Intel 11th Generation Core Tiger Lake-H Performance Review: Fast and Power Hungry
by Brett Howse & Andrei Frumusanu on May 17, 2021 9:00 AM EST- Posted in
- CPUs
- Intel
- 10nm
- Willow Cove
- SuperFin
- 11th Gen
- Tiger Lake-H
SPEC CPU - Single-Threaded Performance
SPEC2017 and SPEC2006 is a series of standardized tests used to probe the overall performance between different systems, different architectures, different microarchitectures, and setups. The code has to be compiled, and then the results can be submitted to an online database for comparison. It covers a range of integer and floating point workloads, and can be very optimized for each CPU, so it is important to check how the benchmarks are being compiled and run.
We run the tests in a harness built through Windows Subsystem for Linux, developed by our own Andrei Frumusanu. WSL has some odd quirks, with one test not running due to a WSL fixed stack size, but for like-for-like testing is good enough. SPEC2006 is deprecated in favor of 2017, but remains an interesting comparison point in our data. Because our scores aren’t official submissions, as per SPEC guidelines we have to declare them as internal estimates from our part.
For compilers, we use LLVM both for C/C++ and Fortan tests, and for Fortran we’re using the Flang compiler. The rationale of using LLVM over GCC is better cross-platform comparisons to platforms that have only have LLVM support and future articles where we’ll investigate this aspect more. We’re not considering closed-sourced compilers such as MSVC or ICC.
clang version 10.0.0
clang version 7.0.1 (ssh://git@github.com/flang-compiler/flang-driver.git
24bd54da5c41af04838bbe7b68f830840d47fc03)
-Ofast -fomit-frame-pointer
-march=x86-64
-mtune=core-avx2
-mfma -mavx -mavx2
Our compiler flags are straightforward, with basic –Ofast and relevant ISA switches to allow for AVX2 instructions. We decided to build our SPEC binaries on AVX2, which puts a limit on Haswell as how old we can go before the testing will fall over. This also means we don’t have AVX512 binaries, primarily because in order to get the best performance, the AVX-512 intrinsic should be packed by a proper expert, as with our AVX-512 benchmark.
To note, the requirements for the SPEC licence state that any benchmark results from SPEC have to be labelled ‘estimated’ until they are verified on the SPEC website as a meaningful representation of the expected performance. This is most often done by the big companies and OEMs to showcase performance to customers, however is quite over the top for what we do as reviewers.
Single-threaded performance of TGL-H shouldn’t be drastically different from that of TGL-U, however there’s a few factors which can come into play and affect the results: The i9-11980HK TGL-H system has a 200MHz higher boost frequency compared to the i7-1185G7, and a single core now has access to up to 24MB of L3 instead of just 12MB.
In SPECint2017, the one results which stands out the most if 502.gcc_r where the TGL-H processor lands in at +16% ahead of TGL-U, undoubtedly due to the increased L3 size of the new chip.
Generally speaking, the new TGL-H chip outperforms its brethren and AMD competitors in almost all tests.
In the SPECfp2017 suite, we also see general small improvements across the board. The 549.fotonik3d_r test sees a regression which is a bit odd, but I think is related to the LPDDR4 vs DDR4 discrepancy in the systems which I’ll get back to in the next page where we’ll see more multi-threaded results related to this.
From an overall single-threaded performance standpoint, the TGL-H i9-11980HK adds in around +3.5-7% on top of what we saw on the i7-1185G7, which lands it amongst the best performing systems – not only amongst laptop CPUs, but all CPUs. The performance lead against AMD’s strongest mobile CPU, the 5980HS is even a little higher than against the i7-1185G7, but loses out against AMD’s best desktop CPU, and of course Apple M1 CPU and SoC used in the latest Macbooks. This latter comparison is apples-to-apples in terms of compiler settings, and is impressive given it does it at around 1/3rd of the package power under single-threaded scenarios.
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Bagheera - Tuesday, May 18, 2021 - link
Intel isn't gonna have enough EUV in time to ramp 7nm by 2023. they are in serious trouble and floating on borrowed time, most analysts just aren't aware.https://semiwiki.com/forum/index.php?threads/will-...
Intel's 10nm is indeed competitive with TSMC 7nm in terms of density, but AMD will be moving to 5nm with Zen 4 next year, what can Intel's response be? They can increase outsourcing to TSMC but that means less utilization of their own fabs which is bad. They absolutely won't be able to get 7nm ready in time to compete with AMD on TSMC 5nm. It will be back to the status quo of Intel lagging behind AMD by one full node, and likely foregoing power efficiency for performance parity.
Bagheera - Tuesday, May 18, 2021 - link
no actual semiconductor professional expected Intel 10nm to surpass TSMC 7nm in any tangible way. the only people who expected otherwise are uniformed enthusiasts (usually gamers, who the to be partial to Intel)The gap will only widen from here. Intel really shot itself in the foot with bad EUV planning.
https://semiwiki.com/semiconductor-services/ic-kno...
watzupken - Tuesday, May 18, 2021 - link
I feel this review concludes that Intel have effectively lost their competitive edge when their fab started to lag behind. In fact, its also conclusive that the SuperFin is really nothing super at all even when compared to TSMC's 7nm. Its just 10nm on steroids just like what they have been doing to their 14nm. From an architect standpoint, Willow Cove is decent, but the bulk of the performance is due to pushing for very high clock speed at the expense of very high power consumption. If this was released on a desktop, it will be a hit. But on mobile, I don't think one can easily find a laptop that have the cooling capability to tame the heat output and also maintain a decent battery life. Especially this processor will likely be paired with a high end GPU. To me, this is a worrying trend for Intel because they will likely have to stick around with 10nm for another couple of years at least. If their new CPU architect is unable to provide decent IPC gains without bursting the power limit, they will surely be in trouble, especially when AMD's 5nm chips may appear in the market first.mode_13h - Tuesday, May 18, 2021 - link
> If this was released on a desktop, it will be a hit.Yes.
> I don't think one can easily find a laptop that have the cooling capability
> to tame the heat output and also maintain a decent battery life.
At 35 W, it would probably make a fine laptop. Unfortunately, competitive pressure is pushing Intel to juice their CPUs more than they really should.
sandeep_r_89 - Tuesday, May 18, 2021 - link
Can you please please stop using the word BIOS for modern devices? Pretty much all devices have been on UEFI only for several years now.Silver5urfer - Tuesday, May 18, 2021 - link
Ah the M1 fastest CPU ever, doesn't make it to SMT SPEC scores for some reason, like always. Don't worry we will see the Apple CPU which would be X version of the chip iteration when it finally catches up to the SMT of these SMT until then M1 is the best CPU ever.TGL machines will throttle to peak with the thin and light garbage heatsinks. That's a given, people should stop buying these parts. Laptop batteries will be destroyed eventually and none of them will have the Dell Desktop Power plan only Workstations have that feature (Lenovo and Dell), Alienware used to have, not sure about now their A51M R1 and R2 also they had their GFX modules smoke, anyways the battery won't be available for the end user to service and the expensive machine will die and BGA with soldered HW to further limit everything, add the overheating NVMe SSDs due to poor ventilation, happens in Alienware machines too which are targeted as maximum performance.
Spunjji - Thursday, May 20, 2021 - link
🤪🤡😤🤬🤥💩mode_13h - Friday, May 21, 2021 - link
Oof. Looks like *someone* is giving Emojipedia a workout!: )
Spunjji - Tuesday, May 18, 2021 - link
This ended up how I was expecting - superior single-core performance where there's thermal headroom, dropping down to broadly competitive multi-performance at the rated TDP, and with a faintly ludicrous maximum power draw under all-core boost.I'm glad it's competitive. That's needed. What I'm a little less glad about is that we're almost certainly in for another round of CPU performance varying *wildly* between different designs, which has been true to some extent for a while, but getting steadily worse ever since Ice Lake showed up.
Given most OEMs' approach to cooling, I'd wager that the average device shipping with Cezanne will provide better CPU performance than the average device with Tiger 45 simply because of Cezanne's greater efficiency.
tekit - Tuesday, May 18, 2021 - link
Heard they enabled undervolting again for tiger lake-h, can anyone confirm? I wonder how much undervolting potential there is and if that could balance the equation against AMD.