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 ESTPCMark 8 Home Results
PCMark 8 Home is a much different workload than Cinebench. Cinebench thrives on sustained performance over the duration of the workload, with the CPU utilization staying around 100% for the duration. While an important metric, most people do not use their computers like that in their day to day lives, so Futuremark has crafted the PCMark suite to perform tasks which are more akin to what the average person will do in a day. Home includes workloads for web browsing, writing, gaming, photo editing, and video chat, and the nature of these loads mean that there is a lot more burst performance needed, so the race to sleep mentality of the Core M can be more effective in this scenario.
The burst nature of this benchmark is apparent just looking at the Core i5. No longer is the CPU frequency consistent across the board, and the temperatures ramp up and down as the work is performed and finished. Even more pronounced is the Dell tablet, which spikes up and down from its maximum temperature, but at the same time ramping clock speeds up quite high as well. The incredible cooling of the ASUS UX305 passive solution makes a big difference here, with the UX305 being able to maintain almost its maximum frequency for the duration of this benchmark. The Yoga 3 Pro really shines here though, with it maintaining quite high speeds for almost the entire duration of the benchmark.
Average CPU frequencies on the other hand show an unexpected disparity between the results we saw above and what the averages end up being. It's the cool Yoga 3 Pro that holds the highest average clockspeeds, followed by the UX305, and finally bringing up the rear is the Venure 11 Pro 7000.
The GPU averages for the three Core M devices are very similar overall, although none are at their maximum. Only the 15 watt Core i5 can maintain its maximum GPU frequency for the duration of this test. As we will see later, GPUs can draw a lot of power.
Moving on to temperature, with the burst nature of this benchmark, all of the devices have a reasonable time to cool off between workloads. The ASUS shows its amazing cooling capabilities again, with a significantly lower temperature than even both of the active cooled devices, but none of them are too close to their maximum allowed temperature over the duration.
Looking at the end result of this benchmark kind of throws everything we have seen in the above graphs on its head. The Yoga 3 Pro, despite sustaining a CPU frequency higher than all of the other Core M devices in this test, ends up scoring the worst, however the overall result by the Yoga 3 Pro is disadvantaged in this benchmark by the gaming test, due to the high resolution display on the Yoga 3 Pro. This is very similar to the results seen in the Dell XPS 13 review, where the QHD+ model only scored 2691 and the FHD model scored 3042 with the same processor. However the ASUS UX305 beats the other Core M devices, although it does so with a much lower resolution display than the Yoga 3 Pro which would certainly beat it otherwise.
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maxxbot - Wednesday, April 8, 2015 - link
If the device buyer's choice is between the Core M and an ARM or Atom they're going to go with the Core M because it's faster in every aspect, especially burst performance. If the Core M in unacceptable slow for you then there aren't any other options at the 4.5W TDP level to turn to, it's the best currently available.name99 - Wednesday, April 8, 2015 - link
That ("Maybe Intel made too many compromises") seems like the wrong lesson.I think a better lesson is that the Clayton Christensen wheel of reincarnation has turned yet again.
There was a time more than 40 years ago when creating a computer was a demanding enough exercise that the only companies that could do it well were integrated top to bottom, forced to do everything from designing the CPU to the OS to the languages that ran on it.
The PC exploded this model as standardized interfaces allowed different vendors to supply the BIOS, the OS, the CPU, the motherboard, the storage, etc.
BUT as we push harder and harder against fundamental physics and what we want the devices to do, the abstractions of these "interfaces" start to impose serious costs. It's no longer good enough to just slap parts together and assume that the whole will work acceptably. We have seen this in mobile, with a gradual thinning out of the field there; but we're poised to see the same thing in PCs (at least in very mobile PCs which, sadly for the OEMs, is the most dynamic part of the business).
This also suggests that Apple's advantage is just going to keep climbing. Even as they use Intel chips like everyone else, they have a lot more control over the whole package, from precisely tweaked OS dynamics to exquisitely machined bodies that are that much more effective in heat dissipation. (And it gets even worse if they decide to switch to their own CPU+GPU SoC for OSX.)
It's interesting, in this context, where the higher frequency 1.2GHz part is difficult for some vendors to handle, to realize that Apple is offering a (Apple-only?) 1.3/2.9GHz option which, presumably, they believe they have embodied in a case that can handle its peak thermals and get useful work out of the extra speed boost.
HakkaH - Friday, April 10, 2015 - link
Device buyers don't even see beyond the price tag, brand name and looks. 90% of the people who buy tech are pretty oblivious on what they are buying. So they wouldn't even know if a device would throttle the speed at all.Secondly I'd rather have a device that throttles good which processors are doing the last couple of years than have a steady pace at which it just crawls along and maybe after 5 minutes decides... hey maybe I can add 200 MHz and still be okay. If that is your case I bet you still have the first generation smartphone in your pocket instead of a more recent model because they all aggressively throttle the CPU and GPU in order to keep you from throwing your phone out of your hands ;)
HP - Saturday, August 8, 2015 - link
Your description doesn't follow the usage paradigm of most computing tasks. As the user is actively using their device what they do on the machine roughly tracks the user's thought patterns which largely takes place in series. He doesn't batch the tasks in his head first and then execute them. So race to sleep is where it's at.milkod2001 - Wednesday, April 8, 2015 - link
What about Intel's native 4 core mobile CPUs. Are any in the works?Core M,Y, U(2 core) etc might be OK for bloggers, content consumers etc but if one wants/needs real performance on the go, there's not that much new to offer, right?
nathanddrews - Wednesday, April 8, 2015 - link
I think we'll have to settle for the i7-4700 until Skylake. Not a bad place to settle.kpkp - Wednesday, April 8, 2015 - link
"Atom competed against high powered ARM SoCs and fit in that mini-PC/tablet to sub 10-inch 2-in-1 area either running Android, Windows RT or the full Windows 8.1 in many of the devices on the market."Atom in Windows RT? Wasn't RT ARM only?
Essence_of_War - Wednesday, April 8, 2015 - link
Very impressed by the Zenbook, especially at its price point.boblozano - Wednesday, April 8, 2015 - link
Thanks for the detailed article.In this space it's clear that the top design consideration is cooling - do that well, and everything else follows. Performance will be delivered by the SoC's ability to turbo as needed, power consumption by the SoC and the rest of the design.
Of course materials, size, the question of passive vs. active cooling ... all that also factors decisively into the success of a design, whether the target market actually buys the devices.
But the effectiveness of the cooling will largely determine performance.
Refuge - Wednesday, April 8, 2015 - link
The efficiency of the cooling too. Can't have it take up too much space or too much power (If active and not passive)otherwise you leave either no room for your battery, or you drain it too fast keeping the thing cool (In the case of active)