Intel’s 8-Core Mobile Tiger Lake-H, at 45 W, to Ship in Q1
anandtech.com
anandtech.com
Intel say they have the fastest single threaded performance of any laptop processor.
They show a graph of a benchmark of something called SPECRATE * 2017_int_base compiled with the Intel compiler.
Does the Intel compiler still hamstring AMD?
Also is this benchmark useful in real world usage?
I have a 2018 15 MBP with an i9-8950HK that has the same power range - this thing is unusable at full load for anything but burst - and the way it taxes the thermals makes it a terrible laptop (people in the office start turning their heads).
I'm not convinced any portable laptop can handle that TDP efficiently - so maybe this is interesting for gaming laptops - but to me this looks like Intel is still making shitty power-hungry chips for laptops
They are boasting performance comparisons to AMD Navi 2, Navi 3 also brings a ~20% IPC improvement which they claim to have over it. I'd speculate that Ryzen 7 5800U should outperform this chip in most relevant use cases (eg. sustained load like running a simulator while developing/running build watchers or running VM/docker and IDE/compiler) while being in 25W range which can be handled reasonably at this device size.
Unfortunately laptop manufacturers are so slow at adopting AMD in premium line laptops (I preorder a surface pro with an AMD 5xxx CPU). I don't see myself buying an Intel based laptop until they improve the thermals.
Everyone's got different uses for their machines, so just test the heatsink at maximum load/TDP for several hours at least, make sure it doesn't overheat. Is that too much to ask?
And if you design your laptops to be thin and light, don't shove a 6 core 45W processor in it... just don't. It will perform slower than a 4 core 35W chip, so what's the point? Having it on the spec sheet is not worth the negative feedback from buyers.
Apple went the other way with the M1, it doesn't overheat because it just uses much less power, while having the same performance. Really impressive.
You can fix the overheating problem by buying some good thermal paste and applying it yourself and/or by using software like Throttlestop to limit the maximum TDP (and even undervolt it to claw back some of that performance) and NotebookFanControl for the fans. Not sure if there are alternatives for the MacBook, though.
I've thought about opening it up and reapplying paste but I don't want to risk bricking my work device - I don't have the time to deal with it. I will have a few weeks off soon so might consider it if the expected gains are significant but from what I saw back when I looked into it (this[1] mostly) it's not worth it.
https://www.reddit.com/r/macbookpro/comments/96wwyf/so_i_rep...
My M1 Macbook on the other hand, is dead quiet on top of absolutely destroying the XPS in CPU performance while having vastly superior battery life. I don't have to run anything out of spec to keep it from cooking itself.
https://www.notebookcheck.net/Dell-Dynamic-Power-Policy-A-lo...
The result is hilarious: Dell's own machines with a lower end processor have equal or higher performance compared to the same models with higher end CPUs.
This is actually part Intel's fault, as with TurboBoost their processors with the same core count have nearly the same performance, so it makes little sense to pay $100-200 more for a "higher end" CPU unless it has more cores.
What a 15 MBP can and can't cool is therefore not very interesting. Thermally it's terrible. 45W is still going to be a challenge for other designs, but it can (and has) been done without being deafeningly loud like a MBP or monstrously thick. Simply having intake & exhaust vents beyond just the keyboard & hinge alone massively improves things here. But yes you will hear it under sustained load. But you're also doing whatever you're doing a lot faster as a result - it's a tradeoff here. You could always disable half the cores if you don't like the 45W, Intel will sell you quad cores all day long quite happily.
Is there a bar missing there? Just one bar, maybe just two letters?
Perhaps even running in x86 emulation?
Hardcore borders on false advertising.
2. Keep in mind fastest Single Threaded benchmark is still somewhat true considering Intel can turbo up to 5Ghz.
3. TDP comparison between AMD and Intel are meaningless these days. They have different definition of TDP.
4. So if you put 2 and 3 together, that is like saying they have the fastest Laptop processor by overlocking it to 5Ghz with a higher energy usage within limited time frame.
Final Note: Generally speaking one should avoid wccftech unless you know precisely how to read into their rumours and findings. ( Unless their source are official like in this case ) Anandtech is a much better source.
Intel purposefully misidentifies AMD chips with the CPUID check so always runs the generic version of a function on AMD. It does this even if the host AMD chip supports 100% of the features as some Intel CPU that runs the optimized version.
So for any benchmark compiled with ICC any results for AMD chips are meaningless. You can only compare Intel to Intel or AMD to AMD. Compiling that same code without FMV so each CPU runs the exact same instructions will see the difference between them narrow or reverse.
Intel is free to optimize the shit out of their compiler but it's bullshit that they also actively sabotage AMD chips at the same time. It's very much a vendor lock-in tactic.
I would argue they actively make sure their compiler optimisation works only on Intel CPU. Which is actually a fair deal. Those optimisation work isn't free.
It is BS tactics? Yes. Do I Like it ? No. It is wrong to do it? That is up to debate.
The point is using an Intel Compiler on Non Intel CPU comparison makes the benchmarks pretty much useless. Something like GCC / LLVM should have been used to be vendor neutral.
Where I find fault is bullshit marketing saying their CPUs are x% faster than AMD and then point to code compiled with their compiler. I'd be fine if they wanted to say ICC produced faster results than GCC or LLVM. There's no problem selling your CPU with your compiler to get the best performance possible.
Instead they're saying our chips are faster than AMD. Full stop. Once you wade into the bullshit you see they're using ICC with FMV enabled. This means even if you know what compiler flags they used you still can't be sure what code is running on each CPU. It's bullshit marketing and I think it needs to be called out whenever it happens.
(This is not to undermine the fact that the M1 is a /great/ chip, but the 10W figure is a marketing number.)
>It’s especially important to keep in mind that the figure of what we usually recall as TDP in processors is actually only a subset of the figures presented here, as beyond just the SoC we’re also measuring DRAM and voltage regulation overhead, something which is not included in TDP figures nor your typical package power readout on a laptop.
https://www.anandtech.com/show/16252/mac-mini-apple-m1-teste...
Running those tests on the XPS 13 would typically cause the fan to turn on after a minute or two if I remember correctly.
As I said, the M1 is a /great/ CPU. But the numbers are marketing numbers & should be treated as such. The same goes for the CPU in your XPS. It was sold with an advertised TDP, was probably configured by the manufacturer to a /different/ TDP target subject to the thermal constraints of the laptop & as an end-user you can shift the set-points of thermals vs power consumption yourself if you want to. None of this is new & Apple is no exception. If Intel hadn’t completely failed to deliver their last 2 fab shrinks, you’d be sat here raving about how amazing your passively cooled Intel Mac was I imagine.
these new chip is based on 10nm. this article say "Intel's current 10 nm yields are nowhere near viable for “full production”"
that's from 4 weeks ago. did Intel fix their yields problem in 4 weeks?
It seems that this year Apple has only secured 80% of TSMC 5nm production: https://wccftech.com/apple-secured-80-tsmc-5nm-production-ca...
AMD has their presentation shortly but I wouldn't expect more than news on Zen 3 mobiles (which may dampen Intel's presentation a bit but probably won't outdo them) and Zen 3 Epyc (server, likely to wipe the floor) this early into it on the CPU side.
That last part of the title would seem to imply that it's not the fastest overall.
Wonder what are:
1. the fastest overall
2. the fastest overall single thread
3. the fastest overall on the 10nm SuperFin process
1. AMD Ryzen 4900H
2. Apple M1, though the Intel 10875H is pretty much the same perf (though at 3x the power usage)
3. Only Intel uses this, so whatever Intel's fastest chip on this process is.
That said, it varies by use cases, and M1 leans heavily on accelerators so has big wins in some and big losses in others when compared the 4900H or 10875H, which are closer to each other in single threaded benchmarks.
In single core? At least by Geekbench (clearly not the best test) it is shown to be more than 25% slower than M1.
So per that the M1 is 8% faster in single-core than the 28W i7-1185G7 (side note: Intel fix your naming yeesh). It would not at all be surprising if Intel claws that back, that's well within "typical" generational IPC gains.
Is geekbech single core test a single thread test or two threads pinned to one core (if the cpu supports HT)?
Why should I be an enthusiast? Indeed I wait for a much faster laptop to replace my venerable Dell XPS15 9550 for software development. But my mom also deserves a fast laptop for web browsing and emailing.
It's funny how they try to segment the market because they can't deliver the same power to everyone. Yet we all deserve it.
Why should I even bother selecting a CPU option? Give me the best of the moment.
You may feel that you deserve the sun and the moon, but getting Intel to agree with you on that will be harder than getting blood out of a stone. If you pay for it, you can have the best processor. Otherwise, you'll be getting something less.
Yes since years, no.
If someone is not tied to Windows, it's hard to justify this over a $999 MBA.
The X1 Titanium Yoga then offers a touch screen, a better aspect ratio, convertible usage, and significantly faster multi-core performance, at least in bursts. That can easily be worth another $400 depending on the use case & personal preferences. It's also fully possible the X1 Titanium Yoga will be overpriced, of course.