From Whiskey Lake To Meteor Lake: The Intel CPU Linux Performance Evolution

[phoronix]

Phoronix: From Whiskey Lake To Meteor Lake: The Intel CPU Linux Performance Evolution

Yesterday I ran through a number of benchmarks looking at how the Intel integrated graphics have evolved from the Gen9/Skylake era through the new Meteor Lake CPUs with integrated Arc Graphics. While carrying out those graphics tests with being infatuated by the performance and power efficiency of Meteor Lake integrated graphics, I also took the opportunity to run 100+ CPU benchmarks on each of these laptop CPUs / Intel mobile processor generations being tested. Here's that look at the Intel CPU performance and power efficiency comparison from Whiskey Lake to Meteor Lake.

https://www.phoronix.com/review/intel-whiskeylake-meteorlake

[coder]

Michael , did you check to see if there was a BIOS update for your Meteor Lake laptop?

https://www.tomshardware.com/laptops/intel-meteor-lake-bios-update-delivers-double-digit-performance-boost-core-ultra-laptops-now-more-efficient

[skeevy420]

As an AMD user, I hope that Michael is doing the AMD versions of these CPU and iGPU generational comparisons....and then compares those results with the Intel results as best as possible.

This article made me LOL Nothing bad -- the list of i7 processors made me think of all the random posts I've seen where someone says "I have an Intel i7, why won't it play X game at 1080p60 with an RTX 3080?" and 4 posts later you find out they're using an i7 3960X in 2023. I've been seeing the same thing on AMD's side since the introduction of Ryzen 3, 5, 7, & 9. Using the same name year after year confuses the uneducated consumer? Who'd a thunk it?

[drakonas777]

As an AMD user, I hope that Michael is doing the AMD versions of these CPU and iGPU generational comparisons....and then compares those results with the Intel results as best as possible.

This article made me LOL Nothing bad -- the list of i7 processors made me think of all the random posts I've seen where someone says "I have an Intel i7, why won't it play X game at 1080p60 with an RTX 3080?" and 4 posts later you find out they're using an i7 3960X in 2023. I've been seeing the same thing on AMD's side since the introduction of Ryzen 3, 5, 7, & 9. Using the same name year after year confuses the uneducated consumer? Who'd a thunk it?

Problem is not a naming scheme. Problem is when manufacturers shuffles around multiple IPs or rebrands them under the same name where users may be misled into thinking they are buying something better/newer than they actually are.

Keeping the same base name makes sense, because they represent a product position in the lineup at that particular time. So i7/i9/R7/R9 means you are looking at more premium/high end stuff while "5" and lower series means midrange or entry level. It should be pretty obvious and common sense that a 10 year old i7 is a lot slower than new i7. The same way as people understand that a new BMW 5 series probably has some advantages over 10 year old one.

[Michael]

As an AMD user, I hope that Michael is doing the AMD versions of these CPU and iGPU generational comparisons....and then compares those results with the Intel results as best as possible.

This article made me LOL Nothing bad -- the list of i7 processors made me think of all the random posts I've seen where someone says "I have an Intel i7, why won't it play X game at 1080p60 with an RTX 3080?" and 4 posts later you find out they're using an i7 3960X in 2023. I've been seeing the same thing on AMD's side since the introduction of Ryzen 3, 5, 7, & 9. Using the same name year after year confuses the uneducated consumer? Who'd a thunk it?

https://www.phoronix.com/review/ryze...kpad-zen2-zen4 as far as relevant laptop AMD hardware I have...

[coder]

So i7/i9/R7/R9 means you are looking at more premium/high end stuff while "5" and lower series means midrange or entry level.

Where this theory falls apart is if you ask an average person on the street which is better: the i7-1355U or the i5-13450HX. Most people would say the i7.

Here's how they compare:

Metric	i7-1355U	i5-13450HX
P-cores	2	6
E-cores	8	4
Base Power	15 W	55 W
Turbo Power	55 W	157 W
Cache	12 MB	20 MB
Max Turbo Freq.	5.0 GHz	4.6 GHz

Yeah, the i7 U has a higher turbo frequency, but the i5 HX will do much better on sustained workloads and those with 3 or more threads.

While I'm not directly refuting your statement about the i-numbering and its mapping to product tiers, I think it's clear that Intel botched the application of the scheme to different lineups of notebook CPUs. With the new branding scheme they're using for Meteor Lake, maybe they'll get it right this time. I wouldn't bet on it, though...

[drakonas777]

I agree with you to a degree. However, people tend to purchase some sort of an end product and not electronic component itself. So in the context of say gaming laptops i5/i7 will be from H/HX series most of the time. In the context of ultra portables - U series. It's true that i7 from U series is quite different than the one from H/HX series, but statistically it's unlikely you will have both U and H/HX options in the same type of the device you are interested in, but they will represent more or less correct relative tier in each own line.

[coder]

However, people tend to purchase some sort of an end product and not electronic component itself.

Okay, now you're essentially just saying "it doesn't matter, because who even cares about the CPU anyways?"

It's true that i7 from U series is quite different than the one from H/HX series, but statistically it's unlikely you will have both U and H/HX options in the same type of the device you are interested in

The fact that the i5 I mentioned is almost $150 cheaper than the i7 might result in a person is deciding between laptops with those very two CPU models. Yes, the HX will be bigger, but they could both be in someone's price range.

[avis]

It was weird to see ICL being so efficient in many tests and sometimes beating ADL which is using a much more improved node.

[coder]

It was weird to see ICL being so efficient in many tests and sometimes beating ADL which is using a much more improved node.

That's because the Ice Lake version of Intel's 10 nm node didn't clock very well. Being kept at low clock speeds can do wonders for efficiency.