Intel’s Tiger Lake 11th Gen Core i7-1185G7 Review and Deep Dive: Baskin’ for the Exotic
by Dr. Ian Cutress & Andrei Frumusanu on September 17, 2020 9:35 AM EST- Posted in
- CPUs
- Intel
- 10nm
- Tiger Lake
- Xe-LP
- Willow Cove
- SuperFin
- 11th Gen
- i7-1185G7
- Tiger King
Xe-LP GPU Performance: Final Fantasy XV
Upon arriving to PC, Final Fantasy XV: Windows Edition was given a graphical overhaul as it was ported over from console. As a fantasy RPG with a long history, the fruits of Square-Enix’s successful partnership with NVIDIA are on display. The game uses the internal Luminous Engine, and as with other Final Fantasy games, pushes the imagination of what we can do with the hardware underneath us. To that end, FFXV was one of the first games to promote the use of ‘video game landscape photography’, due in part to the extensive detail even at long range but also with the integration of NVIDIA’s Ansel software, that allowed for super-resolution imagery and post-processing effects to be applied.
In preparation for the launch of the game, Square Enix opted to release a standalone benchmark. Using the Final Fantasy XV standalone benchmark gives us a lengthy standardized sequence to record, although it should be noted that its heavy use of NVIDIA technology means that the Maximum setting has problems - it renders items off screen. To get around this, we use the standard preset which does not have these issues. We use the standard quality settings.
OK so testing at 8K was a complete accident. In that pure GPU limited scenario, Intel is ahead. When at 720p in a more standard combination of settings, Intel's 28 W goes above the 65 W desktop integrated graphics, but is behind when stuck in 15 W mode.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
253 Comments
View All Comments
Spunjji - Friday, September 18, 2020 - link
Yet actual performance isn't as far apart as IPC alone would indicate, because the designs differ in some fundamental ways. It'll be interesting to see how this shakes out in practice.RedOnlyFan - Friday, September 18, 2020 - link
Lol you have got your info wrong. Sunny cove and willow cove IPC is more or less the same. Sunny cove is 18% higher IPC over skylake. Willow cove performance is higher because of higher clock ~20% more. It's impossible to define what's "sufficient".Rudde - Saturday, September 19, 2020 - link
From Spec2017: Willow Cove has 15% higher integer IPC and 12% higher floating point IPC compared to Zen 2. Zen 3 should be on par with Willow Cove on IPC. Golden Cove will of course keep a gap to Zen 3.zepi - Friday, September 18, 2020 - link
You should also publish the frequency vs. time graph for some of the tests. This would make it much easier to estimate how the chips scale with TDP.Sychonut - Friday, September 18, 2020 - link
For me personally, the real star of the show are those ARM processors (especially Apple's) performing so admirably at a smaller power envelope.abufrejoval - Friday, September 18, 2020 - link
For me the biggest motivator for getting one of these in a NUC would be to play with the shadow stack, control flow integrity (CFI) and memory encryption, because the ability to run secured corporate VMs on personal home-office hardware has a lot of appeal, even if it's originally a cloud issue.I'd obviously want those same features from AMD and wonder where they stand: Are their VM encryption mechanisms sufficiently similar to what Intel is pushing (would such things actually be covered under their intellectual property agreements)?
Any word on CFI from AMD? Or actual implementation of similar extensions on the ARM side?
vinay001 - Friday, September 18, 2020 - link
@Anandtech, What happened to 3080 review??Rudde - Saturday, September 19, 2020 - link
CA wildfiresandracass - Saturday, September 19, 2020 - link
The side ports on that reference model and the way the screen props the laptop up when you open it makes the device VERY reminiscent of the MSI Prestige.Like, identical.
Ian Cutress - Sunday, September 20, 2020 - link
It is. Intel initially asked the press not to put too much emphasis on the OEM they partnered with, as retail units will be different and more optimized. But a lot of press straight up mentioned it in their reviews, so I guess the cat is out of the bag.