WHY PROCESSOR PERFORMANCE IS MORE

THAN FREQUENCY AND CORE COUNT

TODAY’S EVOLVING PROCESSOR ARCHITECTURES REQUIRE NEW SPECIFICATIONS AND
PERFORMANCE BENCHMARKS

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
The IT industry is undergoing significant workload shifts that challenge the status quo.
Previously, the industry generally accepted that improving central processing unit (CPU)
core count, clock speed, and instructions per cycle (IPC) would yield the best
performance and power consumption results. In the last few years, the world’s leading
processor manufacturers introduced performance and efficient processor cores that
challenge this status quo.

Processors are becoming more complex, with multiple types of cores with variable
frequencies – and variable power and thermals to match those frequencies - designed
into a single chip. Traditional methods of assuming performance based on processor
base frequencies and thermal design power (TDP) are no longer accurate.

When deciding which processor is most suitable for their workloads, we at Moor Insights
& Strategy encourage organizations to look at benchmarks and actual usages, along
with application performance, rather than base frequencies and TDP. Furthermore, we
encourage PC OEMs and processor vendors to change how they communicate
processor specifications to better translate real-world performance through their
specification sheets and channel marketing.

Intel’s 13th Gen Intel Core processor code-named Raptor Lake processors adopts a
more comprehensive approach to communicating processor performance through core
counts and max frequency clock speeds for both types of cores inside of the processor
and a range of operating power levels. IT buyers should pay attention to the changing
industry landscape – which is moving toward mixed-core configurations and dynamic
frequency and power levels – to find the right products for their organizations.

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SHIFTING INDUSTRY TRENDS
The IT industry is entering a new era: multicore CPUs utilizing different architectures
that deliver adaptive performance and power profiles.

This trend began with performance and efficient cores in the mobile phone world and
has now transitioned to the PC with Intel’s performance hybrid architecture. Another
new trend in processor capabilities is the dynamic frequency range of the modern
system on a chip (SoC), which is more dependent on - and aware of - the workload and
thermal conditions of the system and chip.

This trend of increased complexity is not isolated to CPUs; graphics processing units
(GPUs) now feature many types of cores that perform various specialized tasks.
Applications may use artificial intelligence (AI) instructions on the GPU in conjunction
with the CPU to accelerate performance further. Today, some GPUs add matrix
multiplication and ray-tracing cores with different frequencies than the familiar GPU
shader cores.

Performance CPU cores differ from efficient cores in power and clock speed
characteristics. These new processor designs have the flexibility to shift tasks between
the different types of cores to maximize the balance between performance and power
consumption.

Intel’s 13th Gen performance hybrid architecture uses multiple types of cores in mobile
devices and PCs with differing approaches. Intel’s 13th Gen Core, Raptor Lake,
incorporates these processors across the product line. Intel’s first hybrid processor,
Lakefield, was a limited-release product, and Raptor Lake represents many of Intel’s
learnings from that first approach.

Balancing workloads between these different cores and dynamically clocking these
diverse core architectures optimizes total processor performance and power
consumption. Operating systems like Windows 10 and 11 have schedulers that dictate
where workloads go on the processor, taking advantage of and recognizing the different
cores to maximize performance and power savings. This makes assessing processor
performance and power purely on the number of cores or clock speeds increasingly
inaccurate. The combined complexity makes it much harder to determine the best
suited SoC without benchmarking performance in the real world with real workloads.

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These new paradigms in PC performance and power operations render the traditional
way of defining processor specs outdated. Core counts must now consider performance
and efficient cores (where applicable). Clock speed must now consider how long a
processor stays at its peak clock and the average speed, rather than only its base clock.

AI performance is increasingly important across the IT industry and cannot be simply

quantified or compared with core counts or clock speeds. Architectures can optimize for
different AI workloads, so comparing AI performance across processors becomes even
more challenging without running industry-accepted benchmarks like MLperf.

While most AI workloads on PCs are likely to be inference workloads, not all AI
algorithms perform the same on all hardware. Since AI algorithms perform different
tasks – like object detection, natural language processing, denoising, and super
sampling – they all perform differently on different architectures and memory
configurations. This disparity in AI performance doesn’t translate well across
heterogenous core types like Intel’s performance and efficient cores.

TABLE 1: INTEL’S UPDATED TERMINOLOGY

Old Specification Terminology Updated Specification Recommended New
Terminology Specification Replacement
(11th Gen or prior) (13th Gen)

TDP Processor Base Power Processor Base Power

CTDP Down Power Minimum Assured Power Minimum Assured Power
CTDP Down Frequency N/A N/A
CTDP Up Frequency N/A Performance-core Max Turbo
Frequency

Efficient-core Max Turbo

Frequency
CTDP Up Power N/A Maximum Turbo Power
Base Frequency N/A Performance-core Max Turbo
Frequency

Efficient-core Max Turbo

Frequency
Processor Cores Performance-cores Total Cores (P-cores plus E-
cores)
Efficient-cores

Source: Intel

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These differences make it incredibly difficult to compare processor vendors to one
another, primarily when one utilizes a heterogenous multi-architecture multicore design
and the other does not.

INTEL’S 13TH GEN INTEL CORE FOR MOBILE

With the introduction of Intel’s 13th Gen Intel Core (Raptor Lake) processors, the
company has changed how it and its partners communicate processor specifications to
better demonstrate performance expectations. Intel’s ARK page for specifications has
adopted a more nuanced approach to cores, clock speed, and power. 1 This also comes
with a need to update terminologies to match the changes in types of CPUs and power.

TABLE 2: INTEL’S CPU SPECIFICATION SIDE-BY-SIDE COMPARISON

ARK | Compare Intel® Products

Intel Core i9-11900H Processor Intel Core i9-13900H Processor

CPU Specifications
Total Cores 8 14
# of Performance-cores 6
# of Efficient-cores 8
Total Threads 16 20
Intel® Turbo Boost Max
Technology 3.0 Frequency ‡ 4.90 GHz 5.40 GHz
Performance-core Max Turbo
Frequency 5.40 GHz
Efficient-core Max Turbo
Frequency 4.10 GHz
Cache 24MB Intel® Smart Cache 24MB Intel® Smart Cache
Processor Base Power 45 W
Maximum Turbo Power 115 W
Minimum Assured Power 35 W
Max Turbo Frequency 4.90 GHz
Configurable TDP-up Frequency 2.50 GHz
Configurable TDP-up 45 W
Configurable TDP-down
Frequency 2.10 GHz
Configurable TDP-down 35 W
Source: Intel

1 Intel ARK – Intel® Core™ i9-13900H Processor - Product Specifications

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Table 2 above demonstrates Intel’s current methodology with the new Intel Core i9-
13900H processor compared to the old methodology with the last generation’s Intel
Core i9-11900H processor.

Let’s look at some of Intel’s new specifications (as illustrated above) more closely.

• Total Cores: Intel’s CPU specifications now include a new total core count,
which isn’t an entirely new specification but incorporates both performance and
efficient core counts.
• Total Threads: Thread count, which also isn’t a new specification, requires
updating because it now includes two different types of cores that are threaded
differently, with 13th Gen P-cores having two threads per core and E-cores
having one thread per core. Therefore, it’s crucial to understand the difference
between old and new thread counting.
• Max Turbo Frequency: Similarly, Intel has added Max Turbo frequency
specifications for both the performance and efficient cores; this only required one
number for one type of core previously.
• Cache: This represents the total of L2 and L3 cache, which is a methodology
comparable to what the industry counts when it compares CPU cache. Intel calls
this Smart Cache, terminology that has existed for over a decade.
• Processor Base Power: Intel’s replacement for TDP, processor base power
more accurately represents the long-term sustained power consumption of the
processor at its default power management configuration.
• Max Turbo Power (MTP): MTP is also a more representative measure of the
processor’s power state when it clocks itself to the absolute maximum, if even for
a millisecond. It may not represent real-world power consumption during day-to-
day use.
• Minimum Assured Power: Minimum assured power is a potential state the
processor can be powered down to but could represent the processor’s
guaranteed base performance level (PL1).

Intel’s approach to frequency specifications aligns with the changes happening in the
industry, and better accounts for multicore CPUs with heterogeneous architectures with
different performance and power profiles. Its new approach to power specifications also
better matches how processors behave with dynamic power, based on the dynamic
nature of the processors’ clock speeds based on workload. Intel’s new mobile CPU

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specifications show today’s complex market and the nuance necessary when listing
specifications.

While these new architectures may introduce new challenges to the IT hardware space,
they also emphasize benchmarks and testing real-world workloads to test performance
more critically.

CALL TO ACTION
Processors are becoming increasingly more complex, and with that added complexity
comes more nuance in the types of cores that reside within them. Traditional methods
of evaluating processors based purely on core counts, clock speeds, and TDPs are
obsolete and require more context, including pertinent benchmarks.

Intel’s new approach to core count, clock speeds, and power does a much better job of
reflecting real-world performance. It should help set buyers’ expectations for mobile
platforms’ total performance and battery life. Good benchmarks based on actual user
workflows and applications are still the most crucial metric for fully understanding actual
head-to-head performance. 2 With these learnings and changes in definitions, we hope
the industry can work together to enable easier decision-making that ultimately delivers
better end-user experiences.

For more information on mobile and desktop platform benchmarks, go here.

2 What to Consider When Benchmarking Workstations – Moor Insights & Strategy - 2021

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IMPORTANT INFORMATION ABOUT THIS PAPER
CONTRIBUTOR
Anshel Sag, Vice President and Principal Analyst at Moor Insights & Strategy

PUBLISHER
Patrick Moorhead, CEO, Founder & Chief Analyst at Moor Insights & Strategy

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