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 ESTDOTA 2 Results
DOTA 2 is a multiplayer battle arena game, and for this test we are using the same setup as our Mainstream benchmark, but this time with a full game. At 1600x900, all of the devices should be around 30 fps, and the overall test is about 45 minutes.
The Core i5 once again does a great job throughout this test. The CPU frequencies are dropped to keep the GPU running at full speed. The GPU basically runs at full speed for the duration of this test. The Venue 11 Pro is not so lucky, with it quickly heating up and being forced to throttle both the CPU and the GPU. The ASUS continues its amazing run, and showcases what can happen with a good passive cooling solution. The Yoga 3 Pro is not so lucky, with that pesky 65°C set point rearing its ugly head, which causes a big drop in overall frequency on such a long sustained workload.
The average CPU frequency for this sustained real world gaming workload has even the Core i5 having to give up some CPU headroom to keep the GPU fed with power. The ASUS has a sizable advantage here, and both the 5Y71 devices drop well under their base 1.2 GHz CPU frequency when the GPU is running at maximum.
The GPU is really the story though, since this is a gaming workload. Amazingly the ASUS is only 100 MHz off of its maximum turbo frequency as an average for this 45 minute workload. Both the Dell Venue 11 Pro and the Yoga 3 Pro do not have enough cooling to keep these kinds of sustained GPU loads going.
The Yoga 3 Pro is by far the coolest SoC in almost all of these tests, with its combination of active cooling and a 65°C maximum SoC temperature. The ASUS is far and away the hottest device in this test, but it also does a lot more work than the other Core M devices, and it is not getting any hotter by the end of the test, so the device cooling is doing its job.
It is clear at this point that the ASUS can keep the GPU frequency much higher than the other Core M devices due to the nature of its cooling, and form factor. The DOTA 2 test is really dominated by it. It is much faster in this test than the other Core M devices, and once again due to the single-channel nature of the Core i5, the ASUS even outperforms the Core i5 in this test.
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xilience - Wednesday, April 8, 2015 - link
Minor issue with one of the graphs. PCMark8 Home graph, the temperature scales are different for each device, whereas they look to be the same for all other tests. The numbers are correct, but when quickly comparing graphs it can be confusing to read. THANKS for this great article, it gives a lot of insight into mobile hardware design.digiguy - Wednesday, April 8, 2015 - link
Very interesting article. Core M makes sense (contrary to what some people say in the comments) for those that have the money and want a totally silent device.Having said that, some ultrabooks and core tablets (like my 35W TDP Asus ultrabook or my surface pro 3 i3) are extremely silent, with the fan kicking in only while gaming, which in my opinion is a small concession in exchange for sustained performance (zero throttling in either of the 2 devices).
Also the race to the thinnest device is probably questionable, especially for laptops. Making a smaller device with a bigger screen like Dell did is a great idea, making it thinner and thinner doesn't add much and subtracts performance or adds heat.
What a pity you didn't add the new Macbook to the comparison (probably not available yet). Hope you will do an updated version with it. It will also allow to see how 5y71 performs in a laptop, rather than in a convertible/tablet.
TEAMSWITCHER - Wednesday, April 8, 2015 - link
The problem with just making devices thicker and adding fans is that it compromises portability for only a little in extra performance.For nearly a decade, I carried around a 15" PowerBook or MacBook Pro. Good machines but only mid-range graphic performance. Recently, I slimmed down to an 11" MacBook Air, and I will never...ever...go back to lugging around a larger device.
I also have a desktop Windows Workstation for performance oriented work. It's much faster than any laptop you can buy. Using Drop Box and One Drive I keep files synced between the two machines, and can just hop-up from my Workstation, grab my Mac Book, and hit the door.
Thankfully, my computer budget is large enough to afford a Workstation and a Mac Book - it's actually a necessity for cross-platform developers. I get extreme performance from my workstation and extreme portability from my Mac Book. I don't have to live with compromises, I just have to switch devices.
Refuge - Wednesday, April 8, 2015 - link
I'm all for small form factors and portability, I notice the difference between my 15 inch laptop and my girlfriends 10 inch convertable. It is substantial, but I don't feel that going thinner is the way anymore.The increase in portability I feel personally is purely from the decrease in screen size which naturally lowers the dimensions and weight of the device considerably, but some of these are getting so thin that they are actually uncomfortable, I don't want to hold a blade, or a brick, give me a thing (but not a blade like thin) laptop with a 11 inch screen for on the go work, make it cool, quiet, and perform, and make it like an inch thick, then knock it from $1,000 to $500. I'll buy it everytime.
I feel the same way about phones, I don't want my next one to be thinner, or have a bigger screen.
5 inches fits my hand perfectly, I don't work or game on it. I use it to pass time reading Anandtech or communicating with the world.
I game at home on my SFF that I can easily take to a lan party, or I work on my portable but not paper thin laptop.
I'm happy in all regards honestly. But I suppose this just comes down to personal preference much like how nice peripherals are comes down to taste in the end barring any insufferable design choices.
wallysb01 - Thursday, April 9, 2015 - link
"5 inches fits my hand perfectly"That's what she said.
digiguy - Wednesday, April 8, 2015 - link
"The problem with just making devices thicker and adding fans is that it compromises portability for only a little in extra performance."I think it's actually the contrary, if we talk about laptops/ultrabooks. There can be a big increase in performance for very little increase in thinkness and noise. My ultrabook has a 35w mobile second generation i7 that still performs better than any 4th gen i7 ULV CPUs, let alone Core M... And still it's thin, light and with 8 hours battery life. It is so silent that the fan won't kick in even when I do an OCR of a 10 page file...
For tablets it's different, but still, my SP3 (i3) is thin and has a fan, that never kicks in... Only while gaming, and I am actually happy it does, cause this way there is no throttling.... I would want it to be fanless.... (as I wouldn't like the fan to kick in more often like in the i5 and especially i7 models).
digiguy - Thursday, April 9, 2015 - link
Sorry in the last sentence I meant "I wouldN'T want it to be fanless"Krysto - Wednesday, April 8, 2015 - link
> Atom sits at the lower price band ($50-$100 per chip), typically in a dual or quad core arrangement without hyperthreading and uses ‘modules’ of two discrete cores sharing an L2 cache.More like $107-$161 going by your previous "Braswell" article.
What I'd like to see is how does the $281 Core-M compare to the ~$100 Haswell Celeron from the previous generation in terms of performance.
smilingcrow - Wednesday, April 8, 2015 - link
Brawell is a different market sector though so pricing may not be comparable.kyuu - Wednesday, April 8, 2015 - link
He was referring to mobile atoms (the ones that compare directly to Core M). Braswell is a different market segment, as smilingcrow said.