Intel scrambles 6-core i5-10500H to tackle Renoir

[william blake]

GB is not specific enough about what it measures

is this https://www.geekbench.com/doc/geekbench5-cpu-workloads.pdf not enough?
and why it is worse than this https://www.spec.org/cpu2017/Docs/overview.html ?
anyway, iirc, spec(average from many tests) is pretty close to cinebench(single test) in terms of different architectures ipc comparison, but, ips measured in games is different to spec and cinebench.
and here is my main problem with using spec results as a reference of ipc. for a none-gamer its fine. but we should use something like (spec+games)/2, for and average pc user, it should provide a more accurate picture.

[Valantar]

thanks a lot but i am not a spec user. my ipc consists of games, browsers and some video editing.

"SPEC user" - there's no such thing, lol. SPEC is an industry standard benchmark suite consisting of sample workloads from a wide range of real-world applications. Maybe look into what you're commenting on before dismissing it?

Comet Lake is still Skylake, right? If so, Zen 2 is ahead on IPC, not slightly behind. Ahead by about 6.5% according to Anandtech's testing in SPEC2017.

IIRC they squeezed a few more percentages each year...or every couple year or so since Skylake, bottom line the IPC hasn't been at a total standstill since Skylake.

Actually it has. Beyond hardware mitigations replacing software fixes for security breaches, there have been zero relevant architectural changes from Skylake to Coffee Lake, and IPC is identical, with the only performance increases coming from clock speed increases. The testing I referred to used a 9900K, btw, so the 6% advantage is up-to-date.

GB is not specific enough about what it measures

is this https://www.geekbench.com/doc/geekbench5-cpu-workloads.pdf not enough?
and why it is worse than this https://www.spec.org/cpu2017/Docs/overview.html ?
anyway, iirc, spec(average from many tests) is pretty close to cinebench(single test) in terms of different architectures ipc comparison, but, ips measured in games is different to spec and cinebench.
and here is my main problem with using spec results as a reference of ipc. for a none-gamer its fine. but we should use something like (spec+games)/2, for and average pc user, it should provide a more accurate picture.

Talking about IPC in a gaming context is sadly almost impossible (or at least irrelevant), as adding a GPU inherently introduces too many uncontrollable variables to be able to identify something that can reliably be pointed out as CPU IPC. Different CPU architectures can treat various parts of the GPU driver differently, loading data differently, etc. - and this will likely even vary across GPU vendors too. Drivers will also have different levels of optimization for different architectures. So for any type of normalized test you'd need not only a repeatable workload (which can be done) and a selection of CPUs to test at a common clock speed, but also to test with a normalized GPU at a fixed performance level - but that becomes problematic as performance parity across CPU vendors with GPUs from different vendors can't be guaranteed. I.e. you'd end up with at least four classes: AMD GPU and AMD CPU, AMD GPU and Intel CPU, Nvidia GPU and AMD CPU, and Nvidia GPU and Intel CPU. Each would in all likelihood give different results. Simplifying this into a number you can call "IPC" becomes impossible, as external uncontrollable factors like GPU drivers and their optimizations for specific CPU architectures would inherently skew the numbers, invalidating the benchmark - you'd no longer be testing CPU IPC, but GPU driver optimization instead. This is demonstrated rather beautifully by Intel having lower CPU IPC, but still winning slightly in gaming performance thanks to a combination of higher clock speeds and better optimizations for their architecture (not to meniton, of course that most games have relatively few high-performance threads, which somewhat nullifies the advantage of having more fast cores vs. fewer slightly faster cores).

Talking about overall gaming performance across architectures on the other hand is of course possible, as it isn't dependent on normalizing anything beyond the workload, and simply asks which hardware configuration performs the best in closer to real-world scenarios. This is where Intel currently has the upper hand even in the desktop segment, though it remains to be seen if this also holds true to the more power limited mobile segment given Zen2's superior efficiency and clock scaling at low power.

[william blake]

lol. SPEC is an industry standard benchmark suite consisting of sample workloads from a wide range of real-world applications.

i know what spec is.

Talking about overall gaming performance across architectures on the other hand is of course possible

really? thank you. i am talking about overall performance(per mghz) and i am so tired arguing with people who think that ipc is a real number, somehow different from overall performance per mghz and somehow ipc is more important than overall performance per mghz.

[Valantar]

lol. SPEC is an industry standard benchmark suite consisting of sample workloads from a wide range of real-world applications.

i know what spec is.

It sure didn't seem like it based on that first response.

Talking about overall gaming performance across architectures on the other hand is of course possible

really? thank you. i am talking about overall performance(per mghz) and i am so tired arguing with people who think that ipc is a real number, somehow different from overall performance per mghz and somehow ipc is more important than overall performance per mghz.

I never said any of that. IPC is an attempt at describing the performance (instructions processed) per clock cycle (not MHz, as the term applies just as well to chips running at KHz or even Hz speeds) for a single component (such as a CPU), normally calculated from averaged results of a widely agreed upon set of benchmarks specifically stressing the part in question in various ways meant to represent a broad and representative selection of its capabilities. Some of these will always stress other parts of the system to various degrees - such as RAM or storage - but ideally only components that do not directly perform computational tasks but rather support the part in question. As GPUs do their own computations they don't fit this criteria, and as they need a driver to interface with the CPU properly you're adding several uncontrollable variables to the test. This effectively invalidates testing for IPC in GPU-reliant scenarios as you're running a mixed workload that stresses two parts and not just one, and with many interwoven processes dependent upon each other (cpu code, gpu code, gpu driver). This complexity means you can't simply run a series of simple tests and arrive at a comparable average, as the average then wouldn't tell you where the relevant bottlenecks are (in the CPU, GPU, or something in between?). There's also the issue of test normalization: should GPU clocks also be controlled, even if what one is looking for is CPU gaming performance? If so we would also need to agree upon a fixed reference GPU for testing, with a fixed set of specifications. And given that there are two major GPU vendors, this becomes rather problematic as testing done on one isn't necessarily transferable to the other. The more variables you add, the more you move away from relevant and realistic results, and you still aren't achieving the main goal of the term IPC, namely comparability. This is why using the term "gaming IPC" makes no sense - there's no reliable way to test such a thing, and even if there was the results wouldn't be comparable in the way single-component IPC comparisons are. And trying to make it so is just part of the massive abuse of the term IPC that we've seen over the past few years as use of the term has taken off. While there is indeed value to doing clock-normalized game testing on both CPUs and GPUs, none of this can easily be termed "IPC". "Performance" or "clock normalized performance" is much more suitable.

[Rosanneesose]

Interesting, I'm following the thread.