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SiSoftware Sandra 20/20/5 (2020 R5) Released

By Adrian Silasi | 28th April 2020 - 12:08 am |28th April 2020 Releases, Updates

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We are pleased to release R5 (version 30.41) update for Sandra 20/20 (2020) with the following updates:

Sandra 20/20 (2020) Press Release

Benchmarks:
- Internet Connection, Internet Peerage Benchmarks: updated list of top websites to test against; additional multi-threading optimisations

Hardware Support:
- Additional IceLake (ICL Gen10 Core), Future* (RKL, TGL Gen11 Core) AVX512, VAES, SHA-HWA support (see CPU, GP-GPU, Cache & Memory, AVX512 improvement reviews)
- Additional CPU features support
- Various stability and reliability improvements

Reviews using Sandra 20/20:

Update & Download

Commercial version customers can download the free updates from their software distributor; Lite users please download from your favourite download site.

Download Sandra Lite

AVX512 Improvement for Icelake Mobile (i7-1065G7 ULV)

By Adrian Silasi | 1st April 2020 - 1:05 am |1st April 2020 Reviews

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What is AVX512?

AVX512 (Advanced Vector eXtensions) is the 512-bit SIMD instruction set that follows from previous 256-bit AVX2/FMA/AVX instruction set. Originally introduced by Intel with its “Xeon Phi” GPGPU accelerators, it was next introduced on the HEDT platform with Skylake-X (SKL-X/EX/EP) but until now it was not avaible on the mainstream platforms.

With the 10th “real” generation Core arch(itecture) (IceLake/ICL), we finally see “enhanced” AVX512 on the mobile platform which includes all the original extensions and quite a few new ones.

Original AVX512 extensions as supported by SKL/KBL-X HEDT processors:

AVX512F – Foundation – most floating-point single/double instructions widened to 512-bit.
AVX512-DQ – Double-Word & Quad-Word – most 32 and 64-bit integer instructions widened to 512-bit
AVX512-BW – Byte & Word – most 8-bit and 16-bit integer instructions widened to 512-bit
AVX512-VL – Vector Length eXtensions – most AVX512 instructions on previous 256-bit and 128-bit SIMD registers
AVX512-CD* – Conflict Detection – loop vectorisation through predication [only on Xeon/Phi co-processors]
AVX512-ER* – Exponential & Reciprocal – transcedental operations [only on Xeon/Phi co-processors]

New AVX512 extensions supported by ICL processors:

AVX512-VNNI** (Vector Neural Network Instructions) [also supported by updated CPL-X HEDT]
AVX512-VBMI, VBMI2 (Vector Byte Manipulation Instructions)
AVX512-BITALG (Bit Algorithms)
AVX512-IFMA (Integer FMA)
AVX512-VAES (Vector AES) accelerating crypto
AVX512-GFNI (Galois Field)
AVX512-GNA (Gaussian Neural Accelerator)

As with anything, simply doubling register widths does not automagically increase performance by 2x as dependencies, memory load/store latencies and even data characteristics limit performance gains; some may require future arch updates or tools to realise their true potential.

SIMD FMA Units: Unlike HEDT/server processors, ICL ULV (and likely desktop) have a single 512-bit FMA unit, not two (2): the execution rate (without dependencies) is thus similar for AVX512 and AVX2/FMA code. However, future versions are likely to increase execution units thus AVX512 code will benefit even more.

In this article we test AVX512 core performance; please see our other articles on:

Native SIMD Performance

We are testing native SIMD performance using various instruction sets: AVX512, AVX2/FMA3, AVX to determine the gains the new instruction sets bring.

Results Interpretation: Higher values (GOPS, MB/s, etc.) mean better performance.

Environment: Windows 10 x64, latest Intel drivers. Turbo / Dynamic Overclocking was enabled on both configurations.

Native Benchmarks		ICL ULV AVX512	ICL ULV AVX2/FMA3	Comments

	Native Integer (Int32) Multi-Media (Mpix/s)	504 [+25%]	403	For integer workloads we manage25% improvement, not quite the 100% we were hoping but still decent.
	Native Long (Int64) Multi-Media (Mpix/s)	145 [+1%]	143	With a 64-bit integer workload the improvement reduces to 1%.
	Native Quad-Int (Int128) Multi-Media (Mpix/s)	3.67	3.73 [-2%]	– [No SIMD in use here]
	Native Float/FP32 Multi-Media (Mpix/s)	414 [+22%]	339	In this floating-point test, we see a 22% improvement similar to integer.
	Native Double/FP64 Multi-Media (Mpix/s)	232 [+20%]	194	Switching to FP64 we see a similar improvement.
	Native Quad-Float/FP128 Multi-Media (Mpix/s)	10.17 [+13%]	9	In this heavy algorithm using FP64 to mantissa extend FP128 we see only 13% improvement
With limited resources, AVX512 cannot bring 100% improvement, but still manages 20-25% improvement over AVX2/FMA which is decent improvement; also consider this is a TDP-constrained ULV platform not desktop/HEDT.

	Crypto SHA2-256 (GB/s)	9 [+2.25x]	4	With no data dependency – we get great scaling of over 2x in this integer workload.
	Crypto SHA1 (GB/s)	15.71 [+81%]	8.6	Here we see only 80% improvement likely due to lack of (more) memory bandwidth – it likely would scale higher.
	Crypto SHA2-512 (GB/s)	7.09 [+2.3x]	3.07	With 64-bit integer workload we see larger than 2x improvement.
Thanks to the new crypto-algorithm friendly acceleration instructions of AVX512 and no doubt helped by high-bandwidth LP-DDR4X memory, we see over 2x (twice) improvement over older AVX2. ICL ULV will no doubt be a great choice for low-power network devices (routers/gateways/firewalls) able to pump 100′ Gbe crypto streams.

	SGEMM (GFLOPS) float/FP32	185 [-6%]	196	More optimisations seem to be required here for ICL at least.
	DGEMM (GFLOPS) double/FP64	91 [+18%]	77	Changing to FP64 brings a 18% improvement.
	SFFT (GFLOPS) float/FP32	31.72 [+12%]	28.34	With FFT, we see a modest 12% improvement.
	DFFT (GFLOPS) double/FP64	17.72 [-2%]	18	With FP64 we see 2% regression.
	SNBODY (GFLOPS) float/FP32	200 [+7%]	187	No help from the compiler here either.
	DNBODY (GFLOPS) double/FP64	61.76 [=]	62	With FP64 there is no delta.
With highly-optimised scientific algorithms, it seems we still have some way to go to extract more performance out of AVX512, though overall we still see a 7-12% improvement even at this time.

	Blur (3×3) Filter (MPix/s)	1,580 [+79%]	883	We start well here with AVX512 80% faster with float FP32 workload.
	Sharpen (5×5) Filter (MPix/s)	633 [+71%]	371	Same algorithm but more shared data improves by 70%.
	Motion-Blur (7×7) Filter (MPix/s)	326 [+67%]	195	Again same algorithm but even more data shared now brings the improvement down to 67%.
	Edge Detection (2*5×5) Sobel Filter (MPix/s)	502 [+58%]	318	Using two buffers does not change much still 58% improvement.
	Noise Removal (5×5) Median Filter (MPix/s)	72.92 [+2.4x]	30.14	Different algorithm works better, with AVX512 over 2x faster.
	Oil Painting Quantise Filter (MPix/s)	24.73 [+50%]	16.45	Using the new scatter/gather in AVX512 still brings 50% better performance.
	Diffusion Randomise (XorShift) Filter (MPix/s)	2,100 [+33%]	1,580	Here we have a 64-bit integer workload algorithm with many gathers still good 33% improvement.
	Marbling Perlin Noise 2D Filter (MPix/s)	307 [+33%]	231	Again loads of gathers and similar 33% improvement.
Image manipulation algorithms working on individual (non-dependent) pixels love AVX512, with 33-140% improvement. The new scatter/gather instructions also simplily memory access code that can benefit from future arch improvements.

	NeuralNet CNN Inference (Samples/s)	25.94 [+3%]	25.23	Inference improves by a mere 3% only despite few dependencies.
	NeuralNet CNN Training (Samples/s)	4.6 [+5%]	4.39	Traning improves by a slighly better 5% likely due to 512-bit accesses.
	NeuralNet RNN Inference (Samples/s)	25.66 [-1%]	25.81	RNN interference seems very slighly slower.
	NeuralNet RNN Training (Samples/s)	2.97 [+33%]	2.23	Finally RNN traning improves by 33%.
Unlike image manipulation, neural networks don’t seem to benefit as much pretty much the same performance across board. Clearly more optimisation is needed to push performance.

SiSoftware Official Ranker Scores

Final Thoughts / Conclusions

We never expected a low-power TDP (power)-limited ULV platform to benefit from AVX512 as much as HEDT/server platforms – especially when you consider the lower count of SIMD execution units. Nevertheless, it is clear that ICL (even in ULV form) benefits greatly from AVX512 with 50-100% improvement in many algorithms and no loses.

ICL also introduces many new AVX512 extensions which can even be used to accelrate existing AVX512 code (not just legacy AVX2/FMA), we are likely to see even higher gains in the future as software (and compilers) take advantage of the new extensions. Future CPU architectures are also likely to optimise complex instructions as well as add more SIMD/FMA execution units which will greatly improve AVX512 code performance.

As the data-paths for caches (L1D, L2?) have been widened, 512-bit memory accesses help extract more bandwidth for streaming algorithms (e.g. crypto) while scatter/gather instruction reduce latencies for non-sequential data accesses. Thus the benefit of AVX512 extends to more than just raw compute code.

We are excitedly waiting to see how AVX512-enabled desktop/HEDT ICL performs, not constrained by TDP and adequately cooled…

Intel Iris Plus G7 Gen11 IceLake ULV (i7-1065G7) Review & Benchmarks – GPGPU Performance

By Adrian Silasi | 28th March 2020 - 1:21 am |1st April 2020 Reviews

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What is “IceLake”?

It is the “proper” 10th generation Core arch (ICL) from Intel – the brand new core to replace the ageing “Skylake” (SKL) arch and its many derivatives; due to delays it actually debuts shortly after the latest update (“CometLake” (CLM)) that is also called 10th generation. Firstly launched for mobile ULV (U/Y) devices, it will also be launched for mainstream (desktop/workstations) soon.

Thus it contains extensive changes to all parts of the SoC: CPU, GPU, memory controller:

10nm+ process (lower voltage, performance benefits)
Gen11 graphics (finally up from Gen9.5 for CometLake/WhiskyLake)
64 EUs up to 1.1GHz – up to 1.12 TFLOPS/FP32, 2.25TFLOPS/FP16
2-channel LP-DDR4X support up to 3733Mt/s
No eDRAM cache unfortunately (like CrystallWell and co)
VBR (Variable Rate Shading) – usefor for games

The biggest change GPGPU-wise is the increase in EUs (64 top end) which greatly increases processing power compared to previous generation using few EUs (24 except very rare GT3 version). Most of the features seem to be geared towards gaming not GPGPU – thus one omission is no FP64 support! While mobile platforms are not very likely to use high-precision kernels, Gen9 FP64 performance did exceed CPU AVX2/FMA FP64 performance. FP16 is naturally supported, 2x rate as most current designs.

While there does not seem to be eDRAM (L4) cache at all, thanks to very high-speed LP-DDR4X memory (at 3733Mt/s) the bandwidth has almost doubled (58GB/s) which should greatly help bandwidth-intensive workloads. While L1 does not seem changed, L2 has been increased to 3MB (up from 1MB) which should also help.

We do hope to see more GPGPU-friendly features in upcoming versions now that Intel is taking graphics seriously.

GPGPU (Gen11 G7) Performance Benchmarking

In this article we test GPGPU core performance; please see our other articles on:

To compare against the other Gen10 SoC, please see our other articles:

Intel Core Gen10 CometLake ULV (i7-10510U) Review & Benchmarks – CPU Performance

Hardware Specifications

We are comparing the middle-range Intel integrated GP-GPUs with previous generation, as well as competing architectures with a view to upgrading to a brand-new, high performance, design.

GPGPU Specifications	Intel UHD 630 (7200U)	Intel Iris HD 540 (6550U)	AMD Vega 8 (Ryzen 5)	Intel Iris Plus (1065G7)	Comments
Arch Chipset	EV9.5 / GT2	EV9 / GT3	Vega / GCN1.5	EV11 / G7	The first G11 from Intel.
Cores (CU) / Threads (SP)	24 / 192	48 / 384	8 / 512	64 / 512	Less powerful CU but same SP as Vega
SIMD per CU / Width	8	8	64	8	Same SIMD width
Wave/Warp Size	32	32	64	32	Wave size matches nVidia
Speed (Min-Turbo)	300-1000MHz	300-950MHz	300-1100MHz	400-1100MHz	Turbo maches Vega.
Power (TDP)	15-25W	15-25W	25W	15-25W	Same TDP
ROP / TMU	8 / 16	16 / 24	8 / 32	16 / 32	ROPs the same but TMU have increased.
Shared Memory	64kB	64kB	32kB	64kB	Same shared memory but 2x Vega.
Constant Memory	1.6GB	3.2GB	2.7GB	3.2GB	No dedicated constant memory but large.
Global Memory	2x DDR4 2133Mt/s	2x DDR4 2133Mt/s	2x DDR4 2400Mt/s	2x LP-DDR4X 3733Mt/s	Fastest memory ever
Memory Bandwidth	38GB/s	38GB/s	42GB/s	58GB/s	Highest bandwidth ever
L1 Caches	16kB x 24	16kB x 48	8x 16kB	16kB x 64kB	L1 does not appear changed.
L2 Cache	512kB	1MB	?	3MB	L2 has tripled in size
Maximum Work-group Size	256×256	256×256	1024×1024	256×256	Vega supports 4x bigger workgroups
FP64/double ratio	1/16x	1/16x	1/32x	No!	No FP64 support in current drivers!
FP16/half ratio	2x	2x	2x	2x	Same 2x ratio

Processing Performance

We are testing both OpenCL performance using the latest SDK / libraries / drivers from both Intel and competition.

Results Interpretation: Higher values (GOPS, MB/s, etc.) mean better performance.

Environment: Windows 10 x64, latest Intel and AMD drivers. Turbo / Boost was enabled on all configurations.

Processing Benchmarks		Intel UHD 630 (7200U)	Intel Iris HD 540 (6550U)	AMD Vega 8 (Ryzen 5)	Intel Iris Plus (1065G7)	Comments

	Mandel FP16/Half (Mpix/s)	895	1,530	2,000	2,820 [+41%]	G7 beats Vega by 40%! Pretty incredible start.
	Mandel FP32/Single (Mpix/s)	472	843	1,350	1,330 [-1%]	Standard FP32 is just a tie.
	Mandel FP64/Double (Mpix/s)	113	195	111	70*	Without native FP64 support G7 craters, but old GT3 beats Vega.
	Mandel FP128/Quad (Mpix/s)	6	10.2	7.1	7.54*	Emulated FP128 is hard on FP64 units and G7 beats Vega again.
G7 ties with Mobile Vega in FP32 which in itself is a great achievement but FP16 is much faster. Unfortunately, without native FP64 support – G7 is a lot slower using emulation – but hopefully mobile systems don’t use high-precision kernels. * Emulated FP64 through FP32.

	Crypto AES-256 (GB/s)	0.88	1.14	2.58	2.6 [+1%]	G7 manages to tie with Vega on this streaming test.
	Crypto AES-128 (GB/s)	1.1	1.42	3.3	3.4 [+2%]	Nothing much changes when changing to 128bit.

	Crypto SHA2-256 (GB/s)	1.1	1.83	3.36	2.26 [-33%]	Without cryto acceleration G7 cannot match Vega.
	Crypto SHA1 (GB/s)	3	4.45	14.29	6.9 [1/2x]	With 128-bit G7 is 1/2 speed of Vega.
	Crypto SHA2-512 (GB/s)	6.79	10.6	18.77	14.18 [-24%]	64-bit integer workload is still 25% slower.
Thanks to the fast LP-DDR4X memory and its high bandwidth, G7 performance ties with Vega on integer workloads. However, G7 has not crypto acceleration thus Vega is much faster – thus crypto-currency/coin algorithms still favour AMD.

	Black-Scholes float/FP16 (MOPT/s)	1,170	1,470	1,720	2,340 [+36%]	With FP16 we see G7 win again by ~35%.
	Black-Scholes float/FP32 (MOPT/s)	710	758	829	1,310 [+58%]	With FP32 G7 is now even faster – 60% faster than Vega.
	Black-Scholes double/FP64 (MOPT/s)	158	264	185	–	No FP64 support.
	Binomial float/FP32 (kOPT/s)	95.7	153	254	292 [+8%]	Binomial uses thread shared data thus stresses the memory system so G7 is just 15% faster.
	Binomial double/FP64 (kOPT/s)	20.32	31.1	15.67	–	No FP64 support.
	Monte-Carlo float/FP32 (kOPT/s)	240	392	362	719 [+2x]	Monte-Carlo also uses thread shared data but read-only and here G7 is 2x faster.
	Monte-Carlo double/FP64 (kOPT/s)	35.27	59.7	47.13	–	No FP64 support.
For financial FP32/FP16 workloads, G7 is between 8% to 100% faster than the Vega – thus for financial workloads it is a great choice. Unfortunately, due to lack of FP64 support – it cannot run high-precision workloads which may be a problem for some algorithms.

	HGEMM (GFLOPS) float/FP16	142	220	884	563 [-36%]	G7 cannot beat Vega despite previous FP16 great performance.
	SGEMM (GFLOPS) float/FP32	119	162	314	419 [+33%]	With FP32, G7 is 33% faster than Vega.
	DGEMM (GFLOPS) double/FP64	44.2	65.1	62.5	–	No FP64 support
	HFFT (GFLOPS) float/FP16	39.77	42.54	61.34	61.4 [=]	G7 manages to tie with Vega here.
	SFFT (GFLOPS) float/FP32	23.8	29.69	31.48	39.22 [+25%]	With FP32, G7 is 25% faster.
	DFFT (GFLOPS) double/FP64	4.81	3.43	14.19	–	No FP64 support
	HNBODY (GFLOPS) float/FP16	383	597	623	930 [+49%]	G7 comes up strong here winning by 50%.
	SNBODY (GFLOPS) float/FP32	209	327	537	566 [+5%]	With FP32, G7 drops to just 5% faster than Vega.
	DNBODY (GFLOPS) double/FP64	26.93	44.19	44		–
On scientific algorithms, G7 manages to beat Vega between 25-50% with FP32 precision and sometimes with FP16 as well. Again, the lack of FP64 support means all the high-precision kernels cannot be used which for some algorithms may be a problem.

	Blur (3×3) Filter single/FP16 (MPix/s)	1,000	1,370	2,273	3,520 [+55%]	With FP16, G7 is only 50% faster than Vega.
	Blur (3×3) Filter single/FP32 (MPix/s)	498	589	781	1,570 [+2x]	In this 3×3 convolution algorithm, G7 is 2x faster.
	Sharpen (5×5) Filter single/FP16 (MPix/s)	307	441	382	1,000 [+72%]	With FP16, G7 is just 70% faster.
	Sharpen (5×5) Filter single/FP32 (MPix/s)	108	143	157	319 [+2x]	Same algorithm but more shared data, G7 still 2x faster.
	Motion Blur (7×7) Filter single/FP16 (MPix/s)	284	435	619	924 [+49%]	With FP16, G7 is again 50% faster.
	Motion Blur (7×7) Filter single/FP32 (MPix/s)	112	156	161	328 [+2x]	With even more data the gap remains at 2x.
	Edge Detection (2*5×5) Sobel Filter single/FP16 (MPix/s)	309	428	595	1,000 [+68%]	With FP16 precision, G7 is 70% faster than Vega.
	Edge Detection (2*5×5) Sobel Filter single/FP32 (MPix/s)	108	145	155	318 [+2x]	Still convolution but with 2 filters – same 2x difference.
	Noise Removal (5×5) Median Filter single/FP16 (MPix/s)	8.78	8.23	7.68	26.63 [+2.5x]	With FP16, G7 is “just” 2.5x faster than Vega.
	Noise Removal (5×5) Median Filter single/FP32 (MPix/s)	7.87	6.29	4.06	26.9 [+5.6x]	Different algorithm allows G7 to fly at 6x faster.
	Oil Painting Quantise Filter single/FP16 (MPix/s)	9.6	9.14	–	24.34	G7 does similarly well with FP16
	Oil Painting Quantise Filter single/FP32 (MPix/s)	8.84	6.77	2.59	19.63 [+6.6x]	Without major processing, this filter is 6x faster on G7.
	Diffusion Randomise (XorShift) Filter single/FP16 (MPix/s)	1,000	1,620	2,091	1,740 [-17%]	With FP16, G7 is 17% slower than Vega.
	Diffusion Randomise (XorShift) Filter single/FP32 (MPix/s)	1,000	1,560	2,100	1,870 [-11%]	This algorithm is 64-bit integer heavy thus G7 is 10% slower
	Marbling Perlin Noise 2D Filter single/FP16 (MPix/s)	36.5	34.32	1,046	215 [1/5x]	Some issues needed to be worked out here.
	Marbling Perlin Noise 2D Filter single/FP32 (MPix/s)	433	649	608	950 [+56%]	One of the most complex and largest filters, G7 is over 50% faster.
For image processing tasks, G7 does very well – it is 2x faster than Vega while dropping to FP16 precision is around 50% faster (with Vega benefiting greatly from the lower precision). All in all a fanstastic result for those using image/video manipulation algorithms.

Memory Performance

We are testing both OpenCL performance using the latest SDK / libraries / drivers from Intel and competition.

Results Interpretation: For bandwidth tests (MB/s, etc.) high values mean better performance, for latency tests (ns, etc.) low values mean better performance.

Environment: Windows 10 x64, latest Intel and AMD drivers. Turbo / Boost was enabled on all configurations.

Memory Benchmarks		Intel UHD 630 (7200U)	Intel Iris HD 540 (6550U)	AMD Vega 8 (Ryzen 5)	Intel Iris Plus (1065G7)	Comments

	Internal Memory Bandwidth (GB/s)	21.36	23.66	27.32	36.3 [+33%]	G7 has 33% more bandwidth than Vega.
	Upload Bandwidth (GB/s)	10.4	11.77	4.74	17 [+2.6x]	G7 manages far higher transfers.
	Download Bandwidth (GB/s)	10.55	11.75	5	18 [+2.6x]	Again, same 2.6x delta.
Thanks to the fast LP-DDR4X memory, G7 has far more bandwidth than Vega or older GT2/GT3 design; this no doubt helps streaming algorithms as we have seen above.

	Global (In-Page Random Access) Latency (ns)	232	277	412	343 [-17%]	Better latency than Vega but not less than old arch.
	Global (Full Range Random Access) Latency (ns)	363	436	519	433 [-17%]	Similar 17% less than Vega.
	Global (Sequential Access) Latency (ns)	153	213	201	267 [+33%]	Vega seems to be a lot faster than G7.
	Constant Memory (In-Page Random Access) Latency (ns)	236	252	411	350 [-15%]	Same latency as global as not dedicated.
	Shared Memory (In-Page Random Access) Latency (ns)	72.5	100	22.5	16.7 [-26%]	G7 has greatly reduced shared memory latency.
	Texture (In-Page Random Access) Latency (ns)	1,116	1,500	278	1,100 [+3x]	Not much improvement over older versions.
	Texture (Full Range Random Access) Latency (ns)	1,178	1,533	418	1,018 [+1.4x]	Similar high latency for G7.
	Texture (Sequential Access) Latency (ns)	1,057	1,324	122	973 [+8x]	Again Vega has much lower latencies.
Despite high bandwidth, the latencies are high as LP-DDR4 has higher latencies than standard DDR4 (tens of clocks). Like Vega there is no dedicated constant memory – unlike nVidia. But G7 has greatly reduced shared memory latency to less than Vega which greatly helps algorithms using shared memory.

SiSoftware Official Ranker Scores

Final Thoughts / Conclusions

It’s great to see Intel taking graphics seriously again; with ICL, you don’t just get a brand-new core but a much updated GPU core too. And it does not disappoint – it trades blows with competition (Vega Mobile) and usually wins while it is close to 2x faster than Gen9/GT3 and 3x faster than Gen9.5/GT2 – a huge improvement.

The lack of native FP64 support is puzzling – but then again it could be reserved for higher-end/workstation versions if supported at all. Intel no doubt is betting on the CPU’s AVX512 SIMD cores for FP64 performance which is considerable. Again, it’s not very likely that mobile (ULV) platforms are going to run high-precision kernels.

The memory bandwidth is also 50% higher but unfortunately latencies are also higher due to LP-DDR4(X) memory; lower-end versions using “standard” DDR4 memory will not see high bandwidth but will see lower latencies – thus it is give and take.

As we’ve said in the other reviews of ICL, if you have been waiting to upgrade from the much older – but still good – SKL/KBL with Gen8/9 GT2 GPU – the Gen11 GPU is a significant upgrade. You will no longer feel “inadequate” compared to competition integrated GPUs. Naturally, you cannot expect discrete GPU levels of performance but for an integrated APU it is more than sufficient.

Overall with CPU and memory improvements, ICL-U is a very compelling proposition that cost permitting should be your top choice for long-term use.

In a word: Highly Recommended!

Please see our other articles on:

- Intel Core Gen10 IceLake ULV (i7-1065G7) Review & Benchmarks – Cache & Memory Performance
- Intel Core Gen10 IceLake ULV (i7-1065G7) Review & Benchmarks – CPU AVX512 Performance

SiSoftware Sandra 20/20/4a (2020 R4a) Released

By Adrian Silasi | 25th March 2020 - 5:33 pm |4th April 2020 Releases, Updates

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Note: The original R4 release text has been updated below. The (*) denotes new changes.

We are pleased to release R4a (version 30.39) update for 20/20 (2020) with the following updates:

Sandra 20/20 (2020) Press Release

Benchmarks:
- Crypto AES Benchmarks*: Optimised AVX512/AVX2-VAES code to outperform AES-HWA where possible.
- Crypto SHA Benchmarks*: Select AVX512 multi-buffer instead of SHA-HWA where supported.
- Network (LAN), Wireless (WLAN/WWAN) Benchmarks: multi-threaded transfer tests and increased packet size to better utilise 10Gbe+ (and higher) links. [Note: threaded CPU required]
- Internet Connection, Internet Peerage Benchmarks: multi-threaded transfer tests and increased packet size to better utilise Gigabit+ (and higher) connections.

Hardware Support:
- Updated IceLake (ICL Gen10 Core), Future* (RKL, TGL Gen11 Core) AVX512, VAES, SHA-HWA support (see CPU, GP-GPU, Cache & Memory, AVX512 improvement reviews)
- Updated CometLake (Gen10 Core) support (see CPU, GP-GPU, Cache & Memory reviews)
- Updated CPU features support*
- Updated NVMe support
- Enhanced Biometrics information (fingerprint, face, voice, audio, etc. sensors)
- Updated WiFi support (WiFi 6/802.11ax, WPA3)
- Various stability and reliability improvements

Reviews using Sandra 20/20:

Update & Download

Commercial version customers can download the free updates from their software distributor; Lite users please download from your favourite download site.

Download Sandra Lite

Intel Core Gen10 IceLake ULV (i7-1065G7) Review & Benchmarks – CPU AVX512 Performance

By Adrian Silasi | 23rd March 2020 - 12:31 pm |1st April 2020 Reviews

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What is “IceLake”?

It is the “real” 10th generation Core arch(itecture) (ICL/IceLake) from Intel – the brand new core to replace the ageing “Skylake” (SKL) arch and its many derivatives; due to delays it actually debuts shortly after the latest update (“CometLake” (CLM)) that is also called 10th generation. Firstly launched for mobile ULV (U/Y) devices, it will also be launched for mainstream (desktop/workstations) soon.

Thus it contains extensive changes to all parts of the SoC: CPU, GPU, memory controller:

10nm+ process (lower voltage, performance benefits)
Up to 4C/8T on ULV (similar to WhiskyLake but less than top-end CometLake 6C/12T)
Gen11 graphics (finally up from Gen9.5 for CometLake/WhiskyLake)
AVX512 instruction set (like HEDT platform)
SHA HWA instruction set (like Ryzen)
2-channel LP-DDR4X support up to 3733Mt/s
Thunderbolt 3 integrated
Hardware fixes/mitigations for vulnerabilities (“Meltdown”, “MDS”, various “Spectre” types)
WiFi6 (802.11ax) AX201 integrated

Probably the biggest change is support for AVX512-family instruction set, effectively doubling the SIMD processing width (vs. AVX2/FMA) as well as adding a whole host of specialised instructions that even the HEDT platform (SKL/KBL-X) does not support:

VNNI (Vector Neural Network Instructions)
VBMI, VBMI2 (Vector Byte Manipulation Instructions)
BITALG (Bit Algorithms)
IFMA (Integer FMA)
VAES (Vector AES) accelerating crypto
GFNI (Galois Field)
SHA accelerating hashing
GNA (Gaussian Neural Accelerator)

While some software may not have been updated to AVX512 as it was reserved for HEDT/Servers, due to this mainstream launch you can pretty much guarantee that just about all vectorised algorithms (already ported to AVX2/FMA) will soon be ported over. VNNI, IFMA support can accelerate low-precision neural-networks that are likely to be used on mobile platforms.

VAES and SHA acceleration improve crypto/hashing performance – important today as even LAN transfers between workstations are likely to be encrypted/signed, not to mention just about all WAN transfers, encrypted disk/containers, etc. Some SoCs will also make their way into powerful (but low power) firewall appliances where both AES and SHA acceleration will prove very useful.

From a security point-of-view, ICL mitigates all (existing/reported) vulnerabilities in hardware/firmware (Spectre 2, 3/a, 4; L1TF, MDS) except BCB (Spectre V1 that does not have a hardware solution) thus should not require slower mitigations that affect performance (especially I/O).

The memory controller supports LP-DDR4X at higher speeds than CML while the cache/TLB systems have been improved that should help both CPU and GPU performance (see corresponding article) as well as reduce power vs. older designs using LP-DDR3.

Finally the GPU core has been updated (Gen11) and generally contains many more cores than the old core (Gen9.5) that was used from KBL (CPU Gen7) all the way to CML (CPU Gen10) (see corresponding article).

CPU (Core) Performance Benchmarking

In this article we test CPU core performance; please see our other articles on:

To compare against the other Gen10 CPU, please see our other articles:

Intel Core Gen10 CometLake ULV (i7-10510U) Review & Benchmarks – CPU Performance

Hardware Specifications

We are comparing the top-of-the-range Intel ULV with competing architectures (gen 8, 7, 6) as well as competiors (AMD) with a view to upgrading to a mid-range but high performance design.

CPU Specifications	AMD Ryzen 2500U Bristol Ridge	Intel i7 8550U (Coffeelake ULV)	Intel Core i7 10510U (CometLake ULV)	Intel Core i7 1065G7 (IceLake ULV)	Comments
Cores (CU) / Threads (SP)	4C / 8T	4C / 8T	4C / 8T	4C / 8T	No change in cores count.
Speed (Min / Max / Turbo)	1.6-2.0-3.6GHz	0.4-1.8-4.0GHz (1.8 @ 15W, 2GHz @ 25W)	0.4-1.8-4.9GHz (1.8GHz @ 15W, 2.3GHz @ 25W)	0.4-1.5-3.9GHz (1.0GHz @ 12W, 1.5GHz @ 25W)	ICL has lower clocks ws. CML.
Power (TDP)	15-35W	15-35W	15-35W	12-35W	Same power envelope.
L1D / L1I Caches	4x 32kB 8-way / 4x 64kB 4-way	4x 32kB 8-way / 4x 32kB 8-way	4x 32kB 8-way / 4x 32kB 8-way	4x 48kB 12-way / 4x 32kB 8-way	L1D is 50% larger.
L2 Caches	4x 512kB 8-way	4x 256kB 16-way	4x 256kB 16-way	4x 512kB 16-way	L2 has doubled.
L3 Caches	4MB 16-way	6MB 16-way	8MB 16-way	8MB 16-way	No L3 changes
Microcode (Firmware)	MU8F1100-0B	MU068E09-AE	MU068E0C-BE	MU067E05-6A	Revisions just keep on coming.
Special Instruction Sets	AVX2/FMA, SHA	AVX2/FMA	AVX2/FMA	AVX512, VNNI, SHA, VAES, GFNI	512-bit wide SIMD on mobile!
SIMD Width / Units	128-bit	256-bit	256-bit	512-bit	Widest SIMD units ever

Native Performance

We are testing native arithmetic, SIMD and cryptography performance using the highest performing instruction sets (AVX2, AVX, etc.). “IceLake” (ICL) supports all modern instruction sets including AVX512, VNNI, SHA HWA, VAES and naturally the older AVX2/FMA, AES HWA.

Results Interpretation: Higher values (GOPS, MB/s, etc.) mean better performance.

Environment: Windows 10 x64, latest AMD and Intel drivers. 2MB “large pages” were enabled and in use. Turbo / Boost was enabled on all configurations.

Native Benchmarks		AMD Ryzen 2500U Bristol Ridge	Intel i7 8550U (Coffeelake ULV)	Intel Core i7 10510U (CometLake ULV)	Intel Core i7 1065G7 (IceLake ULV)	Comments

	Native Dhrystone Integer (GIPS)	103	125	134	154 [+15%]	ICL is 15% faster than CML.
	Native Dhrystone Long (GIPS)	102	115	135	151 [+12%]	With a 64-bit integer workload – 12% increase
	Native FP32 (Float) Whetstone (GFLOPS)	79	67	85	90 [+6%]	With floating-point, ICL is 6% faster than CML
	Native FP64 (Double) Whetstone (GFLOPS)	67	57	70	74 [+5%]	With FP64 we see 5% improvement
With integer (legacy) workloads (not using SIMD) we see the new ICL core is over 10% faster than the higher-clocked CML core; with floating-point we see a 5% improvement. While modest, it shows the potential of the new core over the old-but-refined cores we’ve had since SKL.

	Native Integer (Int32) Multi-Media (Mpix/s)	239	306	409	*504 [+23%]**	With AVX512 ICL wins this vectorised integer test
	Native Long (Int64) Multi-Media (Mpix/s)	53.4	117	149	145* [-3%]	With a 64-bit AVX512 integer workload we have parity.
	Native Quad-Int (Int128) Multi-Media (Mpix/s)	2.41	2.21	2.54	3.67 [+44%]	A tough test using long integers to emulate Int128 without SIMD; ICL is 44% faster!
	Native Float/FP32 Multi-Media (Mpix/s)	222	266	328	*414 [+26%]**	In this floating-point vectorised test, AVX512 is 26% faster.
	Native Double/FP64 Multi-Media (Mpix/s)	127	155.9	194	*232 [+19%]**	Switching to FP64 SIMD code, ICL is 20% faster.
	Native Quad-Float/FP128 Multi-Media (Mpix/s)	6.23	6.51	8.22	*10.2 [+24%]**	A heavy algorithm using FP64 to mantissa extend FP128 ICL is 24% faster.
With heavily vectorised SIMD workloads ICL is able to deploy AVX512 which leads to a 20-25% performance improvement even at the slower clock. However, AVX512 is quite power-hungry (as we’ve seen on HEDT) so we are power constrained in an ULV here – but higher TDP systems (28W, etc.) should perform much better. * using AVX512 instead of AVX2/FMA.

	Crypto AES-256 (GB/s)	10.9	13.1	12.1	*21.3 [+76%]**	ICL with VAES is 76% faster than CML.
	Crypto AES-128 (GB/s)	10.9	13.1	12.1	*21.3 [+76%]**	No change with AES128.
	Crypto SHA2-256 (GB/s)	6.78**	3.97	4.3	9 [+2.1x]**	Despite SHA HWA, Ryzen loses top spot.
	Crypto SHA1 (GB/s)	7.13**	7.5	7.2	15.7 [+2.2x]**	Less compute intensive SHA1 does not help.
	Crypto SHA2-512 (GB/s)	1.48	1.54		7.1***	SHA2-512 is not accelerated by SHA HWA.
The memory sub-system is crucial here, and despite VAES (AVX512 VL) and SHA HWA support (like Ryzen), ICL wins thanks to the very fast LP-DDR4X @ 3733Mt/s. VAES marginally helps (at this time) and SHA HWA cannot beat AVX512 multi-buffer but should be much more important in single-buffer large data workloads. * using VAES (AVX512 VL) instead of AES HWA. using SHA HWA instead of multi-buffer AVX2. * using AVX512 B/W

	Black-Scholes float/FP32 (MOPT/s)	93.34	73.02		109	With non-vectorised code ICL is still faster
	Black-Scholes double/FP64 (MOPT/s)	77.86	75.24	87.2	91 [+4%]	Using FP64 ICL is 4% faster
	Binomial float/FP32 (kOPT/s)	35.49	16.2		23.5	Binomial uses thread shared data thus stresses the cache & memory system.
	Binomial double/FP64 (kOPT/s)	19.46	19.31	21	27 [+29%]	With FP64 code ICL is 29% faster.
	Monte-Carlo float/FP32 (kOPT/s)	20.11	14.61		79.9	Monte-Carlo also uses thread shared data but read-only thus reducing modify pressure on the caches.
	Monte-Carlo double/FP64 (kOPT/s)	15.32	14.54	16.5	66 [+2x]	Switching to FP64 ICL is 2x faster.
With non-SIMD financial workloads, ICL still improves a significant amount over CML thus it makes sense to choose it rather than the older core. Still, it is more likely that the GPGPU will be used for such workloads today.

	SGEMM (GFLOPS) float/FP32	107	141	158	*185 [+17%]**	In this tough vectorised algorithm, ICL is 17% faster
	DGEMM (GFLOPS) double/FP64	47.2	55	69.2	*91.7 [+32%]**	With FP64 vectorised code, ICL is 32% faster.
	SFFT (GFLOPS) float/FP32	3.75	13.23	13.9	*31.7 [+2.3x%]**	FFT is also heavily vectorised and here ICL is over 2x faster.
	DFFT (GFLOPS) double/FP64	4	6.53	7.35	*17.7 [+2.4x]**	With FP64 code, ICL is even faster.
	SNBODY (GFLOPS) float/FP32	112.6	160	169	*200 [+18%]**	N-Body simulation is vectorised but with more memory accesses.
	DNBODY (GFLOPS) double/FP64	45.3	57.9	64.2	*61.8 [-4%]**	With FP64 code ICL is slighly behind CML.
With highly vectorised SIMD code (scientific workloads), ICL again shows us the power of AVX512 and can be over 2x (twice) faster than CML even at higher clock. Some algorithms may need further optimisations but even then we see 17-30% improvement. * using AVX512 instead of AVX2/FMA

	NeuralNet CNN Inference (Samples/s)	14.32	17.27	19.33	*25.62 [+33%]**	Using AVX512 ICL inference is 33% faster.
	NeuralNet CNN Training (Samples/s)	1.46	2.06	3.33	*4.56 [+37%]**	Even training improves by 37%.
	NeuralNet RNN Inference (Samples/s)	16.93	22.69	23.88	*24.93 [+4%]**	Just 4% faster but improvement is there.
	NeuralNet RNN Training (Samples/s)	1.48	1.14	1.57	*2.97 [+43%]**	Training is much faster by 43% over CML.
As we’ve seen before, ICL benefits greatly from AVX512 – manages to beat the higher-clock CML across the board from 33-43% – and that is before using VNNI to accelerate algorithms even more. * using AVX512 instead of AVX2/FMA (not using VNNI yet)

	Blur (3×3) Filter (MPix/s)	532	720	891	*1580 [+77%]**	In this vectorised integer workload ICL is 77% faster
	Sharpen (5×5) Filter (MPix/s)	146	290	359	*633 [+76%]**	Same algorithm but more shared data still 76%.
	Motion-Blur (7×7) Filter (MPix/s)	123	157	186	*326 [+75%]**	Again same algorithm but even more data shared brings 75%
	Edge Detection (2*5×5) Sobel Filter (MPix/s)	185	251	302	*502 [+66%]**	Different algorithm but still vectorised workload still 66% faster.
	Noise Removal (5×5) Median Filter (MPix/s)	26.49	25.38	27.7	*72.9 [+2.6x]**	Still vectorised code ICL rules here 2.6x faster!
	Oil Painting Quantise Filter (MPix/s)	9.38	14.29	15.7	*24.7 [57%]**	Similar improvement here of about 57%
	Diffusion Randomise (XorShift) Filter (MPix/s)	660	1525	1580	*2100 [+33%]**	With integer workload, 33% faster.
	Marbling Perlin Noise 2D Filter (MPix/s)	94,16	188.8	214	*307 [+43%]**	In this final test again with integer workload 43% faster
ICL rules this benchmark with AVX512 integer (B/W) 33-43% faster and floating-point AVX512 66-77% faster than CML even at lower clock. Again we see the huge improvement AVX512 brings already even at low-power ULV envelopes. * using AVX512 instead of AVX2/FMA

Unlike CML, ICL with AVX512 support is a revolution in performance – which is exactly what we were hoping for; even at much lower clock we see anywhere between 33% all the way to over 2x (twice) faster within the same power limits (TDP/turbo). As we know from HEDT, AVX512 is power-hungry thus higher-TDP rated version (e.g. 28W) should perform even better.

Even without AVX512, we see good improvement of 5-15% again at much lower clock (3.9GHz vs 4.9GHz) while CML and older versions relied on higher clock / more cores to outperform older versions KBL/SKL-U.

SiSoftware Official Ranker Scores

Final Thoughts / Conclusions

With AMD snapping at its heel with Ryzen Mobile, Intel has finally fixed its 10nm production and rolled out the “new Skylake” we deserve: Ice Lake with AVX512 brings feature parity with the much older HEDT platform and showing good promise for the future. This is the “Core” you have been looking for.

While power-hungry and TDP constrained, AVX512 does bring sizeable performance gains that are in addition to core improvements and cache & memory sub-system improvements. Other instruction sets VAES, SHA HWA complete the package and might help in some scenarios where code has not been updated to AVX512.

With ICL, a mere 15W thin & light (e.g. Dell XPS 13 9300) can outperform older desktop-class CPUs (e.g. SKL) at 4-6x (four/six-times) TDP which makes us really keen to see what desktop-class processors will be capable of. And not before time as the competition has been bringing stronger and stronger designs (Ryzen2, future Ryzen 3).

If you have been waiting to upgrade from the much older – but still good – SKL/KBL with just 2 cores and no hardware vulnerability mitigations – then you finally have something to upgrade to: CML was not it as despite its 4 cores (and rumoured 6 core), it just did not bring enough to the table to make upgrading worth-while (save hardware mitigations that don’t cripple performance).

Overall, with GP GPU and memory improvements, ICL-U is a very compelling proposition that cost permitting should be your top choice for long-term use.

In a word: Highly Recommended!

Please see our other articles on:

SiSoftware Sandra 20/20/3 (2020 R3) Released

By Adrian Silasi | 28th February 2020 - 3:00 pm |23rd March 2020 Releases, Updates

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We are pleased to release R3 (version 30.31) update for 20/20 (2020) with the following updates:

Sandra 20/20 (2020) Press Release

Hardware Support:
- Additional PCIe extended capabilities support
CPU Cyrptography Benchmarks:
- Block size changed to ~1500 bytes similar to Ethernet packet
- Various stability and reliability improvements
GPGPU Cyrptography Benchmarks:
- Block size changed to ~1500 bytes similar to Ethernet packet
- Various stability and reliability improvements

Reviews using Sandra 20/20:

Update & Download

Commercial version customers can download the free updates from their software distributor; Lite users please download from your favourite download site.

Download Sandra Lite

SiSoftware Sandra 20/20/2 (2020 R2) Released

By Adrian Silasi | 30th January 2020 - 2:10 pm |23rd March 2020 Releases, Updates

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We are pleased to release R2 (version 30.27) update for 20/20 (2020) with the following updates:

Sandra 20/20 (2020) Press Release

Hardware Support:
- PCIe extended capabilities support
Software Support:
- ReFS format Disk benchmark stability issues
CPU Benchmarks:
- Tools (Visual C++ compiler 2019) Update
GPGPU Benchmarks:
- CUDA: Updated SDK 10.2/10.1
- OpenCL: Updated SDK support

Reviews using Sandra 20/20:

Update & Download

Commercial version customers can download the free updates from their software distributor; Lite users please download from your favourite download site.

Download Sandra Lite

SiSoftware Sandra 20/20/1a (2020 R1a) Released

By Adrian Silasi | 25th November 2019 - 4:05 pm |23rd March 2020 Releases, Updates

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Update November 25th: Released patch (version 30.24) to add further hardware and software support.

Update October 24th: Released patch (version 30.21) to corrrect Windows 7 / Server 2008/R2 run-time issues.

We are pleased to release R1 (version 30.24) update for 20/20 (2020) with the following updates:

Sandra 20/20 (2020) Press Release

Hardware Support:
- AMD Ryzen2 (series 3000 Matisse), Stoney Ridge updated support
- Intel Cascade Lake (CSL), Comet Lake (CML), Cannon Lake (CNL), Ice Lake (ICL) updated support

CPU Benchmarks:
- Tools (Visual C++ compiler 2019) Update

GPGPU Benchmarks:
- CUDA: Updated SDK 10.2/10.1
- OpenCL: Updated SDK support

Reviews using Sandra 20/20:

Update & Download

Commercial version customers can download the free updates from their software distributor; Lite users please download from your favourite download site.

Download Sandra Lite

Intel Core i9 10980X (Cascade Lake) Review & Benchmarks – CPU 18-core/36-thread AVX512 Performance

By Adrian Silasi | 20th November 2019 - 3:14 pm |27th November 2019 Reviews

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What is “Cascade Lake (CSL-X)”?

It is one of the 10th generation Core X-Series arch (CSL-X) from Intel – the latest revision of the “Skylake-X” (SKL-X) arch; it succeeds the older 9900 and 7900 X-Series for HEDT platform. Again, as on the desktop/mobile – it is not the “real” 10th generation Core-X arch – but unlike those platforms – it does actually bring a few more features thus it may be thought as “gen 9.5”:

Up to 18C/36T (matching older 7/9-X series)
Increased Turbo ratios (e.g. 3.0/4.6GHz for 10980X vs. 2.6/4.2 for 7980X)
4-channel DDR4-2933 (up from 2667) and 256GB (up from 128)
AVX512-VNNI, aka “Deep Learning Boost” (DLB) for AI/ML neural networks
Hardware fixes/mitigations for vulnerabilities (“Meltdown”, “MDS”, various “Spectre” types)
Reduced cost – by 50% ($999 for 10980X vs. $1999 for 7980X)

Unfortunately there are no core-count increases here as the CPUs are still power limited especially with AVX512 loads, but we do have some base and turbo ratio increases that should come in useful. We also get a good increase in (official) memory data-speed support and double memory size support (256GB!) for those big servers.

New instruction sets are always appreciated, though “VNNI” is just an acceleration for twin 8/16-bit integer multiply/accumulate for faster sumation for low-precision quantised (thus integer not floating-point) neural networks. Thus it is not something most algorithms can benefit from: if all you’re going to be using your CPU is AI/ML then great – otherwise it may not be much use.

Dropping the price by a *huge* 50% instantly doubles performance/cost ratio making the CSL-X far more competitive against the new Ryzen 3 / ThreadRipper 3 that have brought big performance gains. Alternatively, it also allows almost doubling the no. of cores/cost – which is a nice upgrade for lower-end users but will not help top-end (12C+) users.

Why review it now?

Until “IceLake” (ICL-X) makes its public debut, “Cascade Lake” is the latest X-Series CPU from Intel you can buy today; despite being just a revision of “Skylake-X” due to its reduced price they may still prove worthy competitors not just in cost but also performance.

As they contain hardware fixes/mitigations for vulnerabilities discovered since original “Skylake-X” has launched (especially “Meltdown” but also various “Spectre” variants), the operating system & applications do not need to deploy slower mitigations that can affect performance (especially I/O, virtualisation) on the older designs. For some algorithms, this may be enough to warrant an upgrade alone!

In this article we test CPU core performance; please see our other articles on:

Intel Core i9 10980X (Cascade Lake) Review & Benchmarks – 4-channel @ 3200Mt/s Cache & Memory Performance

Other articles using Sandra around the Internet:

Hardware Specifications

We are comparing the top-of-the-range Intel ULV with competing architectures (gen 8, 7, 6) as well as competiors (AMD) with a view to upgrading to a mid-range but high performance design.

CPU Specifications	Intel Core i9-10980X (CSL-X)	Intel Core i9-9900K (CFL-R)	Intel Core i9-7900X (SKL-X)	AMD Ryzen 9 3950X (R3)	Comments
Cores (CU) / Threads (SP)	18C / 36T	8C / 16T	10C / 20T	16C / 32T	CSL-X has the most cores thus a big advantage.
Speed (Min / Max / Turbo)	3.0 – 4.6GHz	3.6 – 5.0GHz	3.3-4.3GHz	3.8-4.6GHz	CSL-X improves Turbo clock over SKL-X
Power (TDP)	165 – 250W	95 – 135W	140 – 250W	105 – 135W	TDP has increased over SKL-X
L1D / L1I Caches	18x 32kB / 18x 32kB	8x 32kB / 8x 32kB	10x 32kB / 10x 32kB	16x 32kB / 16x 32kB	No L1 change
L2 Caches	18x 1MB (18MB)	8x 256kB (2MB)	10x 1MB (10MB)	16x 512kB (8MB)	No L2 change and good size vs. Ryzen3
L3 Caches	24.75MB	16MB	13.75MB	4x 16MB (64MB)	L3/Core stays the same – too little vs. Ryzen3
Microcode (Firmware)	MU065507-29	MU069E0C-9E	MU065504-49	MU8F7100-11	Just a stepping change of the same core

Native Performance

We are testing native arithmetic, SIMD and cryptography performance using the highest performing instruction sets (AVX2, AVX, etc.). “CometLake” (CML) supports all modern instruction sets including AVX2, FMA3 but not AVX512 (like “IceLake”) or SHA HWA (like Atom, Ryzen).

Results Interpretation: Higher values (GOPS, MB/s, etc.) mean better performance.

Environment: Windows 10 x64, latest AMD and Intel drivers. 2MB “large pages” were enabled and in use. Turbo / Boost was enabled on all configurations.

Native Benchmarks		Intel Core i9-10980X (18C/36T)	Intel Core i9-9900K (8C/16T)	Intel Core i9-7900X (10C/20T)	AMD Ryzen 9 3950X (16C/32T)	Comments

	Native Dhrystone Integer (GIPS)	779 [+3%]	400	455	753	CSL-X is just 3% faster than Ryzen3.
	Native Dhrystone Long (GIPS)	835 [+11%]	393	448	750	With a 64-bit integer workload – the gain is 11%.
	Native FP32 (Float) Whetstone (GFLOPS)	459 [-1%]	236	262	464	With floating-point workload we have a tie.
	Native FP64 (Double) Whetstone (GFLOPS)	379 [-4%]	196	223	393	With FP64 it is 4% slower than R3.
Despite its extra 2 cores (18 vs. 16 Ryzen 3), CSL-X pretty much ties with Ryzen3 across both legacy workloads (integer and floating-point). The performance increase vs. the older SKL-X is pretty much inline with the no cores (18 vs. 10) thus no discernible core improvement.

	Native Integer (Int32) Multi-Media (Mpix/s)	2,341 [+25%]	985	1,430	1,873	In this vectorised integer test, AVX512 allows CSL-X a 25% win.
	Native Long (Int64) Multi-Media (Mpix/s)	913 [+23%]	414	550	744	With a 64-bit AVX2 integer workload the gain is 23%.
	Native Quad-Int (Int128) Multi-Media (Mpix/s)	12.92 [=]	6.75	9.58	12.98	This is a tough test using Long integers to emulate Int128 without SIMD it’s a tie.
	Native Float/FP32 Multi-Media (Mpix/s)	2,676 [+36%]	914	1,740	1,970	In this floating-point vectorised test, CSL-X is 36% faster.
	Native Double/FP64 Multi-Media (Mpix/s)	1,738 [+45%]	535	1,140	1,200	Switching to FP64 SIMD code, the gain is 45%.
	Native Quad-Float/FP128 Multi-Media (Mpix/s)	56.4 [+21%]	23	38.7	46.5	In this heavy algorithm using FP64 to mantissa extend FP128 CSL-X is 21% faster.
Thanks to AVX512 support, CSL-X still manages to beat the new Ryzen3 (with its double-width SIMD units) by ~25% on vectorised integer and ~40% on floating-point workloads. With older AVX2/FMA we have a tie despite the extra 2 cores. Again, no appreciable delta vs. the old SKL-X thus without VNNI support there is nothing to see here.

	Crypto AES-256 (GB/s)	33.9 [2.6x]	17.6	34	13	With AES/HWA support CSL-X wins due to 4-channels.
	Crypto AES-128 (GB/s)	33.9 [2.6x]	17.6	34	13	No change with AES128.
	Crypto SHA2-256 (GB/s)	33.5 [+17%]	12	26	28.6	Without SHA/HWA CSL-X still wins.
	Crypto SHA1 (GB/s)		22.9	38		Less compute intensive SHA1 .
	Crypto SHA2-512 (GB/s)		9	21		SHA2-512 is not accelerated by SHA/HWA.
The memory sub-system is crucial here, and with 4-channel DDR4 CSL-X easily wins against Ryzen3 even lacking SHA/HWA support. But again, nothing special vs. old SKL-X at 3200Mt/s that ties with it despite less cores. But if you were to use only “official/non-XMP” clocks then CSL-X would win.

	Black-Scholes float/FP32 (MOPT/s)		276	344		With non vectorised workload.
	Black-Scholes double/FP64 (MOPT/s)	497 [+61%]	238	277	308	Using FP64 CSL-X is 60% faster than Ryzen3.
	Binomial float/FP32 (kOPT/s)		59.9	68.3		Binomial uses thread shared data thus stresses the cache & memory system.
	Binomial double/FP64 (kOPT/s)	128 [+3%]	61.6	68	124	With FP64 code CSL-X is just 3% faster.
	Monte-Carlo float/FP32 (kOPT/s)		56.5	257		Monte-Carlo also uses thread shared data but read-only thus reducing modify pressure on the caches.
	Monte-Carlo double/FP64 (kOPT/s)	178 [-16%]	44.5	103	212	Switching to FP64 CSL-X is 16% slower.
With non-SIMD financial workloads, CSL-X does not always win outright over Ryzen3, sometimes it ties, sometimes it is slower and sometimes faster. It is a big improvement over SKL-X only due to having more cores at the same price.

	SGEMM (GFLOPS) float/FP32		375	413		In this tough vectorised AVX2/FMA algorithm.
	DGEMM (GFLOPS) double/FP64	240 [+45%]	209	212	165	With FP64 vectorised code, CSL-X is 45% faster.
	SFFT (GFLOPS) float/FP32		22.3	28.6		FFT is also heavily vectorised but stresses the memory sub-system more.
	DFFT (GFLOPS) double/FP64	22.07 [+2.6x]	11.21	14.6	8.56	With FP64 code, CSL-X is over 2x faster.
	SNBODY (GFLOPS) float/FP32		557	638		N-Body simulation is vectorised but with more memory accesses.
	DNBODY (GFLOPS) double/FP64	292 [-25%]	171	195	388	With FP64 code CSL-X is 25% slower.
With highly vectorised SIMD code (scientific workloads) using AVX512 – CSL-X easily wins again (up to 50% faster) over Ryzen3 but again nothing special over older SKL-X save its more cores. You will need AVX512 optimised algorithms though to realise these gains, otherwise it is again pretty much a tie vs. Ryzen3.

	Blur (3×3) Filter (MPix/s)	7,295 [+2.53x]	2,560	4,880	2,883	In this vectorised integer workload CSL-X is 2.5x faster.
	Sharpen (5×5) Filter (MPix/s)	2,868 [+54%]	1,000	1,880	1,857	Same algorithm but more shared data still 54%.
	Motion-Blur (7×7) Filter (MPix/s)	1,724 [+80%]	519	1,000	959	Same algorithm but even more data shared 80% faster.
	Edge Detection (2*5×5) Sobel Filter (MPix/s)	2,285 [+44%]	827	1,500	1,589	Different algorithm but still vectorised workload 44% faster.
	Noise Removal (5×5) Median Filter (MPix/s)	332 [+91%]	78	221	174	Still vectorised code again almost 2x faster.
	Oil Painting Quantise Filter (MPix/s)	112 [+2.25x]	42.2	66.7	49.7	Even better improvement here of 2.25x
	Diffusion Randomise (XorShift) Filter (MPix/s)	3,573 [2.37x]	4,000	3,084	1,505	With integer workload 2.5x faster.
	Marbling Perlin Noise 2D Filter (MPix/s)	1,162 [+85%]	596	776	627	In this final test again with integer workload CSL-X is 85% faster.

Thanks to AVX512 CSL-X manages to easily beat Ryzen3 in heavily vectorised algorithms (up to 50% faster) and also in memory-bandwidth heavy algorithms (due to its 4-channels memory sub-system). But, despite having 2 extra cores, on older AVX2/FMA we pretty much have a tie – not something we are used to see from Intel.

Also, the improvement over older SKL-X is exactly in-line with the increase in cores (18 vs. 10 here) – thus there are no appreciable core improvements to boost performance. Without specific VNNI-accelerated algorithms, there is no point for SKL-X users to upgrade: you do get more cores for a lot less money but your hardware is also worth a lot less.

It shows how much Ryzen3 has improved (especially due to 256-bit width AVX2/FMA units) and ThreadRipper with 4-channels and even more cores (up to 32!) and threads (up to 64!) should nullify Intel’s AVX512 benefit.

SiSoftware Official Ranker Scores

Final Thoughts / Conclusions

For many, it may be disappointing that we do not have the brand-new “IceLake-X” (ICL-X) now rather than a 3-rd revision “Skylake-X” – and indeed “Cascade Lake-X” (CSL-X) does struggle against newer (and older) competition to make its mark. Without core-count increases and with minor clock increases while still very limited by power at the high end it just does not bring enough improvement. The only exception are workloads (low-precision quantised neural networks) that can use AVX512-VNNI.

Indeed, its “ace card” is the 1/2 price reduction vs. old 7/9-X series and that just about makes it competitive; thankfully existing X299 mainboards can use it through a BIOS/ME update – although boards are still expensive.

But the competition (AMD Ryzen 3, ThreadRipper 3) has much higher performance these days while older CPUs (Ryzen 2 / ThreadRipper 2) have also been greatly reduced in price. They also can use older boards, although to use new features (PCIe 4.0, better power management) new boards are required.

All in all, Intel has done all it can – fix vulnerabilities, greatly reduce the price – to keep the X-Series competitive with current designs – and that it has pretty much achieved. The next X-Series arch better deliver otherwise it will be dead and buried.

In a word: Recommended due to 1/2 price drop

Please see our other articles on:

- Intel Core i9 10980X (Cascade Lake) Review & Benchmarks – 4-channel @ 3200Mt/s Cache & Memory Performance

Intel Core Gen10 CometLake ULV (i7-10510U) Review & Benchmarks – CPU Performance

By Adrian Silasi | 17th October 2019 - 10:48 am |23rd March 2020 Reviews

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What is “CometLake”?

It is one of the 10th generation Core arch (CML) from Intel – the latest revision of the venerable (6th gen!) “Skylake” (SKL) arch; it succeeds the “WhiskyLake”/”CofeeLake” 8/9-gen current architectures for mobile (ULV U/Y) devices. The “real” 10th generation Core arch is “IceLake” (ICL) that does bring many changes but has not made its mainstream debut yet.

As a result there ar no major updates vs. previous Skylake designs, save increase in core count top end versions and hardware vulnerability mitigations which can still make a big difference:

Up to 6C/12T (from 4C/8T WhiskyLake/CoffeeLake or 2C/4T Skylake/KabyLake)
Increase Turbo ratios
2-channel LP-DDR4 support and DDR4-2667 (up from 2400)
WiFi6 (802.11ax) AX201 integrated (from WiFi5 (802.11ac) 9560)
Thunderbolt 3 integrated
Hardware fixes/mitigations for vulnerabilities (“Meltdown”, “MDS”, various “Spectre” types)

The 3x (three times) increase in core count (6C/12T vs. Skylake/KabyLake 2C/8T) in the same 15-28W power envelope is pretty significant considering that Core ULV designs since 1st gen have always had 2C/4T; unfortunately it is limited to top-end thus even i7-10510U still has 4C/8T.

LP-DDR4 support is important as many thin & light laptops (e.g. Dell XPS, Lenovo Carbon X1, etc.) have been “stuck” with slow LP-DDR3 memory instead of high-bandwidth DDR4 memory in order to save power. Note the Y-variants (4.5-6W) will not support this.

WiFi is now integrated in the PCH and has been updated to WiFi6/AX (2×2 streams, up to 2400Mbps with 160MHz-wide channel) from WiFi5/AX (1733Mbps); this also means no simple WiFi-card upgrade in the future as with older laptops (except those with “whitelists” like HP, Lenovo, etc.)

Why review it now?

Until “IceLake” makes its public debut, “CometLake” latest ULV APUs from Intel you can buy today; despite being just a revision of “Skylake” due to increased core counts/Turbo ratios they may still prove worthy competitors not just in cost but also performance.

As they contain hardware fixes/mitigations for vulnerabilities discovered since original “Skylake” has launched (especially “Meltdown” but also various “Spectre” variants), the operating system & applications do not need to deploy slower mitigations that can affect performance (especially I/O) on the older designs. For some algorithms, this may be worth an upgrade alone!

In this article we test CPU core performance; please see our other articles on:

Intel Core Gen10 CometLake ULV (i7-10510U) Review & Benchmarks – Cache & Memory Performance

To compare against the other Gen10 CPU, please see our other articles:

Intel Core Gen10 IceLake ULV (i7-1065G7) Review & Benchmarks – CPU AVX512 Performance

Hardware Specifications

We are comparing the top-of-the-range Intel ULV with competing architectures (gen 8, 7, 6) as well as competiors (AMD) with a view to upgrading to a mid-range but high performance design.

CPU Specifications	AMD Ryzen2 2500U Bristol Ridge	Intel i7 7500U (Kabylake ULV)	Intel i7 8550U (Coffeelake ULV)	Intel Core i7 10510U (CometLake ULV)	Comments
Cores (CU) / Threads (SP)	4C / 8T	2C / 4T	4C / 8T	4C / 8T	No change in cores count.
Speed (Min / Max / Turbo)	1.6-2.0-3.6GHz	0.4-2.7-3.5GHz	0.4-1.8-4.0GHz (1.8 @ 15W, 2GHz @ 25W)	0.4-1.8-4.9GHz (1.8GHz @ 15W, 2.3GHz @ 25W)	CML has +22% faster turbo.
Power (TDP)	15-35W	15-25W	15-35W	15-35W	Same power envelope.
L1D / L1I Caches	4x 32kB 8-way / 4x 64kB 4-way	2x 32kB 8-way / 2x 32kB 8-way	4x 32kB 8-way / 4x 32kB 8-way	4x 32kB 8-way / 4x 32kB 8-way	No L1 changes
L2 Caches	4x 512kB 8-way	2x 256kB 16-way	4x 256kB 16-way	4x 256kB 16-way	No L2 changes
L3 Caches	4MB 16-way	4MB 16-way	8MB 16-way	8MB 16-way	And no L3 changes
Microcode (Firmware)	MU8F1100-0B	MU068E09-8E	MU068E09-AE	MU068E0C-BE	Revisions just keep on coming.

Native Performance

Results Interpretation: Higher values (GOPS, MB/s, etc.) mean better performance.

Environment: Windows 10 x64, latest AMD and Intel drivers. 2MB “large pages” were enabled and in use. Turbo / Boost was enabled on all configurations.

Native Benchmarks		AMD Ryzen2 2500U Bristol Ridge	Intel i7 7500U (Kabylake ULV)	Intel i7 8550U (Coffeelake ULV)	Intel Core i7 10510U (CometLake ULV)	Comments

	Native Dhrystone Integer (GIPS)	103	73.15	125	134 [+8%]	CML starts off 7% faster than CFL a good start.
	Native Dhrystone Long (GIPS)	102	74.74	115	135 [+17%]	With a 64-bit integer workload – increases to 17%.
	Native FP32 (Float) Whetstone (GFLOPS)	79	45	67.29	84.95 [+26%]	With floating-point workload CML is 26% faster!
	Native FP64 (Double) Whetstone (GFLOPS)	67	37	57	70.63 [+24%]	With FP64 we see a similar 24% improvement.
With integer (legacy) workloads, CML-U brings a modest improvement of about 10% over CFL-U, cementing its top position. But with floating-points (also legacy) workloads we see a larger 25% increase which allows it to beat the competition (Ryzen Mobile) that was beating older designs (CFL-U, WHL-U, KBL-U, etc.)

	Native Integer (Int32) Multi-Media (Mpix/s)	239	193	306	409 [+34%]	In this vectorised AVX2 integer test CML-U is 34% faster than CFL-U.
	Native Long (Int64) Multi-Media (Mpix/s)	53.4	75	117	149 [+27%]	With a 64-bit AVX2 integer workload the difference drops to 27%.
	Native Quad-Int (Int128) Multi-Media (Mpix/s)	2.41	1.12	2.21	2.54 [+15%]	This is a tough test using Long integers to emulate Int128 without SIMD; here CML-U is still 15% faster.
	Native Float/FP32 Multi-Media (Mpix/s)	222	160	266	328 [+23%]	In this floating-point AVX/FMA vectorised test, CML-U is 23% faster.
	Native Double/FP64 Multi-Media (Mpix/s)	127	94.8	155.9	194.4 [+25%]	Switching to FP64 SIMD code, nothing much changes still 20% slower.
	Native Quad-Float/FP128 Multi-Media (Mpix/s)	6.23	4.04	6.51	8.22 [+26%]	In this heavy algorithm using FP64 to mantissa extend FP128 with AVX2 – we see 26% improvement.
With heavily vectorised SIMD workloads CML-U is 25% faster than previous CFL-U that may be sufficient to see future competition from Gen3 Ryzen Mobile with improved (256-bit) SIMD units, something that CFL/WHL-U may not beat. IcyLake (ICL) with AVX512 should improve over this despite lower clocks.

	Crypto AES-256 (GB/s)	10.9	7.28	13.11	12.11 [-8%]	With AES/HWA support all CPUs are memory bandwidth bound.
	Crypto AES-128 (GB/s)	10.9	9.07	13.11	12.11 [-8%]	No change with AES128.
	Crypto SHA2-256 (GB/s)	6.78	2.55	3.97	4.28 [+8%]	Without SHA/HWA Ryzen Mobile beats even CML-U.
	Crypto SHA1 (GB/s)	7.13	4.07		7.19	Less compute intensive SHA1 allows CML-U to catch up.
	Crypto SHA2-512 (GB/s)	1.48	1.54			SHA2-512 is not accelerated by SHA/HWA CML-U does better.
The memory sub-system is crucial here, and CML-U can improve over older designs when using faster memory (which we were not able to use here). Without SHA/HWA supported by Ryzen Mobile, it cannot beat it and improves marginally over older CFL-U.

	Black-Scholes float/FP32 (MOPT/s)	93.34	49.34	73.02		With non vectorised CML-U needs to cath up.
	Black-Scholes double/FP64 (MOPT/s)	77.86	43.33	75.24	87.17 [+16%]	Using FP64 CML-U is 16% faster finally beating Ryzen Mobile.
	Binomial float/FP32 (kOPT/s)	35.49	12.3	16.2		Binomial uses thread shared data thus stresses the cache & memory system.
	Binomial double/FP64 (kOPT/s)	19.46	11.4	19.31	20.99 [+9%]	With FP64 code CML-U is 9% faster than CFL-U.
	Monte-Carlo float/FP32 (kOPT/s)	20.11	9.87	14.61		Monte-Carlo also uses thread shared data but read-only thus reducing modify pressure on the caches.
	Monte-Carlo double/FP64 (kOPT/s)	15.32	7.88	14.54	16.54 [+14%]	Switching to FP64 nothing much changes, CML-U is 14% faster.
With non-SIMD financial workloads, CML-U modestly improves (10-15%) over the older CFL-U but this does allow it to beat the competition (Ryzen Mobile) which dominated older CFL-U designs. This may just be enough to match future Gen3 Ryzen Mobile and thus be competitive all-round.

	SGEMM (GFLOPS) float/FP32	107	76.14	141	158 [+12%]	In this tough vectorised AVX2/FMA algorithm CML-U is 12% faster.
	DGEMM (GFLOPS) double/FP64	47.2	31.71	55	69.2 [+26%]	With FP64 vectorised code, CML-U is 26% faster than CFL-U.
	SFFT (GFLOPS) float/FP32	3.75	7.21	13.23	13.93 [+5%]	FFT is also heavily vectorised (x4 AVX2/FMA) but stresses the memory sub-system more.
	DFFT (GFLOPS) double/FP64	4	3.95	6.53	7.35 [+13%]	With FP64 code, CML-U is 13% faster.
	SNBODY (GFLOPS) float/FP32	112.6	105	160	169 [+6%]	N-Body simulation is vectorised but with more memory accesses.
	DNBODY (GFLOPS) double/FP64	45.3	30.64	57.9	64.16 [+11%]	With FP64 code nothing much changes.
With highly vectorised SIMD code (scientific workloads) CML-U is again 15-25% faster than CFL-U which should be enough to match future Gen3 Ryzen Mobile with 256-bit SIMD units. Again we need ICL with AVX512 to bring dominance to these workloads or more cores.

	Blur (3×3) Filter (MPix/s)	532	474	720	891 [+24%]	In this vectorised integer AVX2 workload CML-U is 24% faster.
	Sharpen (5×5) Filter (MPix/s)	146	191	290	359 [+24%]	Same algorithm but more shared data still 24%.
	Motion-Blur (7×7) Filter (MPix/s)	123	98.3	157	186 [+18%]	Again same algorithm but even more data shared reduces improvement to 18%.
	Edge Detection (2*5×5) Sobel Filter (MPix/s)	185	164	251	302 [+20%]	Different algorithm but still AVX2 vectorised workload still 20% faster.
	Noise Removal (5×5) Median Filter (MPix/s)	26.49	14.38	25.38	27.73 [+9%]	Still AVX2 vectorised code but here just 9% faster.
	Oil Painting Quantise Filter (MPix/s)	9.38	7.63	14.29	15.74 [+10%]	Similar improvement here of about 10%.
	Diffusion Randomise (XorShift) Filter (MPix/s)	660	764	1525	1580 [+4%]	With integer AVX2 workload, only 4% improvement.
	Marbling Perlin Noise 2D Filter (MPix/s)	94,16	105.1	188.8	214 [+13%]	In this final test again with integer AVX2 workload CML-U is 13% faster.

Without any new instruction sets (AVX512, SHA/HWA, etc.) support, CML-U was never going to be a revolution in performance and has to rely on clock and very minor improvements/fixes (especially for vulnerabilities) only. Versions with more cores (6C/12T) would certainly help if they can stay within the power limits (TDP/turbo).

Intel themselves did not claim a big performance improvement – still CML-U is 10-25% faster than CFL-U across workloads – at same TDP. At the same cost/power, it is a welcome improvement and it does allow it to beat current competition (Ryzen Mobile) which was nipping at its heels; it may also be enough to match future Gen3 Ryzen Mobile designs.

SiSoftware Official Ranker Scores

Final Thoughts / Conclusions

For some it may be disappointing we do not have brand-new improved “IceLake” (ICL-U) now rather than a 3-rd revision “Skylake” – but “CometLake” (CML-U) does seem to improve even over the previous revisions (8/9th gen “WhiskyLake”/”CofeeLake” WHL/CFL-U) while due to 2x core count completly outperforming the original (6/7th gen “Skylake”/”KabyLake”) in the same power envelope. Perhaps it also shows how much Intel has had to improve at short notice due to Ryzen Mobile APUs (e.g. 2500U) that finally brought competition to the mobile space.

While owners of 8/9-th gen won’t be upgrading – it is very rare to recommend changing from one generation to another anyway – owners of older hardware can look forward to over 2x performance increase in most workloads for the same power draw, not to mention the additional features (integrated WiFi6, Thunderbolt, etc.).

On the other hand, the competition (AMD Ryzen Mobile) also good performance and older 8/9th gen also offer competitive performance – thus it will all depend on price. With Gen3 Ryzen Mobile on the horizon (with 256-bit SIMD units) “CometLake” may just manage to match it on performance. It may also be worth waiting for “IceLake” to make its debut to see what performance improvements it brings and at what cost – which may also push “CometLake” prices down.

All in all Intel has managed to “squeeze” all it can from the old Skylake arch that while not revolutionary, still has enough to be competitive with current designs – and with future 50% increase core count (6C/12T from 4C/8T) might even beat them not just in cost but also in performance.

In a word: Qualified Recommendation!

Please see our other articles on:

Intel Core Gen10 CometLake ULV (i7-10510U) Review & Benchmarks – Cache & Memory Performance