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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serendip - Wednesday, April 8, 2015 - link
Maybe Intel made too many compromises and OEMs reached too far with their designs. On one hand a fast race to sleep is good, yet on the other hand, I'd rather be a slow and steady tortoise who finishes the race than a hare that turbos and sleeps frequently to prevent overheating. Device buyers don't care about TDP or poorly set skin temperature limits, they'll just swear off Core M products that give them throttled 600 MHz speeds instead of full power.boblozano - Wednesday, April 8, 2015 - link
Good point, though I tend to think it'll depend on the use cases. I went back to separate desktop(s) / laptop (rather than a single, uber-laptop) about a year ago. Consequently the laptop can be optimized for size / weight / mobility, for which a core-m device is helpful.jospoortvliet - Thursday, April 9, 2015 - link
Exactly the same here. I will do my video and image editing on my quad-core desktop anyway, so a core M is perfect: I need portability and battery life in a laptop, not raw performance. Intel made just the right chip for a customer like me here. Too bad that on the desktop side, where I would love an affordable six or eight core with a high tdp, they fail me.girishp - Monday, April 13, 2015 - link
I tried doing the same thing, but portability quickly triumphs any advantage of a powerful desktop, especially when a good powerful laptop can do most of what I need. I bought the 2nd gen Mac Book Air for my wife and it was good for her basic multimedia requirements (Photoshop, Final Cut Pro, etc.), but the latest Mac Book just isn't powerful enough for any of her needs.MrSpadge - Wednesday, April 8, 2015 - link
Turbo gives the system increased responsiveness under bursty loads, i.e. most everyday workloads. There's no good reason not to use the performance available and be a tortoise voluntarily. When the load is sustained over longer periods, Turbo automatically throttles back to what ever limit the OEM has set. Had you choosen the tortoise mode, you would have started at this point. With Turbo you don't loose any performance compared to this scenario, it just makes you reach the limit quicker. Turbo also autoamtically factors in things like "how many cores are loaded", "how stresful is this program in reality", "how good is the device cooling" and "how hot is the ambient" by simply measuring them empirically (power consumption & temperature). In fixed tortoise mode you'd have to predict all of them and assume the worst case, just like Intel & AMD did for the first dual and quad cores with low fixed frequencies.If Turbo results in "turbos and sleeps frequently to prevent overheating" it is simply set up badly, significantly worse than Turbo on Intel Desktop CPUs since a few years. Instead of sleeping to avoid overheating the turbo bin must gradually be lowered until a good steady state is reached.
MrSpadge - Wednesday, April 8, 2015 - link
Forgot to add: it would be really nice if there was a simple user control for their current preference of maximum performance vs. tolerated temperature. Win allows limiting a CPUs maximum performance state, but most users will never find this option in the advanced energy settings. A simple slider as a sidebar-like gadget could work well. Not only for Core-M, but also for regular laptops and desktops. Add one slider for each discrete GPU's power target.mkozakewich - Wednesday, April 8, 2015 - link
Also, MS removed that option in all their PCs with connected standby. You can still enable it through the registry, but regular users are even less likely to make use of that option. We need some sane defaults set so we can have separate "Low Power", "Balanced" and "Overdrive" modes. We won't care about skin temperature if we've chosen to use that temperature briefly and we have an option to turn it back down.soccerballtux - Wednesday, April 8, 2015 - link
the biggest problem is Windows packaging in tons of storage indexing that runs every time you log in, or letting services run around in the background and datamine (Facebook, Amazon Music re-scans every 10 minutes-- I mean seriously? might as sell me a phone with 100MB less of RAM if you're going to do that)The_Assimilator - Wednesday, April 8, 2015 - link
Because it's obviously Windows' fault that it runs services that you told it to install.lilmoe - Thursday, April 9, 2015 - link
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