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 ESTTouchXPRT 2014 Results
TouchXPRT performs several tasks, and the workloads very much fall into the race to sleep category. There are several workloads, from adding filters to photos, to creating podcasts. The benchmark takes about ten minutes to complete, but each workload is slightly different.
Looking at the Core i5 graph makes it very obvious where the heaviest lifting is in this benchmark, but even that one is full of bursts of work. The Dell Venue tablet is able to hit a very high frequency for many of these tasks, since it has adequate time to cool off in between. The ASUS is as consistent as always, and the Yoga 3 Pro can really stretch its legs on this benchmark.
Looking at the average CPU frequency, the Yoga 3 Pro beats out the other Core M devices by a lot, and even turbo higher than the Core i5 on many occasions. If the work is short, the higher burst frequency of the 5Y71 can make a big difference. This would be very similar to web browsing, where short bursts of work get the job done. The Dell has the lowest average CPU frequency again, but as we have seen in previous results the fact that it can hit a much higher frequency than the ASUS can help it regain ground, especially on a short workload such as this one.
The GPU average frequencies show the disadvantage of the 5Y10. It is quite a bit under the 800 MHz turbo frequency of the chip, and it cannot turbo to the 900 MHz of the other two chips when it does have thermal headroom to make up the difference. The other two devices can be seen to jump all the way up to the 900 MHz maximum many times.
Temperatures are low, and the ASUS is the lowest again. The Yoga 3 Pro is sitting right at the 65°C target temperature, which means it was not always able to keep within that target during these quick bursts of energy needed.
TouchXPRT is almost a perfect workload for 5Y71, and the Yoga 3 Pro outperforms even the Core i5-5200U in this test. The Venue 11 Pro also comes in right at the score of the Core i5. The ASUS UX305 is certainly hampered by its lack of turbo compared to the other devices in this test. It had the lowest average temperature, and it could not do anything with it.
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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.