Why the Intel Core M Broadwell processor is going to be a big deal for laptops

Today, Lenovo announced what may be arguably one of the most exciting convertible Ultrabooks around for the next few months. Between its cleverly engineered and dazzling hinge, the Yoga 3 Pro is as thin closed as the original Surface Pro 1 tablet without a keyboard at just a half-inch. Weighing in at 2.62 pounds (1.19 kgs) the Yoga 3 Pro is also amazingly light for a 13.3-inch QHD+ laptop.
Although Lenovo gets credit for the design, one of the technology features that let them go so thin was due to Intel and their new Core M 70 Broadwell processor. You may have heard of Broadwell versus the current Haswell generation as something worth waiting for, but you may not know all the differences.
I'll break 'em down for you.
Rise of the Core M
Roughly, every twelve to eighteen months, Intel likes to update its mobile processor lineup. Some of the updates are just changes in clock speed or the addition of a newer onboard GPU. However, there are also paradigm shifts between different generations, often leading to massive advantages for consumers.
Broadwell looks to be a substantial shift from the current Core i5 and Core i7 processors known as Haswell. I say "looks" because there have been very few real world tests of Broadwell in the consumer environment due to it just launching last month (September 2014). Still, the silicon is such a significant departure from the previous generation, there is a lot to be excited about for mobile users.
Why Core M sounds so awesome
First up, Core M chips drop to 14nm process versus the previous 22nm one. Smaller is always better, and this shift reduces the overall chipset size by 25 percent. One of the reasons why you will see super thin Ultrabooks from Lenovo, Dell, and other manufacturers in the coming months is because of this change. Just watch for it!
Perhaps more interesting is the max Thermal Design Power (TDP). This measurement is how much juice the chip can suck up during max performance. Obviously the more power the chipset uses, the lower the battery life, so reducing TDP is always something to eyeball for new processors. Here, the Core M drops from 11.5 watts of its previous generation (Core i5-4302Y) to an ultra-low 4.5 watts. This decrease in power consumption is noteworthy, as the recent revision within the Haswell series only reduced energy intake from 15 to 11.5 watts.
Combined with the new chipset architecture, smaller design, and drawing less power, Core M is looking magnificent so far. In fact, one of the goals for Broadwell is for fanless tablets and laptops, which is not only preferable for less noise but also helps again with the battery.
And yes, the Lenovo Yoga 3 Pro is ventless and fanless. Amazing.
CPU
The Core M-5Y70 has an ultra-low 1.1 GHz base CPU speed, which falls well below the more common 1.6 and 1.7 GHz base speeds found on current Core i5 processors. This speed is ideal for tablets and when running Windows Modern apps, as it lets the computer consume less power when idle or performing low-level tasks.
Nonetheless, the numbers that are more interesting are for Max Turbo Frequency or burst speed. Here, the Core M-5Y70 comes in at an admirable 2.6 GHz versus the 2.3 and 2.4 GHz speeds found on the popular Intel Core i5-4302Y. This difference gives the Lenovo Yoga 3 Pro an edge over current 13-inch Ultrabooks like the fantastic Dell XPS 13.
Of course, those burst numbers only matter when doing intensive tasks or gaming, but when you need that power, the Core M looks to outperform the current Core i5s while also drawing much less power.
Graphics
Another increase in performance is from the built in graphics. Truth be told, built-in graphics from Intel will rarely perform as well as dedicated graphics, but between the savings in power, heat, and space, they are suited for most laptop purposes. The Core M-5Y70 found in the Yoga 3 Pro comes with Intel HD Graphics 5300. This version is a jump from the 4200 and 4400 series found in many modern Ultrabooks today, but it is mostly about the power draw, which is once again significantly improved.
The actual base speed is lower on the HD 5300 at just 100 MHz versus 200 MHz on the 4000-series of Intel HD graphics. This lower frequency is okay though as it means better battery life for lighter tasks. The burst rate for the HD 5300 is 850 MHz, which matches the HD 4200's speed, but falls below the peak turbo mode of the HD 4400.
Versus Surface Pro 3 (Core i5-4300U, HD 4400)
For those of you with a Surface Pro 3, precisely the most common version with a Core i5 processor, you may wonder how it stacks up compared to the new Core M-5Y70.
At least on paper, the Surface Pro 3 with a Core i5 stacks quite well against the Lenovo Yoga 3 Pro, at least when it comes to raw power. The base clock speed for the Surface Pro 3 Core i5 is 1.9 GHz versus the slower 1.1 GHz found on the new Yoga.
However, even though the i5-4300u can reach 2.9 GHz, it is limited to just 2.5 GHz on the Surface Pro 3, like due to thermal and power reasons. Assuming Lenovo does not limit the Core M processor, it edges out the Surface Pro 3 Core i5 by 0.1 GHz, which is minor.
When it comes to graphics, the Surface Pro 3 Core i5 has more power for its base frequency at 200 MHz and a higher max dynamic frequency coming in at 1.1 GHz (versus just 850 MHz on the Core M).
The real edge with the Yoga 3 Pro and the new Core M is going to be in battery life and its size. Just imagine when Microsoft updates its Surface Pro line with these chips, something that may happen in 2015 when they are made more abundantly available.
Finally, remember that the Core M's performance is likely to be stronger than these raw numbers reveal. Base speeds are one thing, but new chipset architectures more often than not deliver significant performance increases, so it remains to be seen which device is truly faster.
As soon as our Yoga 3 Pro arrives, I will put it head to head against the Surface Pro 3. Stay tuned! You can also check out Intel's site, which puts up some interesting graphics boasting about the performance differences from the previous Haswell Core i5 processors.
Windows Central Newsletter
Get the best of Windows Central in your inbox, every day!
Daniel Rubino is the Editor-in-chief of Windows Central, head reviewer, podcast co-host, and analyst. He has been covering Microsoft since 2007 when this site was called WMExperts (and later Windows Phone Central). His interests include Windows, laptops, next-gen computing, and for some reason, watches. Before all this tech stuff, he worked on a Ph.D. in linguistics, watched people sleep (for medical purposes!), and ran the projectors at movie theaters because it was fun.
-
Hey folks! I'm not AnandTech so if any of the info here misses something, please let me know and I'll update it. Obviously, this stuff is very technical and there are a ton of factors that go into chipsets. I basically wrote this to teach myself the differences ;) Either way, I'm stoked about Core M chips!
-
Still nicely written
-
http://www.anandtech.com/show/8515/quick-look-at-core-m-5y70-and-llama-m... I guess you might use some comparison from this article.
-
I believe those Core M results are in a non-throttled environment (i.e. Intel shows the best case scenario). The Yoga Pro 3, with no fan or vents, will always work in a throttled environment so its performance will be far less than shown in that link. The shrink will help but can only do so much. I wish Lenovo had added a couple of mm to the thinkness to accomodate a small fan (even a tiny bit of airflow would help tremendously). If MSFT simply used this CPU in their SP3 and kept everything else the same then it would smoke the competition.
-
You need to change the Power settings
I always a custom profile to suit my needs.
BUT
the point =
with less generated heat the new CPU becomes termally restricted later -
Looks like a small revolution for tablets and Ultrabooks.
-
Surface Pro 3 can turbo up to 2.9GHz, not 2.5. Task manager reports the wrong value. I've turboed up to 2.9 whilst rendering video
-
Plugged in only, not on battery.
-
Oh? I swear it could turbo on battery as well to 2.9
-
It should depend on how you set the power setting, regardless of the computer.
-
intels ultramobile chips are pure garbage , i have a top of the line ultrabook i7 with 8 gigs and 256 gb SSD HDD and it performs signifigantly worse than a celeron laptop from 5 years ago these ultrabooks are pure crap useless garbage, they cant even run a web browser my iphone 5c runs chrome 1000% times bette than my intel haswell i7 ultrabook' i can't even use the internet of this piece of crap , you can't even scroll a simple web page with it it sucks so bad even windows explorer doesn't work it refuses to even generate tumbnails whe trying to browse folders with image files and when it does generate them it takes sever minutes and wont even scroll even remotly smoothly what a waste of money , intel and MS should be sued class action suits should be filled $1700 for a "ultrabook" that can't even surf the web, but a cheap $70 POS android tablet can? WTF?
-
this is not true at all. maybe your specfic ultrabook is having an issue? which ultrabook do you have? the specs sound solid. i own 2 lenovo x1 carbons..1 is ivy bridge (3rd gen) and the other is broadwell (5th gen) i7 8gb 128ssd. they are absolute beasts, espn.com is an expensive site for loading and watching content and there is literally not even a full second hold up from when i hit enter. there is something wrong on your end and i'm sorry to hear. but totally not true at all, these new laptops are monsters... my laptop lasts 3.5hrs on heavy use and 80% brightness and features rapidcharge, so 75% chargeback in 30minutes. i'm not sure why'd id ever need another laptop, maybe ever.. you should really troubleshoot your problem before making such strong comments. i mean i totally understand because you spent a lot of money which is definitely frustrating. but these engineers do put a ton of effort into these new laptops and you can see it in the build quality. so in my opinion they are charging more than they'd probably need to, but i didn't pay anywhere close to the retail price even though my laptop prices out at $1500... i do agree with your displeasure in having to troubleshoot these problems are dishing out a lot of money.
-
sorry but it is true, it is a sony vaio flip 13 and it sucks, it is pure garbage it won't even run chrome, web pages won't even scroll , battery life sucks , was promised 6 to 7 hours, take it of AC fully chatged and it says 2 hours remian and then it dies in 45 min sent it back to sony for new fan and new battery , now the battery life is even worse than it was before who knows if they even changed it at all too bad OSX is so assbackward as suck or might consider switching over they better have got the shit together with win 10,and give us another win xp or win 7 this thing runs ridiculously hot with nothing even open i have clocked it with my infrared at almost 140 degrees F with nothing even running but chrome this thing is a piece of shit and it is literally a fire hazard i have to set it on a gel cold pack from the freezer to even get it to perform halfway decently , my i3 M350 2010 vaio outperforms this thing hands down i was setting it ona freezer gel pack for few months and it still was getting absolute shit performance, till it eventually melted through th eplatic gel pack and ruptired it an dgot gel over the bed, it usa useless piece of garbage,intels ultramoible chips are pure crap , they should be sued battery life is abysmal , has major overheating problmes they should be sued for lying about battery life alone performance is worthless wireless display does not work bluetooth does not work intels wireless card is a total piece of shit too this thing is such a piece of shit it wont even pair with a BT speaker, and when it does it takes like 30 minutes to pair an dthen it is all garbled and drops after a few minutes ,and same for unpairing, it takes like 30 minutes, wireless display does not work at all, maybe it will connect 1 time out 500 then drop the connection after 3 min i had intel top level support and sony top level support connect to it ansd try to fix the uissues remotely several time and they can never even get one issue fixed out of multiple issues this worthless hunk of garbage has , and now the clock is all fucked up too and it keeps on chaning date and time to random dates and times even when PC is in use and on AC going to dates 30 years in the future i will never buy another intel product ever again they are lying bastards and MS sucks too their 8 and 8.1 OS's are total shit and full of bugs and bloated as shit, 8.1 is mistake of vista and zune like proportions both of thse asshole companies should be broken up and put out of their misery
-
Only thing I'd say I noticed that might be off is that the 1.1 GHz base clock almsot isn't a real base clock. It's more like the "cruise control" clock of sorts. by comparison, my i5-4670K has a base of 3.4 GHz, but if you let it run on something other than the "power user" (or whatever the performance-specific Windows 8 setting is called), it'll downclock to sub-1.0 GHz. I'd imagine that these things can do that as well.
-
You put too much emphasis on clock speed, which is understandable since it's one of the only stats you actually get from Intel. However clock speed is only relevant when it comes to similar architectures/generations. The lower clocked Core M might actually perform better than the higher clocked Core U in the Surface Pro, and preliminary results from Anandtech (from an Intel reference tablet) actually back this up. Also the Core Ms have more cache than the Core Us which would actually go a much longer way towards improving CPU performance than a simple clock boost. Combine that with the lower TDP and I'm betting that for all but the most intense use cases (relatively small data, but lot of computations) the Core Ms are going to outpace the Core Us. Throw in the lower TDP and these look like Intels best chips yet. It's a shame we're only seeing 9 hour battery life though. Wouldn't have killed Lenovo to leave the thickness the same and bump the battery. The Macbook Airs would undoubtedly crush them in that regard
-
only until the U series goes to 14nm which is going to happen soon. I woudln't put to much hope on a Y series cpu and for a tablet is fine, but for a surface pro 4, they better stick with the power of the i5 sinc that is the whole poitn of the device: outperform. the issue with the anandtech benchmark is that they are not testing devices thermally constrained and while their test benchmark reveals some interesting facts real world may see the the Y series which lacks fans in some cases severely crippled just to stay cool. surface with its active cooling will likely push the U series to even greater heights.
-
"9hours battery life" = 1.5 hours battery life in reality all they do is lie their haswell do not not even get 1/4 of the stated battery life
-
I'd expect that the Core M will not reach its max theoretical performance due to thermal throttling in fanless devices.
-
Not true, Core M was designed specifically for fanless devices.
-
I can assure you that its max turbo state is not. Unless this thing is severely gimped in performance, it will throttle.
-
Core M comes in different configurations ranging from 3.5W (fanless, and a smaller TDP than a lot of current tablets) to 6.5W (requires fan). How the power compares.. who knows, should be better than the current gen fanless at least.
-
correct, and you know how they did this? thermal throttling. turbo modes are not meant to be sustained without active cooling.
-
Thanks for taking the time and explaining the differences. Being financially strapped at the moment I'm looking forward to the next Surface Pro but will be looking at a Surface Pro 3 when that one comes out.
-
It's also worth noting that this is the lower tiered Broadwell-Y, the one commonly used (and the one that will be most likely be used for the next Surface Pro) is the "U" series (those that have U in the model number). If Broadwell-Y is already better than Haswell i5 U's, then I can only imagine what Broadwell-U will look like.
-
I applaud you for expanding your knowledge Daniel, well done!
-
So how this compare to my 1.80 gigahertz Intel Core i7-4500U?
-
He's not AnandTech
-
I don't mind if someone else know and share info
-
Here I am my laptop still using Sandy bridge chipset while my desktop using yolkfield both running 8.1 though
-
Ehh I would say that's not a fair comparison really. Your U series i7 is definitely faster. The Core M chip is really the Y series for the new Broadwell chips. So basically to compare you can say that the new Broadwell U series chips will blow your Haswell U series chip no doubt. get me? cause the Haswell Y series is almost on par with a U series i5 from Haswell. BUT sadly Intel said that the M series (Mobile) , U series (Ultra Low Power) chips will not be shipping on products until late Spring 2015! :( THEN the desktop Broadwell chips will follow which are the regular Core iChips (i3 4330, i5 4590 examples) So basically all they have announced is the Y series (Extreme Low Power) series from Broadwell. So just imagine the U series from Broadwell! that thing is going to kick ass lol but of course it wont beat the TDP from the Y series. Hope I helped anyone :)
-
You helped me, thanks.
-
yeah if by "kick ass" you mean barely be able to even run chrome worth a fuk' then ok my i7 haswell can;t even run chrome plugged in with nothing else runing' ,cant even scroll web pages with images, sont even bothe trying to view a tumblr page intel ultramobile chip are garbage, i have 8 gigs and a 256 gb sdd and i cant even browse a folder on my ssd hdd with 300 image files in it without windows explorer refuseing to generate thunbnails all of this intel ultramoblie technoloy is pure bollocks DONT BUT IT , you are wasting your money a 4th gen iphone outperform this garbage
-
Maybe you got you fucked up your windows, i have same specs laptop as you, just no 256 gb ssd, i have regular hd 1 tb. I use up to 3 chrome windows with up to 10 tabs in every of them, that runs in background and i can play Far Cry in high details with no problem
-
I wonder how this compares to the latest i7 processor
-
my i7 haswell ultrabook with 8 gigs of ram and 256 GB SSD performs SIGNIFIGANTLY WORSE than my 2010 i3 350 laptop with 4 gigs of ram and 500gb non ssd HDD it's worthless
-
I am too waiting for Core M performance reviews. Else just looks great.
-
I cant wait for a Broadwell SP4! 12+ hours of battery life, here we come.
-
Seems faster than i7
-
I don't have proof yet but I don't think so. The core M is barely keeping up in front of the i5 , so I'm assuming that the i7 will definitely beat the core M or is almost the same excluding the battery consumption of course
-
I think you may be right. The Core M series seems to be a pretty major shift for intel in their CPU to GPU ratio. Typically Intel tends to be rather overkill on the CPU and a bit behind on the GPU front, but these new chips seem to lean the other direction a bit. I would suspect that these will be similar (maybe a bit below) the i5U chips in CPU, but a little better than the i7U chips on the GPU side.
-
You are pretty much correct. Anandtech said this Y series from Broadwell (the Y70 specifically) keeps up with the U series from Haswell (the U4500 specifically). So imagine the U series from Broadwell! ohhh boy. 2015 will be a huge jump for mobile processors. That 14nm process will be the gift that keeps on giving lol
-
Daniel's breaking it down y'all
-
"as it lets the computer consumeR"
-
Dell is supposed to come out with a 13" 2-1 latitude this month with Intel M!
-
I wonder how soon these processors will become mainstream. I would love to see a Surface equipped with one of these (maybe the pro 4?). I don't plan on getting a new for awhile, bit if the next surface has better battery life, and it's ventless and fanless, I have to say that will be pretty enticing! Magenta is the new Yellow
-
Reportedly production/availability will be tight through spring but we will have to wait and see.
-
Oh nice. The SP3 was released in June so it seems safe to assume the next generation of Surfaces will come with the M Core. I'm looking forward to that! Magenta is the new Yellow
-
I think that as Surface Pro is supposed to be the replacement for a laptop it's 4th version will come with a more powerful processor. By the way, I'm going to buy a Pro but I don't know if I should get the Pro 2 or the Pro 3, can someone help me?
-
Pro 3 all the way. Its worth it.
-
Those who are interested in the performance of these CPUs - check the link I posted in the comments above. You might be impressed ;)
-
Nice write up! I'm stoked for broadwell and can't wait to see what dell, and indeed msft have to offer. The MacBook airs will be getting this sharpish also. And the sp4... I am concerned about the Lenovo hi res screen - I had the yoga pro 2 for a month but got rid of it because of the yellow tint issue - how is the cpu/gpu combo going
to cope? My sp3 works ok but can get jittery under load, but then I do try to leave heavy photoshop work to something with a discrete gpu. Would love to see a higher power quad core broadwell chip with a Maxwell nvidea gpu... In an msi gt72, that'd do me fine!!!!! -
Can you post a comparison table between the Intel core i7 on surface pro 3 and the Intel core M. I'm guessing that the oldies (the haswell series) won't go down without a real fight , so bring the best out of them against the best from the next gen processors.
-
The i7 core processors in the surface pro 3 are U series but the chips in the core M series descended from the i5 in the Y series of chips so you would have to compare it with its own kind.
-
My budget is on 1000$, I'm getting the Yoga 2 Pro with i5-4210U .. It's still a wise choice from my part right?
-
Battery life i pretty bad and watch out for screen bleed. Theyve had issues.
-
This is ALL I've been waiting for to get a surface. Ever since i read abou this early in the year i put my buying plans on hold. Thinner, lighter, faster, awesome surface Can not wait to see how they design a thinner SP4 with that kickstand
-
It wont have a kickstand anymore but anti gravity balancing mode.
-
I guess AMD stopped production, don't see any new chipset from them. :) Did they release their Kaveri chipset?
-
Good question. If AMD drops a processor, I'll choose it over Intel mainly for how to does graphics.
-
Surface Pro 4, Broadwell Processor, USB type C, QHD+, 16 GB RAM etc... would be awesome.
-
Surface Pro 3 is still current the thinnest Intel Core device available on the consumer market, and one of (if not the) lightest Intel Core devices. So it does win in those regards. However, both are still premium products, and serve different market niches. Either way: Both are solid devices.
-
My next tablet will be very thin wow!
-
So it only went up 3 hours with new chip? Yoga 2 vs 3? Posted via Windows Phone Central App
-
Only?
-
MacBook Air is 12 hours Posted via Windows Phone Central App
-
Imagine the MacBook air with this chip...
-
Do you really need 15+ hours battery life per day?
-
That's why you can squeeze a retina screen shots in there and still probably get 10-13 hrs of battery life.
-
I've heard Core M will be more for mobile PCs, while a regular broadwell Core chip will get put into powerful PCs like towers.
-
I guess I will just have to wait for the Surface Pro4 then and skip the 3. Or maybe not and go with the i7 Pro3? First world problems...
-
Don't do the i7 Pro 3. i5 is sweet spot for that device. i7 has heating issues.
-
"ventless and fanless" Ok, I'm listening. You've got my attention. What I must see from this laptop, is how to performs running two apps. Adobe Photoshop CS6 and Microsoft Office 365 and 2013. If it can get past those two applications for more than 30 minutes without rebooting, then we'll have a winner from Lenovo.
-
When I think laptops, I only care about performance with Studio One and ProTools.
-
I just ordered the Lenovo Yoga 2 Pro (i7 4510) and was afraid that its successor would drastically improve system performace. I'm not really concerned with thinness or overall battery performance, because the L2P is already very thin and battery life is supposedly pretty great. However, I didn't want to get something that would run much slower than the updated product. Thanks for going into detail about the new processor(s). I'm still struggling with some of the more technical information, but it doesn't seem that the Y3P is much of a upgrade over the Y2P, at least not yet anyway.
-
LOL haha Ashton Kushner is a product engineer at Lenovo, please tell me you guys saw that video?!
-
Yeah, he's been doing that for a few years for the, already. They said something about him having a degree in the field.
-
Who gives a duck. They guy might actually be smart. Lenovo products are looking great last years and these new ones look freaking amazing.
-
He's not a real engineer it's just a title, I really had to look it up, he just loves to dick ride...1st it was Apple, the 2nd it was Google and 3rd is Lenovo. I'm sure next year he will be riding the dick of Microsoft or some other hit show with the main character getting fired!
-
For some reason this article has me excited! Who's with me? Posted via the Windows Phone Central App for Android
-
Im not trying to down you, but I don't get why android guys have this app...
-
Perhaps because we enjoy Microsoft products too? I love my i5 Surface Pro 3. Posted via the WPC App for Android!
-
You enjoy Microsoft products but have a android phone. Seems like you enjoy a Microsoft product, not several.
-
He's generallising, like you did. Besides you don't have to own a product to enjoy/appreciate it. Surely the fact he owns a SP3 is enough for him to be allowed to post on this site, no? :) I have an Android ereader, can I still post? :p
-
^^ Not to mention my Windows desktop. The main thing preventing me from getting a Windows phone as well is the fact that my cdma carrier doesn't have any at this time. Such is life. Posted via the WPC App for Android!
-
Ahh, that sucks bro. Like I said wasn't trying to down you guys or anything. I was just wondering, lol.
-
So, my SP3 with its i7 is still superior, except for it having a fan and getting warm.
-
I'd you like warm balls..
-
Lmfao. What?
-
I think he means "if you like warm balls" as in some chestnuts roasting on an open fire.
-
Lmfao. I cant wait for local radio stations to play Christmas music.
-
Good read...daniel...i will b waiting.
-
I use a Surface Pro (first gen), can't wait to upgrade to a possible Surface Pro with Core M.
-
Can't wait? So don't wait.
-
Need a thinner bezel
-
Hey Daniel, that was a pretty well written article. Very informative.
-
Great article, amazing product! Ready to switch my Y510p for this bad boy!... As in the almighty words of Spongebob, ..."I NeeEEEEEEEEEEEED IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIITTT!"
-
I just bought i7 haswell :( i should have waited for it
-
so did I. But i7 still has much faster processor than the core M Y series. besides it will be at least a year before they come out with the U series of core M, which will be in the same speed of the current i7. Something to look forward too, but mine already kicks ass with photoshop pro and video editing. it gets warm, but not a nut roasting hot!
-
The power consumption of Core M at 4.5w was way too low compared to Core i5's 11.5w!! Wow, that's amazing! That's what you get if you manage to reduce it from 22 nm to 14 nm. Good work Intel.
-
Competition from ARM seems to work. Shame AMD seem to be fading?
-
Great article. I should be upgrading to this as soon as i can, tho I live in UK and any availability of new Lenovo tech is scarce.. many thanks
-
The following ZDNet article includes the WEI results for the YP3: http://www.zdnet.com/lenovo-yoga-3-pro-first-take-thin-light-and-flexible-7000034551/ I compared that to my old Samsung Series 7 slate (with full-blown Sandy Bridge i5 running Win81) and got basically identical performance results (the YP3 was better but not wildly better). That's great considering that the Core-M in the YP3 gets far better battery life.
-
Nice article Daniel
-
I'm skipping Broadwell and going to Skylake. Because of the delay in releasing Broadwell, Skylake will be out not far away in the future (maybe mid next year) and will run on a whole new artitecture that promises a higher boost in performance than that gained in the jump from Haswell to Broadwell.
-
Unless they delay Skylake as well :P I'm just waiting for a mainstream chipset that'll support DDR4 before upgrading. Until then I'll keep using my i5-750.
-
Sucks that Microsoft put so much work into custom parts for the fan on the Surface Pro 3 just to make it as thin as they did....only for Intel to release Core M chips and bring along the possibility of fanless laptops running full Windows with great battery life. I can't say it enough but Microsoft is a true innovator. They're so ahead of time right now it's insane. They see the future and see what's coming up, and want the future to come now but always have to make compromises to get there. The Surface line is the prime example of the compromises they had to make to push this innovation from Intel and other hardware makers, and they get so much negative feedback because of it. The SP3 with a Core M chip would be a KILLER in the hybrid market for sure.
-
The SP3 looks like it was designed for Broadwell.. they can still use the fan to get the maximum out of Core-M when needed.. considering how thin the design is, so it won't all go to waste
-
I wouldn't feel too sorry for Microsoft man. They will make a new "Surface Pro M" with the new Intel M processor and a new chipset that will allow the Surface Pro M to be faster, lighter, thinner and with Windows 10 making app developers go crazy for the platform, possibly even an iPad killer. ;-)
-
Can't wait for a Surface Pro with this chip + LTE connectivity
-
Thanks for this article ! (read it via icymi ;))
-
Heat is the Enemy of electronic circuits a Surface Pro 4 with it's thin fan working to cool a Broadwell M class CPU could be a smart move by Microsoft if does not kill battery life improvements the M series CPU chips have. I think surface Pro 3 sales might slow down with the advent of the Broadwell m class CPU's. Folks. going in the Opposite direction tablet thinness Wise some OEM needs to make an industrial Tablet that has FULL SIZE USB, 2 Full sized HDMI PORTS input/output and a Full size Ethernet Port. These full size ports would be on one side of the Tablet and the Tablet would Taper down to a thin edge to form a triangular wedge shape There are many folks who would buy this Tablet because they want a tablet they can easily connect up to Professional grade equipment which does not use Mini ports and thin skimpy weak cords.
-
If by "cleverly engineered and dazzling hinge" you mean hideous and completely unnecessary redesign increasing Lenovo's costs thus increasing the price, then yes I agree with you.
-
Man Daniel, I want to work where you work! I bet you get ALL the cool toys to play with! I'm so jealous! :-)
-
While the core M series may have fanless options, the Yoga 3 pro is not fanless. http://i1-news.softpedia-static.com/images/news2/Lenovo-Yoga-3-Pro-Gets-... I have one, and can hear the fan kick in whenever I'm doing more intensive tasks.
-
It's a flop already.
-
Guys, seriously do not ever ever buy this lenovo yoga 3. I bought this yesterday, i thought it would be good but it sucks so badly. It is so slow and heat up quickly and it is probably overprice.