
"5 inches fits my hand perfectly"That's what she said.
digiguy - Wednesday, April 8, 2015 - link
"The problem with just making devices thicker and adding fans is that it compromises portability for only a little in extra performance."I think it's actually the contrary, if we talk about laptops/ultrabooks. There can be a big increase in performance for very little increase in thinkness and noise. My ultrabook has a 35w mobile second generation i7 that still performs better than any 4th gen i7 ULV CPUs, let alone Core M... And still it's thin, light and with 8 hours battery life. It is so silent that the fan won't kick in even when I do an OCR of a 10 page file...
For tablets it's different, but still, my SP3 (i3) is thin and has a fan, that never kicks in... Only while gaming, and I am actually happy it does, cause this way there is no throttling.... I would want it to be fanless.... (as I wouldn't like the fan to kick in more often like in the i5 and especially i7 models).
digiguy - Thursday, April 9, 2015 - link
Sorry in the last sentence I meant "I wouldN'T want it to be fanless"Krysto - Wednesday, April 8, 2015 - link
> Atom sits at the lower price band ($50-$100 per chip), typically in a dual or quad core arrangement without hyperthreading and uses ‘modules’ of two discrete cores sharing an L2 cache.More like $107-$161 going by your previous "Braswell" article.
What I'd like to see is how does the $281 Core-M compare to the ~$100 Haswell Celeron from the previous generation in terms of performance.
smilingcrow - Wednesday, April 8, 2015 - link
Brawell is a different market sector though so pricing may not be comparable.kyuu - Wednesday, April 8, 2015 - link
He was referring to mobile atoms (the ones that compare directly to Core M). Braswell is a different market segment, as smilingcrow said.