"Conversations around ARM vs x86 power are false" Intel's Robert Hallock on Lunar Lake's strategy and how it is well-poised to challenge ARM's efficiency narrative

[Redaktion]

With Lunar Lake all set to officially launch ahead of IFA 2024 next month, NotebookCheck had an email chat with Intel's Robert Hallock, VP Technical Marketing on the rationale behind some of the architecture decisions, what can be expected of Lunar Lake-powered laptops, and how the company views competition from ARM.

https://www.notebookcheck.net/Conversations-around-ARM-vs-x86-power-are-false-Intel-s-Robert-Hallock-on-Lunar-Lake-s-strategy-and-how-it-is-well-poised-to-challenge-ARM-s-efficiency-narrative.867249.0.html

[randon]

"Because of choices like these, we believe that Lunar Lake can achieve lower package power than ARM designs ceteris paribus."

Later when Lunar Lake flops he will say oh I meant Rockchip RK3588 ARM, not Apple Silicon ARM.

[A]

"Because of choices like these, we believe that Lunar Lake can achieve lower package power than ARM designs ceteris paribus."

Later when Lunar Lake flops he will say oh I meant Rockchip RK3588 ARM, not Apple Silicon ARM.

The question is about snapdragon elite.

Overall, the biggest issue x86 has compared to ARM is a lot of backwards compatibility bloat that takes up space and power on the chipsets. But they are kind of getting around the power issue with p-cores and e-cores, which is like ARM's big.LITTLE

Effectively, when you do common things like browse the web, watch videos or just idling. It will use highly efficient e-cores. Thus you would get a huge boost in battery life for every day stuff which is what most people want

[randon]

The question is about snapdragon elite.

I doubt LL will be able to compete with 2nd gen Qualcomm too.

It will use highly efficient e-cores.

No it will not, try forcing your browser to use efficiency cores =only= and watch the lagfest. Efficient cores are for scheduling low-load OS tasks.

[A]

The question is about snapdragon elite.

I doubt LL will be able to compete with 2nd gen Qualcomm too.

It will use highly efficient e-cores.

No it will not, try forcing your browser to use efficiency cores =only= and watch the lagfest. Efficient cores are for scheduling low-load OS tasks.

You underestimate the efficient cores, current e-cores give performance of 6th gen intel processors. The new e-cores will have a 68% higher ipc while using less energy

Since I am typing this currently from a laptop with 4th gen intel processor and don't have a lag fest. Though to be fair I am on linux and not windows 11 which has a ton of stuff eating resources in the background

[randon]

You underestimate the efficient cores, current e-cores give performance of 6th gen intel processors.

That's just because Intel could never do a proper e-cores and controversy about them not really being too efficient was always around. They had to add a third flavor of "low power e-cores" into the meteor Lake, I was referring to those.

The new e-cores will have a 68% higher ipc while using less energy

Anyone still trusts Intel drip marketing in 2024? The only reason for it is to force you to compare promises with current ARM hardware, but by the time all these claims will form themself into a laptop you can actually buy (if they will be true), Apple will have M5 or M6.

[A]

That's just because Intel could never do a proper e-cores and controversy about them not really being too efficient was always around. They had to add a third flavor of "low power e-cores" into the meteor Lake, I was referring to those.

They are getting rid of that, lp e-cores and e-cores are now only e-cores

Anyone still trusts Intel drip marketing in 2024? The only reason for it is to force you to compare promises with current ARM hardware, but by the time all these claims will form themself into a laptop you can actually buy (if they will be true), Apple will have M5 or M6.

I am not trusting anything, we will see how they perform when they are out in 1 month.

Intel does not need to worry about Apple as their competition is snapdragon and of course AMD

[Kelv1n]

No it will not, try forcing your browser to use efficiency cores =only= and watch the lagfest. Efficient cores are for scheduling low-load OS tasks.

No, it doesn't.. get yourself a n100 or n305. They're actually very capable machines.

I use them for home servers, but they also make great general desktops.. CPU are at a point where most users would find it hard to tell the different between an £100 or £1500 CPU, is relation to general use such as browsing.

[randon]

No, it doesn't.. get yourself a n100 or n305. They're actually very capable machines.

Exactly because those are not real E cores and exactly why Intel had to make "low power E cores" in Meteor Lake. Both N100 and N305 are piece of crap in performance/power compared to ARM, and are very hot on top of that. The only reason they are popular now is China overstocked and desperately trying to sell one to everyone, until they completely lose value.
Even 3yr old rooted Android phone with chroot Linux is a much better home server than these, not even speaking about M1 Mac Mini.

[N--B]

Since I am typing this currently from a laptop with 4th gen intel processor and don't have a lag fest.

It is 100% lie.

Both N100 and N305 are piece of crap in performance/power compared to ARM, and are very hot on top of that. The only reason they are popular now is China overstocked and desperately trying to sell one to everyone, until they completely lose value.

Tens of thousands of 2008 generation Xeon C2Ds are still being successfully sold in China. Which speed up all kinds of consumer junk by 2 times literally at very low temperatures.

I have C2D laptops, first generation Core I, 4th, 8th generation Intel and AMD Zen+ and there are old desktops. The difference is visible to the naked eye in the speed of loading web pages.

The funniest thing is that even the antique E5450 plays 1440p@60fps/VP9 on YouTube under W7 (but without VSync, because it is not supported there due to MS's fault). And it can't handle under LTSB - the background load on the processor is too big with the same video driver (according to the version) in W10. Not to mention the terrible and very slow W11 with huge ram demands vs W7 core (and this after special core tunning).

Apparently, in order to somehow squeeze people out of old platforms, which are quite functional (if you don't pay attention to page opening delays) even today, these bastards removed support for processors without SSE4.2, and this is precisely the C2D family, which is now being sold en masse from China for next to nothing.

Even Xeon/Haswell with 16-32 cores are sold for next to nothing - $100-150 in a set with a motherboard and 32-64GB DDR3/4.

Why do people need LunarLake or even the 12-14 generation? =)

Or look at the "new" security "hole" in all AMD platforms since 2006. It is obvious that this was done intentionally right now. At the same time, to AMD's shame, they announced that they would not release a "patch" for the 1000-3000 desktop series, but they would for the mobile 3000 series. How should this be understood? And where should the authorities look? The company that knew about the hole and did not close it is subject to class action lawsuits regardless of the statute of limitations.

[lol]

Why do people need LunarLake or even the 12-14 generation? =)

Because your Xeons are about as performant as raspberry pi?

[GeorgeS]

No it will not, try forcing your browser to use efficiency cores =only= and watch the lagfest. Efficient cores are for scheduling low-load OS tasks.

No, it doesn't.. get yourself a n100 or n305. They're actually very capable machines.

I use them for home servers, but they also make great general desktops.. CPU are at a point where most users would find it hard to tell the different between an £100 or £1500 CPU, is relation to general use such as browsing.

Agreed.

When/if you get away from Windoze even a Intel Core i5-4288U (dual core) works fine for 'home tasks' in 2024.

Are you having 'hesitation' or 'delays' of pages loading? You might consider using a browser that  supports effective advertisement & script blocking. Considering all the 'chaff' many webpages are filled with these days, the removal of 'chaff' surely speeds up the loading of the 'wheat'. :)

It boggles the mind the sheep programming where folks think EVERYONE needs/requires a high performance 'work station' to do ANYTHING.

As others have surely mentioned it is a Capitalistic Monopoly Conspiracy to render perfectly good hardware obsolete so the owners are inclined to replace it with new hardware.

Even the much loved 'Linux' and 'Firefox' (and many others) no longer support mere 32bit CPU's anymore. (forget about 16 or 8bit ones...)

[randon]

When/if you get away from Windoze even a Intel Core i5-4288U (dual core) works fine for 'home tasks' in 2024.

No it's not. Run office 365+Slack+Discord+youtube video+ten other tabs and watch it trying to chew all this on 2 cores while using more power than modern machines that are 5 to 10 times faster and more suited for multitasking.
I'm not even picking on "home tasks" and "webpages" which probably is the only thing you are doing. Try building an Android Studio project? What about ASP.NET project with local SQL server db and a couple Docker containers? Like try doing actual productivity.

Even the much loved 'Linux' and 'Firefox' (and many others) no longer support mere 32bit CPU's anymore. (forget about 16 or 8bit ones...)

They do, you just need to enable support and rebuild kernel. They were removed from mainline because no one is using those cpus and their support is just taking space and dev effort.

As others have surely mentioned it is a Capitalistic Monopoly Conspiracy to render perfectly good hardware obsolete so the owners are inclined to replace it with new hardware.

This conspiracy is called "stop being a retrograde and living in nostalgia"

[ADA]

My old machine with an i7-10870H and 16GB ram is anaemic and I got it early 2022.

It couldn't cope on battery power with 10-15 tabs, WSL, a docker container, VSCode and YouTube in the background without being visibly slow and that meant plenty of lags and occasional freezes. It got better when plugged in, with lots of heat and fan noise but even then it would lag heavily with a few more tabs/Youtube videos idle in the background.

I'd be lucky if the battery lasted more than a few hours (and I'd replaced it myself).

My new X Elite machine almost never has fans that kicks in, it's cool and isn't ever slow.

The gap in efficiency is enormous. Intel's P cores aren't actually power efficient. They're area efficient, meaning that they take less space on the die, allowing them to fit more cores.

[Worgarthe]

i7-10870H and 16GB ram is anaemic and I got it early 2022.

It couldn't cope on battery power with 10-15 tabs, WSL, a docker container, VSCode and YouTube in the background without being visibly slow and that meant plenty of lags and occasional freezes. It got better when plugged in, with lots of heat and fan noise but even then it would lag heavily with a few more tabs/Youtube videos idle in the background.

Sure, sure.