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Not created equal yet again: Retail Core i7-1165G7 laptops can be up to 50 percent slower than Intel's in-house claims

Started by Redaktion, November 17, 2020, 22:43:54

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Redaktion

We don't think it's a coincidence that initial processor benchmarks from Intel are always faster than what we actually see on retail units from OEMs. ULV CPUs are designed to run across a wide range of TDP levels meaning manufacturers often choose to run them at slower speeds even though the silicon is capable of much more.

https://www.notebookcheck.net/Not-created-equal-yet-again-Retail-Core-i7-1165G7-laptops-can-be-up-to-50-percent-slower-than-Intel-s-in-house-claims.504550.0.html

vertigo

Hmm, didn't see this coming... So, exactly as I expected would happen, they oversold it by benchmarking it in unrealistic circumstances when in reality their brand-new, state of the art chip is (probably*) actually slower than AMD's very soon to be last-gen chip. Way to continue to fail Intel.

*I say probably because, yet again, NBC has posted a Tiger Lake article with benchmarks that don't include a single Ryzen system for comparison, and I'm not going to waste my time doing what they should have done, so I'm just making what I consider to be a fair educated guess based on what I'e seen so far and numbers I remember from before. Come on Allen, you're better than that. As soon as I started reading the article I guessed you were the writer because it wasn't blatantly pro-Intel, but then you disappointed with the comparisons.

Donald Alonzo

I don't really see any issue here, this is just a circumstantial representation of the way the market is headed with regards to these very popular low powered chipsets.

They're designed to be versatile and rightfully so, Intel and AMD are both making chips in this 15-25 watt range that are intended for a multitude of different form factors. Here's the thing though, the majority of the devices that will be toting these chips are ultraportables. Thermal limitations are more pronounced at this segment than anywhere else and reference models are intended to flex the capabilities of the processor itself, so it somewhat expected that these devices will outperform retail units.

There are a number of reasons for this. First is obviously cost since not every laptop wielding whichever chip is being compared to its reference model is being manufactured with no bars on the cost of the unit. I'm not sure that Intel (or AMD on their reference models) goes absolutely nuts on their in house models but they aren't producing many of these, just enough to cover R&D testing and for early review units to showcase the chip's potential. The key is just that, these are meant to showcase "potential" before the chips hit stores with real world usecases and various manufacturing restrictions in mind.

The other big point is the device form factor. Cost can take away things like high end fans with aerodynamically tuned intake and exhausts or vapor chambers and heat pipes made of exotic materials but final products adhere to a whole new set of guidelines. Bill of materials may be the first limitation to hit a specific MSRP but manufacturers have specific ideals in mind with how they design their devices and spend that money. Some may be intending for a super thin and light device/tablet which will inherently be more difficult to cool and also be more restrictive on battery capacity which will cause peak power and endurance limitations. Others may want to package the highest end processor they can into a device that undercuts the competition's offerings in price which may limit their spending on cooling solutions for the chip. A few may have no such limits on packaging or cost but these types of devices are rare in this day and age because consumers of ultraportables won't be so keen on spending a fortune on a device that is thicker and offers the best cooling for these chips because they could get a much better performing device equipped with a 35-45w chip that won't be all that much thicker and may even include a dGPU.

This is the cause of the phenomena you're describing above. 15w CPUs are capable of amazing things in these reference designs and being close to this in a retail unit is a significant feat indeed but Intel made their 1165g7 reference model to directly compete with the Ryzen 4700/4800u devices. Considering how formidable these devices are (both in terms of CPU and iGPU capabilities), Intel really had to push the performance envelope or risk consumers writing the future in devices off due to the lower cost of most of these Ryzen devices.

A 4700u equipped ideapad 5 isn't the slimmest ultraportable out there by any means but at prices fluctuating between $600-$800, it offers a phenomenal value and actually uses its slightly thicker build to an advantage due to being able to cool itself extremely well despite likely not having the most expensive and robust cooling solution. This results in a device that undercuts the Intel based competition on price while offering superior compute performance in many regards. The build may not be quite as slim and light as high end 11th gen Intel devices but only a few manage to compete with the price point they offer. Asus, on the other hand offers a 14" zenbook with the same chip that is more limited in boost TDP but in a slimmer package at a similar price range. So no matter how you slice it, Intel had their work cut out for them with these 11th gen processors and since the 4000 series Ryzen chips were released well in advance, they had to create a reference unit that showcased some sort of advantage over the AMD based competition or people would hold off until Black Friday pricing dropped the 4700u laptops even further down in price.

That all said, there is obviously a ton more to these devices than just the processors but leading up to a chip's release, people don't really know the ins and outs of these devices at all (maybe some insight from previous generation models but things are always subject to revisions). All they can go off of is leaks on performance and the reference laptops might have kept at least a few buyers from getting an AMD based laptop until they saw how the initial Tiger lake devices fared in a direct comparison of what they, as consumers, would actually be able to decide between.

Is it a letdown? Maybe a tad bit only really to those who don't know this sort of thing is going to occur with this kind of chip in particular. For 45w CPUs, this won't be as evident. Sure, some 45w devices may strive for absolute thinness/lightness and underperform but most will come close to any reference models produced. This isn't really the case for low powered chips though as I just described.

Mikita

Probably no one will see those CPUs deliver same performance as Intel has claimed. Simply because:
1) Intel inhouse tests are always produced in deliberately curated conditions, such as extented (unrealistic) thermal envelope, reduced (non existent?) throttling, etc.
2) They always use gold samples, i.e. highest bin, what average users won't probably see in real life.
3) If they ever "compare" their results to AMD, they would always find a way to suppress AMD, such as use slower RAM, single-channel RAM, etc.

Well, this could be okayish, but in reality it misleads the customers when they try to compare those CPUs to competitor CPUs basing on these inhouse benchmarks.

Abdul

This guy is nuts
He just keeps trying to show Intel is bad
And Intel keeps selling
That too at a higher price tag than his a** ..if he ever tried to trade it at the open market

xpclient

Well then I hope Notebookcheck keeps an updated handy comparison chart for all Tiger Lake and upcoming Zen 3 mobile CPUs and how they perform in various laptops. It's become crucial to know this before buying any laptop now.

vertigo

Quote from: Donald Alonzo on November 18, 2020, 08:21:34
I don't really see any issue here, this is just a circumstantial representation of the way the market is headed with regards to these very popular low powered chipsets.

They're designed to be versatile and rightfully so, Intel and AMD are both making chips in this 15-25 watt range that are intended for a multitude of different form factors. Here's the thing though, the majority of the devices that will be toting these chips are ultraportables. Thermal limitations are more pronounced at this segment than anywhere else and reference models are intended to flex the capabilities of the processor itself, so it somewhat expected that these devices will outperform retail units.

There are a number of reasons for this. First is obviously cost since not every laptop wielding whichever chip is being compared to its reference model is being manufactured with no bars on the cost of the unit. I'm not sure that Intel (or AMD on their reference models) goes absolutely nuts on their in house models but they aren't producing many of these, just enough to cover R&D testing and for early review units to showcase the chip's potential. The key is just that, these are meant to showcase "potential" before the chips hit stores with real world usecases and various manufacturing restrictions in mind.

The other big point is the device form factor. Cost can take away things like high end fans with aerodynamically tuned intake and exhausts or vapor chambers and heat pipes made of exotic materials but final products adhere to a whole new set of guidelines. Bill of materials may be the first limitation to hit a specific MSRP but manufacturers have specific ideals in mind with how they design their devices and spend that money. Some may be intending for a super thin and light device/tablet which will inherently be more difficult to cool and also be more restrictive on battery capacity which will cause peak power and endurance limitations. Others may want to package the highest end processor they can into a device that undercuts the competition's offerings in price which may limit their spending on cooling solutions for the chip. A few may have no such limits on packaging or cost but these types of devices are rare in this day and age because consumers of ultraportables won't be so keen on spending a fortune on a device that is thicker and offers the best cooling for these chips because they could get a much better performing device equipped with a 35-45w chip that won't be all that much thicker and may even include a dGPU.

This is the cause of the phenomena you're describing above. 15w CPUs are capable of amazing things in these reference designs and being close to this in a retail unit is a significant feat indeed but Intel made their 1165g7 reference model to directly compete with the Ryzen 4700/4800u devices. Considering how formidable these devices are (both in terms of CPU and iGPU capabilities), Intel really had to push the performance envelope or risk consumers writing the future in devices off due to the lower cost of most of these Ryzen devices.

A 4700u equipped ideapad 5 isn't the slimmest ultraportable out there by any means but at prices fluctuating between $600-$800, it offers a phenomenal value and actually uses its slightly thicker build to an advantage due to being able to cool itself extremely well despite likely not having the most expensive and robust cooling solution. This results in a device that undercuts the Intel based competition on price while offering superior compute performance in many regards. The build may not be quite as slim and light as high end 11th gen Intel devices but only a few manage to compete with the price point they offer. Asus, on the other hand offers a 14" zenbook with the same chip that is more limited in boost TDP but in a slimmer package at a similar price range. So no matter how you slice it, Intel had their work cut out for them with these 11th gen processors and since the 4000 series Ryzen chips were released well in advance, they had to create a reference unit that showcased some sort of advantage over the AMD based competition or people would hold off until Black Friday pricing dropped the 4700u laptops even further down in price.

That all said, there is obviously a ton more to these devices than just the processors but leading up to a chip's release, people don't really know the ins and outs of these devices at all (maybe some insight from previous generation models but things are always subject to revisions). All they can go off of is leaks on performance and the reference laptops might have kept at least a few buyers from getting an AMD based laptop until they saw how the initial Tiger lake devices fared in a direct comparison of what they, as consumers, would actually be able to decide between.

Is it a letdown? Maybe a tad bit only really to those who don't know this sort of thing is going to occur with this kind of chip in particular. For 45w CPUs, this won't be as evident. Sure, some 45w devices may strive for absolute thinness/lightness and underperform but most will come close to any reference models produced. This isn't really the case for low powered chips though as I just described.

The problem is that it's a major and deliberate misrepresentation of the product meant to mislead consumers into waiting for what was a big letdown instead of purchasing a superior product, as well as helping prevent OEMs from using said superior product more. They hyped it up knowing full well it's real-world performance wouldn't be anything near that, and all the various "professional" reviewers and writers only helped by singing the praises of a chip with very little even known about its performance, only that Intel's own in-house testing showed good results.

I realize every company wants to show their products in their best light, and they all do this sort of thing, but Intel is one of the worst about it. And they've spent years relying on their market dominance, not to mention anti-competitive practices, to maintain their user base and dominance, a vicious cycle, instead of actually making the effort to make real, appreciable improvements in their products. Year after year of meager improvements, typically around 7-10%, and multiple versions with no improvement in the iGPU, then when they finally did improve it, they released two versions, one with it (Ice Lake) and one without (Comet Lake), and Ice Lake wasn't given the business aspects, meaning many laptops continued to have the old, crappy GPU.

Only when AMD threatened their dominance did they step up their game (or at least seem to), just like what happened almost 20 years ago with the Athlon 64. But instead of actually improving their chips to be able to compete with AMD, which they probably can't even do at this point due to their years of complacency, they instead hyped up their new chip to make everyone think it would offer solid competition. It's not so much that they oversold it, though of course that's a problem, it's that they did that instead of actually making a good chip. If they had made something that looked twice as good as Ryzen and ended up only being 25% better, that would be a big disappointment, but it would still be competitive. Instead, they made it look barely better, which was already pretty pathetic and a bad sign, and now we're seeing that it's barely the same, if not still worse.

And that's compared to AMD's essentially last-gen chips. As you said, "Intel made their 1165g7 reference model to directly compete with the Ryzen 4700/4800u devices." They should have been making something to compete with Cezanne, not Renoir. In just a couple months, AMD is going to release their latest chips, and even if the performance increase is only a fraction of what they say (which, to me, it seems AMD tends to be more accurate in their predictions than Intel), then it will demolish Tiger Lake.

Of course retail systems aren't going to perform as well as chip manufacturers' test systems, but AMD manages to still have very good performance in retail systems, and that's despite the OEMs' attempts to sabotage their AMD models. So while I'm sure there's a fair bit of difference between how Renoir performs in AMD's testing and in retail computers, as there will be with Cezanne, even after that difference Intel still can't compete, especially when you consider the price difference.

Intel accomplished a few things by misleading everyone: they caused OEMs to continue to hold out on producing more AMD variants, they caused consumers to hold out for Tiger Lake instead of buying an AMD system, they caused many consumers (and salespeople who "inform" consumers looking for advice) who see just enough tech news to know that a new, great CPU is coming but then not see how disappointing it actually is to go that route instead of with AMD, and they (probably, based on comparing the announcement date and following hype with the stock prices) temporarily cauterized the wound caused by Ryzen in July. But now they're stock just took another large dip, possibly because of the truth coming out, possibly because of news regarding Cezanne, probably because they lost a huge chuck of business from Apple and have sold off part of their business. Intel is hurting bad right now, and their stock is about to hit a 3-year low, with no reason to believe it's going to stop there. They're desperate, and resorting to shady marketing tactics since they can't actually compete.

vertigo

Quote from: Abdul on November 18, 2020, 11:40:41
This guy is nuts
He just keeps trying to show Intel is bad
And Intel keeps selling
That too at a higher price tag than his a** ..if he ever tried to trade it at the open market

Because Intel is "bad." They're struggling right now. Their brand-new, over-hyped chip can barely hold its own against AMD's Renoir, which will be replaced in just a couple months by Cezanne, which will likely have as much of a lead over Tiger Lake as Renoir did over Ice/Comet Lake, if not more so. Intel couldn't compete, so they hyped Tiger Lake like crazy, using the tech media to help them, most of whom were all too happy to oblige. Many more people are switching to AMD, shown by market share numbers. More OEMs are releasing more AMD versions of their laptops, which will almost certainly increase with Cezanne, not to mention the disappointing performance of Tiger Lake.

The only reason Intel has done as well as it has for so long is due to anti-competitive practices. But now AMD has them on the run, like they did years ago with the Athlon x64, only this time they're in an even better position, which give them a better chance of holding on to the upper hand, which will lead to them getting more market share and therefore making it even easier for them to keep the upper hand. Meanwhile, Intel just lost a lot of business with Apple, and their stock just took the second big nosedive of the year, first from Renoir and now likely from a combination of Apple, Cezanne, and (the disappointment of) Tiger Lake.

You can keep thinking they're an amazing company with the best products and that anyone who disagrees is nuts with a low "price tag [on their] a**" (not even really sure what to think of this), but the numbers don't lie. Intel's in trouble, and they're only going to continue losing more and more market share and business, making it harder for them to compete, something which they already couldn't do. I wouldn't be at all surprised if a few years from now the majority of laptops are AMD-based, with Intel being the lesser option, and I hope that does happen.

mkl

So Intel should use a crippled device for their launch review??? If other devices can't hold 28W blame the OEM! Asus failed really hard with their closed back design. And by the way what i7-1165G7 pre-sample scored 2530 points in Cinebench R20, where is the test from this? From the Notebookcheck launch review based on an i7-1185G7:

Intel Reference Design Laptop 35W Dynamic Tuning 2402
Intel Reference Design Laptop 28W 2214


Spunjji

Quote from: mkl on November 20, 2020, 02:00:32
So Intel should use a crippled device for their launch review??? If other devices can't hold 28W blame the OEM!

Yeah, blame the OEM for Intel being unable to improve performance at a 15W TDP! Boo OEM, boo! How dare they design notebooks to Intel's specifications!

Seriously though, I'm amazed by the pretzel logic some people will employ to defend Intel's absolute dog-s*** taco of a CPU lineup. If y'all paid attention, you'd have noticed that *none of the retail devices* meet the performance standards of Intel's preview device.

I guess it's like the 3080 crash issue - why blame your favourite chip designer when you can blame every single one of their partners? 🤦‍♂️

vertigo

Quote from: mkl on November 20, 2020, 02:00:32
So Intel should use a crippled device for their launch review??? If other devices can't hold 28W blame the OEM! Asus failed really hard with their closed back design. And by the way what i7-1165G7 pre-sample scored 2530 points in Cinebench R20, where is the test from this? From the Notebookcheck launch review based on an i7-1185G7:

Intel Reference Design Laptop 35W Dynamic Tuning 2402
Intel Reference Design Laptop 28W 2214

Crippled, no. Realistic, yes. Just because they can get a certain level of performance out of it when running it with optimal cooling on top-bin silicon, that doesn't mean anything when the more typical quality level chips are put in realistic chassis and, as a result, perform much worse. The bottom line is how they perform in retail systems, and they're not doing well. Regardless of whether they could do better if the OEMs spent more time and money making perfect designs, that's not the situation, and Intel should have made it perform well in less than ideal circumstances. The fact they didn't has led to so far disappointing performance, which is barely comparable to AMD's soon to be last-gen product. And again, even if OEMs could improve their systems to get the extra performance out of it, that would make them cost even more. OEMs try to keep prices down, because most people want cheap over quality, and as a result their cooling isn't as good as it could be, and CPU manufacturers should account for that. The bottom line is Intel made middling improvements, yet again, and is, as always, doing everything they can to dress it up like it's the next greatest thing.

I will say that the recent Yoga review does show some promise for Tiger Lake, with performance close to Intel's test system, so maybe the situation will still turn around, but it just seems like Tiger Lake is too dependent on an ideal environment and so is more often than not going to be significantly less of an upgrade over 10th-gen than anticipated.

Scipip

I can point to several 4800H laptops that overheat and wind up with similar performance drops vs well made 4800H laptops.  This is absolutely nothing new.

Why is notebookcheck calling out Intel, but not AMD?  Or did your editors fail to filter out brand bias loyalists?   

If you want to make an unbias article on this, it should read "Laptops sometimes take significant performance hits due to thermal design flaws".

Not nearly as sexy as the clickbait garbage you put on this article though. 

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