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 ESTCinebench R15 Single-Threaded Results
Cinebench will run the CPU up to 100% load for the duration of the test. As this is the single-threaded run, only one core will be active, which should in theory provide more headroom for that one core than when all cores (physical and virtual) are loaded. There is no burst workload here at all, and sustained single-threaded performance is the key for this test.
The Core i5 does exactly what would be expected for this benchmark. With just a single core loaded, the cooling system has no issues keeping the CPU from throttling. It maintains an extremely consistent CPU frequency during the run. This cannot be said of the two Core M-5Y71 devices though. The Dell Venue 11 Pro starts off with quite a high frequency, but as the temperature increases, the CPU drops in frequency to keep below the threshold of 90°C set on the SoC. At any opportunity, it increases its CPU frequency to try to increase performance, but generally that does not last for very long, and it ends up falling back down. The Yoga 3 Pro on the other hand, has a much lower allowed SoC temperature, with Lenovo locking in on 65°C as their maximum target temperature. This keeps the frequency down.
The ASUS Zenbook has an entirely flat CPU line though. The excellent heat dissipation of the chassis allows it to run for the duration of the benchmark with no throttling at all. It has to be noted though that the maximum CPU frequency is a quite a bit lower than the 5Y71 devices, topping out at 2.0 GHz versus 2.9 GHz for 5Y71. It would be very interesting to see how the UX305 would do with the faster CPU inside, and if it would run into throttling issues as well.
Looking at the average CPU frequency over the run shows that the i5 clearly has the most headroom, which is not surprising. Averages are only part of the story though, with both of the 5Y71 devices being able to jump past the 5Y10's frequency several times during the test.
Looking at temperatures, it's interesting to note that the Dell Venue 11 Pro has the top-tier Core M-5Y71, but it puts that processor in what is the smallest chassis and with a plastic exterior. Consequently it quickly loads up to its maximum temperature and stays there for the duration. The rest of the devices stay much cooler with just a single core loaded.
Here we have the actual benchmark results. On single-threaded workloads, the 5Y71 can and does outperform 5Y10. Despite the average CPU frequencies being lower on both 5Y71 devices, they had enough headroom when necessary to jump past the very consistent 5Y10. None of them can match the Core i5 in this test. It is actually very interesting that the highest scoring Core M in this test has the lowest average CPU frequency.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
110 Comments
View All Comments
serendip - Wednesday, April 8, 2015 - link
Core M is expensive for what it does. If you want mobility without a fan, go with Atom. If you want better unthrottled performance, go with the U models.It's the weird throttling and poor OEM thermal designs which concern me. Core M may have good turbo speeds but that's useless if it has to throttle down quickly from heat soak. Users will be disappointed when their machines act speedy one moment and start lagging the next, no matter what the design turbo speeds are.
serendip - Wednesday, April 8, 2015 - link
Can't edit comments, sigh. Anyway, my Bay Trail Atom tablet runs from 600 MHz to 1.86 GHz and has no issues with thermal throttling. It can smoothly turbo and then clock down without dropping down too far and sacrificing usability.It seems some OEMs like Lenovo set a total system power draw limit that's too low, on top of skin thermal limits. The CPU can only turbo for very short periods of time before being dropped to base speed or even lower. You're then stuck with a 1 GHz CPU and 100 MHz GPU which you paid a ton of money for. I think the problem lies with both sloppy engineering from OEMs and unrealistic promises made by Intel.
nonoverclock - Wednesday, April 8, 2015 - link
I have a Bay Trail Atom (Venue Pro 11) and it's alright but I definitely need more speed. Trying to stream sports games through their Metro apps will often skip and this doesn't happen on my higher performance devices. Also it has some inexplicable pauses here and there. More speed would be great.Brett Howse - Wednesday, April 8, 2015 - link
I think you are missing the fact that even throttled Broadwell is a lot faster than Silvermont cores. I don't have the T100 in the notebook bench (it is a tablet) but the HP Stream has two Silvermont cores and a 7.5 watt TDP http://anandtech.com/bench/product/1449?vs=1400If you want to compare to quad-core Bay Trail some of the scores are here http://anandtech.com/show/7428/asus-transformer-bo...
Bay Trail was a big boost for Atom but I would take Core M in a mobile device over it any day.
Pissedoffyouth - Thursday, April 9, 2015 - link
My bay trail Asus T100 never throttles back from 1.8ghz even under prime95+furmark. very power efficientsonicmerlin - Wednesday, April 8, 2015 - link
I really like this article, but I wish you had run GFXBench, which is more of a pure GPU test. I want to compare the results to the iPad's A8X and Tegra K1.Brett Howse - Wednesday, April 8, 2015 - link
I have discussed this in the actual device reviews. This article wasn't about that kind of comparison so I will ask you to go to the review http://anandtech.com/show/9104/asus-zenbook-ux305-...testbug00 - Wednesday, April 8, 2015 - link
All this testing, and, I don't see a single power system power draw number for anything. Maybe I'm missing something? But, woudn't seeing the i5 system draw 7-13 watts more be useful for determining how good Core M is?If the product uses a third of the power and gets 50-100% of the performance... Well. That's very impressive.
Alexvrb - Wednesday, April 8, 2015 - link
Do you like phystics? Do you like phystics in your mouth? (typo on page 2!)Brett Howse - Thursday, April 9, 2015 - link
TYVM :)