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 Creative Results
The Creative suite for PCMark changes the workloads out a bit, and is overall a much longer benchmark. Creative includes web browsing, photo editing, video editing, group video chat, media transcoding, and gaming workloads, so like the previous test the higher resolution of the Yoga 3 Pro will bring its scores down compared to the 1080p of all of the other devices. Like PCMark 8 Home, the work features high demand followed by low demand.
The Core i5 performs much the same as during the Home benchmark. Clearly the cooling system which is designed to get rid of 15 watts of heat can pretty easily cope with these types of workloads, and it even allows the CPU to turbo quite often to the CPU’s maximum speed of 2.7 GHz. GPU workloads are also no issue for the cooling system. None of the 4.5 watt TDP devices fare so well though, and as with the Home benchmark we see the Yoga 3 Pro having quite good CPU and GPU frequencies. The Dell is limited quite a bit more on temperature, and the ASUS is limited by its lack of maximum turbo frequency.
Looking at the average CPU frequency tells a big story of thermal limitations on the Dell Venue 11 Pro. With an average that is barely over its base of 1.2 GHz, the device spends a significant amount of time below its base frequency. The UX305 keeps its consistency high, with it almost reaching its maximum turbo clock, while the Yoga 3 Pro ends up quite a bit faster.
The GPU story has the ASUS bumping into its maximum GPU speed of 800 MHz, keeping pace with the Dell Venue 11 Pro which can go as high as 900 MHz. The Yoga 3 Pro is over 800 Mhz, here, showcasing its active cooling solution and meaning it is certainly spending time closer to its 900 MHz GPU turbo.
Looking at average temperatures, it is obvious why the ASUS can stay close to its maximum turbo on many workloads. After this one hour benchmark, the CPU average was just over 56°C despite the passive cooling. The active cooled Broadwell-U laptop is a bit higher, and the Yoga 3 Pro kept its average under its 65°C CPU maximum.
The Lenovo Yoga 3 Pro scores the highest of all three Core M devices in this benchmark despite the higher resolution display. On this type of workload where the actual work is much shorter, it keeps its CPU frequency much higher than all of the other Core M devices. The Venue 11 Pro also outscores the UX305 despite its low average CPU frequency. When needed, it was able to turbo well past the 2 GHz maximum of the 5Y10 device.
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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)