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
Section by Andrei Frumusanu
CPU MT Performance: SPEC 2006, SPEC 2017
We’ve noted the earlier discussions of Intel’s TDP handling and how Tiger Lake has 15W and 28W operating modes, and where this comes into play the most is in multi-threaded scenarios where the platform is generally power envelope limited, having to otherwise clock down.
We’re showcasing the MT performance in SPEC for both the Tiger Lake modes, comparing it to both the 15W Ice Lake and AMD Renoir chips. As a note, the 15W Ice Lake platform had a sustained power draw of 18W which makes things not quite as apples-to-apples. Also as a reminder, the Intel systems have 4 cores and are running 8 thread instances, while the AMD system has 8 cores and is running 16 threads.
At first glance, the Tiger Lake system performs quite well versus its predecessor, but that’s mostly only in the 28W mode. At 15W, the generational boost, while it is there, isn’t that significant. This might point out that efficiency isn’t all that much better this generation.
AMD’s platform scales incredibly well in execution-bound workloads as it fully takes advantage of double the core count. In more memory-heavy workloads, the Zen2 cores here seem to be lacking sufficient resources and scale below the performance of Intel’s 4-core designs in some workloads.
In the floating-point results, it’s again a matter of TDP headroom as well as memory performance scalability. In the 15W results, the Tiger Lake chip posts rather small improvements over its Ice Lake counterpart, whilst in the 28W mode the gains are more considerable and even manages to outperform the AMD system more often than not.
In the overall scores, the verdict on Tiger Lake is dependent on how you evaluate Intel’s performance gains. At an (semi)equal-TDP level between Tiger Lake and Ice Lake, the improvements in performance are 17%. Intel does reach a larger 51% generational performance boost in its 28W configuration, but at that point we’re talking about quite different cooling solutions inside of a laptop, no longer making this a valid apples-to-apples comparison.
We haven’t had opportunity to test out higher TDP -HS model of Renoir yet, but with the 15W 4800U already mostly tied with the 28W i7-1185G7, we would expect it to notably outperform the Tiger Lake chip.
Overall, Tiger Lake seems to be offering roughly 20% better performance per watt over its predecessor, with increased performance beyond that coming at a cost of higher power consumption.
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MadManMark - Thursday, September 17, 2020 - link
I don't quite get the "sardine oil basting AMD" analogy?Is that some English thing, can you Britsplain the meaning for this ignorant Yank?
MamiyaOtaru - Thursday, September 17, 2020 - link
ironically it's actually a super American pop culture reference: like some other things in the article it's a reference to something from Tiger Kinghuangcjz - Thursday, September 17, 2020 - link
Ars Technica has disclosed that the system was made by MSI, and that it kinda resembles what will eventually become their Prestige 14 Evo system.Oxford Guy - Thursday, September 17, 2020 - link
"Kinda resembles" doesn't mean it might not have super special cooling to show the chip in an artificially good light.If that level of cooling isn't going to be in the market then the results are marketing distortion.
Oxford Guy - Thursday, September 17, 2020 - link
Before anyone says it's can't be special ask yourself why there are special conditions, like photographing the inside, etc. etc. The review said the cooling is overbuilt and not something for the marketplace.Remember Intel's overbuilt fridge that it used to sucker people?
Spunjji - Friday, September 18, 2020 - link
Better cooling won't change the fact that it has a 15W power limit imposed for those particular tests, which Ian confirmed through testing - it just means that temperature won't be the limit. I really, really don't think this is a distorting factor for this comparison.If the OEMs put it into laptops that can't actually cool 15W, that's kind of on them. I suspect it'll happen (thought not as much as it happens with AMD designs, natch).
Oxford Guy - Sunday, September 20, 2020 - link
I really think you're likely wrong.Lower temperature means more work for those watts.
Oxford Guy - Sunday, September 20, 2020 - link
We are also familiar with Intel's "TDP" versus how much the machines actually draw.I don't trust any numerical claims from Intel. Verify then trust.
Spunjji - Sunday, September 20, 2020 - link
They verified the numbers...Eh. I give up.
asfletch - Friday, September 18, 2020 - link
Yeah Dave Lee recognised it as Prestige 14 shell too...wonder why the cloak+dagger...