Intel Broadwell Thread

[witeken]

If there will be only 2.7GHz Cherry Trails, the CPU improvement will be >40% for most tablets.

 

[Lepton87]

I made a very long post and then it disappeared I'll be quick now.
Core M is a premium product intended for the premium devices, not intended for low-end to mid-end devices. It's not intended to be produced en masse, they have an atom to fill that role. Even if a 4-core Atom manages to come close to the MT performance of a Core M it still doesn't make it an equal SOC. ST is still very important, many things on which responsiveness and the general comfort of use relies is still bound by the performance of a single thread. Apple chose to stick to a dual core high IPC high single-threaded performance CPU for its smartphones for a reason many reasons in fact. The responsiveness of the devices is often bound by the performance of a singe thread and storage performance. They could have easily designed a bit leaner higher clocking core and make a quad core for its smartphones, easily increasing the MT performance by about 40-50%, but they preferred to sacrifice some MT performance for a much superior ST performance. Because of their choice they can still increase the performance of their SOC without a totally new design as they how shown as with A8X. We all know that it's better for throughput to put many simpler cores than fewer more advanced cores. GPU are taking this concept to the extreme. Still, the comfort of using a SOC with a high ST performance and similar MT performance is much better, scratch that, it's better even if its MT performance is lower, that's why NV wanted to design their own core even though it didn't improve their MT performance compared to their quad T1. The same thing with CoreM and atom. Look at Core M as a premium product similar as how you look at Intel HEDT 2011-3 platform. That's my take on it.

 

[dahorns]

dahorns:

I get your point. That wasn't really what I was trying to say. Sorry for that.

It performs decent when you are testing behind closed doors, with what seems like a special metal backing, and set at 6W. Even then there's rather large fluctuation(see the two results given by Fjdor2001). Thats a benchmarking chip.

Isn't this really a criticism of the oems and their laziness? I mean, everyone saw the Intel reference design. I thought Intel was really clear that you need a metal chassis to dissipate the heat needed to run this this thing at 6w. Apple does it. The Shield Tablet does it. Why are the oems releasing plastic crap and expecting it to work the same?

I'd love to see a Surface 4 or Surface Pro 4 with Core M. Microsoft would do it right. I mean, it crammed a U series into the Surface Pro 3. I'm using it now. It is fantastic.

When you use words like "reinvent" you expect the gains to be real good, and a slide with that word should meet most, if not all they claim: http://www.pcper.com/files/imagecache/article_max_width/review/2014-08-11/broadwell-12.jpg

I don't have to tell you that 3 of the tested systems already can only meet 2 out of the 5 "bullet points" there. Now if you compare against an outdated 2010 system the Core M looks ok. But now you are telling me a device with once-in-few years next gen process specifically tuned for the chip can't do better than the vanilla Haswell Y? And people are saying that its fine?

Assuming the TDP is accurate, the 5y70 in the Yoga Pro 3, set at 3.5 TDP, performs the same or better than a Haswell Y with 3 times the TDP. The 5y10 in the Asus at 4.5 TDP does the same.

http://www.notebookcheck.net/Intel-Core-i5-4202Y-Notebook-Processor.102728.0.html

 

[Revolution 11]

I am a bit confused at the terminology here. Will Core M be a SoC design? Is Atom the only SoC family from Intel?

Because if Core M is not a complete SoC design, it will lose a lot of appeal that a solution like Qualcomm provides.

 

[Roland00Address]

I am a bit confused at the terminology here. Will Core M be a SoC design? Is Atom the only SoC family from Intel?

Because if Core M is not a complete SoC design, it will lose a lot of appeal that a solution like Qualcomm provides.

Core M and Haswell U series are both SoC. That said Atom based products such as Mooresfield is a more integrated product and it needs a far cheaper motherboard due to how integrated it is and a much simpler power delivery mechanism.

---

Cherrytrail may only go up to 2.7 ghz but that is 50% higher than most atom parts which are 1.8 ghz and 1.86 ghz. Yes the highest parts are 2.4 ghz with Baytrail but they are kind rare with prices close to $500 which is where CoreM is supposed to start.

Furthermore the ghz speed does not tell how long the cpu can stay in that mode, remember 1.8ghz and 2.7 ghz are turbo modes and Intel does not call them turbo boost but specifically turbo BURST in the atom chips for it is a burst mode and not a sustainable mode such as laptop and desktop core series parts.

Personally Intel probably should have called Core M turbo burst as well like Atom and not turbo boost. Use that as a marketing technique. The difference between Core and Core M is you can get the performance of desktop and laptop chips for very short intervals.

 

[AtenRa]

Core M and Haswell U series are both SoC.

I dont believe Broadwell Core-M is an SoC, ATOM Baytrail is.

ATOM BayTrail

Haswell and Broadwell Core-M

 

[III-V]

It's a bit of a silly term anyway... Because basically no one sells true systems on a chip. We're probably a few years away from that level of integration.

 

[witeken]

I am a bit confused at the terminology here. Will Core M be a SoC design? Is Atom the only SoC family from Intel?

Because if Core M is not a complete SoC design, it will lose a lot of appeal that a solution like Qualcomm provides.

It is an SoC, but it uses 2 chips. Intel doesn't compete with Qualcomm. There is not a single fanless CPU that can compete with Core; Broadwell is aimed at the high-end.

 

[witeken]

Furthermore the ghz speed does not tell how long the cpu can stay in that mode, remember 1.8ghz and 2.7 ghz are turbo modes and Intel does not call them turbo boost but specifically turbo BURST in the atom chips for it is a burst mode and not a sustainable mode such as laptop and desktop core series parts.

Personally Intel probably should have called Core M turbo burst as well like Atom and not turbo boost. Use that as a marketing technique. The difference between Core and Core M is you can get the performance of desktop and laptop chips for very short intervals.

Bay Trail does not throttle (much), as far as I know. It has the lowest power consumption of any competing SoC.

 

[witeken]

It's a bit of a silly term anyway... Because basically no one sells true systems on a chip. We're probably a few years away from that level of integration.

SoC is obsolete. SoP is the future.

 

[AtenRa]

It is an SoC, but it uses 2 chips.

Then it is not an SoC

 

[escrow4]

I have a VivoTab Note with Bay Trail that can last 9hrs with Calibre/ebooks. A Core M tablet could barely crack 6hrs a few pages back - eh? Where are the 15-20hr tablets? Its 2015, why can't we get all day battery life?

 

[witeken]

Then it is not an SoC

Minor difference, names don't matter anyway.

 

[witeken]

I have a VivoTab Note with Bay Trail that can last 9hrs with Calibre/ebooks. A Core M tablet could barely crack 6hrs a few pages back - eh? Where are the 15-20hr tablets? Its 2015, why can't we get all day battery life?

Because screens consume many watts, and you only have so many Watt hours.

 

[AtenRa]

Minor difference, names don't matter anyway.

Minor difference ??? are you joking ???

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/System_on_a_chip

A system on a chip or system on chip (SoC or SOC) is an integrated circuit (IC) that integrates all components of a computer or other electronic system into a single chip. It may contain digital, analog, mixed-signal, and often radio-frequency functions—all on a single chip substrate

ATOM BayTrail-T has everything integrated in a single chip, including the Camera and Storage Hub.

Broadwell Core-M on the other hand is only a CPU.

 

[ShintaiDK]

AtenRa I think the point was that there is really no SoCs. Its a misused term really until some time in the future where they may actually fully integrate to be a real SoC.

 

[witeken]

Snapdragon 805 uses a discrete modem. Is that not an SoC too?

BTW, your Core M die also has graphics, the memory controller and the things you can read on the right .

 

[Fjodor2001]

I used to think so, but I think that kind of performance is only sustainable under short-term circumstances, like in benchmarks.

Intel's own words indicate there can be a 30% drop in performance after running 8+ instances or so because the initial performance gain is due to extra thermal headroom its using up. It's not like Sandy Bridge's gain because most of the gains on Sandy Bridge were sustainable under LOT of circumstances.

It simply does not live up to the hype, not at all: http://www.pcper.com/files/imagecache/article_max_width/review/2014-08-11/broadwell-12.jpg

You can get one of the bullet points there, maybe...

So based on this, do you think Apple will abandon the plans of a fanless 12" MBA based on Broadwell Y Core M?

And is there any chance we'll see that happening using a Skylake chip instead, or will we have to wait until Canonlake at 10 nm for MBA to go fanless?

 

[AtenRa]

AtenRa I think the point was that there is really no SoCs. Its a misused term really until some time in the future where they may actually fully integrate to be a real SoC.

For PC, an SoC integrates the CPU and both North & South bridges. Core-M has integrated the Memory controller and GPU + PCI-e lanes and that is all. Core-M cannot operate alone when installed on a board, it needs an extra chipset for storage, USB etc.

Baytrail can operate alone, simple as that. It is a system on a single chip design, it has everything it needs to operate alone. Thus its called SoC.

 

[kimmel]

For PC, an SoC integrates the CPU and both North & South bridges. Core-M has integrated the Memory controller and GPU + PCI-e lanes and that is all. Core-M cannot operate alone when installed on a board, it needs an extra chipset for storage, USB etc.

Baytrail can operate alone, simple as that. It is a system on a single chip design, it has everything it needs to operate alone. Thus its called SoC.

Bootable PCIE storage is available and works great. You could operate it alone. SOC is a junk term with no good definition.

"True SOC" means probably even less than AMD's claim of "true dual core" chips when comparing MCP die vs monolithic die.

 

[AtenRa]

Bootable PCIE storage is available and works great.

You will also need a storage controller, so no it cannot operate alone.

 

[ShintaiDK]

For PC, an SoC integrates the CPU and both North & South bridges.

How did you come to that definition of a SoC? If you compare it with traditional SoCs, you would also notice something is missing from your PC SoC.

SoC is just a really bad term and misused. You even state that from your Wiki copy/paste. Its a system ona chip. Do you need more chips for operation? Then its not a SoC. Then it doesnt matter if its an ethernet/wifi controller a BIOS flash or whatever. Its just not a real SoC arcording to the definition. In other words, SoC is just something you can call more or less anything.

 

[kimmel]

You will also need a storage controller, so no it cannot operate alone.

You need a power plant to generate the electricity to power the battery which powers the chip so no Qualcomm SOC can operate alone. Not a "true" SOC. The "System" in SOC is arbitrarily defined by marketing. It has no bearing on reality. I can create any arbitrary "System" that can show something is a SOC or is not a SOC.

 

[Revolution 11]

Please ignore my use of the word SoC, I used it incorrectly maybe to frame the questions below.

How integrated are Intel's products? Which product family has the highest level of system integration. And how does this compare to rival companies?

What I mean by integration is the number of discrete components you need to build whatever product you are building.

 

[Fjodor2001]

So what's the conclusion on Broadwell Y Core M - is it a failed chip not living up to expectations? And it won't be fixed by better designed cooling solutions than seen so far?

If so, should we give up our hopes of fanless Ultrabooks with decent performance until Cannonlake?