Gadgetory

welcome back to hard Rome box today we're finally going to explore KB lake G one of the most interesting pieces of hardware to come from Intel in a while this is the first ever chip that combines an Intel CPU and an AMD GPU onto the one piece of silicon forming what is essentially the fastest APU style processor on the market it's not quite the same as an APU or SOC and I'll discuss that in just a moment but it does bring together a powerful CPU and highly capable GPU onto a single compact trip by now you might have seen a bit of coverage of Intel's KB like gene nook otherwise known as Hades Canyon that was the first cable HG product to hit the market but as a nook it's a bit of a niche product and most reviewers got access to just the very top end model with the fastest KB like gsq inside considering KB like G is mostly designed for mobile devices like laptops where the top-end SKU is unlikely to be used to review this chip we really wanted to get our hands on the processor inside an actual laptop as a more common SKU and that is what we'll be talking about in this video the process that we have on hand to review is the core i7 80 705 G which is one of the 65 what cable HD variants as opposed to the full 100 watt units seen in the Nook there are already two laptops used the 65 watt model and moving forward if any more laptops are going to use cable a tree it's far more likely they'll be choosing a 65 watt model like the 87 o5g rather than the hundred watt 88 o9 g used in the Nook so the benchmarks we'll get to in a little bit should provide a good idea of how KB like GE will perform for most users I've tested the 87 or 5g inside the Dell XPS 15 to in one which is a 15-inch slim and light laptop that also packs 16 gigabytes of dual-channel ddr2 400 since the best use cases for koa are these sorts of swimming like laptops again we'll be getting a good idea of how the chip performs in a typical usage scenario so let's explore KB leg G the lineup and its specs before we head into the performance numbers the chip itself does contain both an Intel CPU and AMD GPU on the one package but it's not nation of both into the one died instead there are actually two dies on the package one is a quad-core Intel CPU with integrated HD graphics and the other is a Radeon rx Vega M GPU with up to 24 compute units sitting alongside four gigabytes of HBM to memory the two dies are connected through eight lanes of pcie 3.0 and the GPU is connected to its HBM to through what Intel calls the embedded multi die interconnect or mmm you can see in this picture exactly how the dies are laid out on the chip the Intel CPU sits away to the right while the AMD GPU and HBM to sit on left the HBM to chip is separate to the GPU is you can just make out and it's between those chips that Intel's email comes into play there are five KB Lake G SKUs in total split neatly into verts with a 100 watt TDP and those with a 65 watt TDP the 100 watt SKUs use Vega mgh graphics which is a fully unlocked version of the GPU with 24 compute units a base clock of 1063 megahertz that boost to eleven ninety megahertz the 65 watt variants use Vega mg/l graphics which cuts the GPU down to 20 compute units and lowers clock speeds to 931 megahertz base and 101 one megahertz boost and that's really the main difference between 100 watt and 65 watt chips the extra power Headroom gives you more see use and higher clocks for better GPU performance the CPU is pretty much the same across all five SKUs we're looking at four cores and eight threads with minor variations to clock speeds between the models the core i7 8700 5g we're looking at today is caught in a 3.1 gigahertz base with a maximum turbo clock of 4.1 gigahertz on a single core that drops to 3.9 3.8 and 3.7 gigahertz in 2 3 and 4 core workloads respectively the exact same CPU is used in the 87 o 9g but that chip features the top-end 24 Cu Vega variant the top-end 8800 9g bumps the CPU clock speeds up slightly from there and at the bottom end we have the core i5 8305 G which reaches lowest CPU clock speeds and less l3 cache but the same 20 Cu Vega GPU as the 87 or 5g we are looking at today and the core i7 80 706 G is the odd one out it's the exact same at the area 705 to you from a spec perspective except it has Intel's enterprise features like V Pro and trusted execution technology enabled the 88 o 9g is the only overclockable chip in case you are wondering as for HBM two configurations all KB like G chips come with 4 gigabytes on a 1024 bit bus but the 100 what excuse have that memory clocked at 800 megahertz compared to 700 megahertz on the 65 watt models all KB like G's queues also come with Intel HD graphics integrated into the CPU die it's the standard HD 630 GPU clocked up to 1,100 megahertz the idea here is that when you're on battery the laptop can switch off the more power-hungry AMD GPU entirely and just run on the integrated graphics and when the discrete AMD GPU is required it can be powered up for far superior graphics performance the final thing I want to discuss before getting into performance is the power split between the CPU and GPU the 8700 5g has a 65 watt TDP in total however the pl/1 power limit for the CPU in other words the sustained power draw limit to the CPU is capped to 47 watts in the Dell XPS 15 to in one that makes perfect sense to is Intel's quad-core KB Lake H series CPUs had a 45 watt TDP and KB Lake G ups the clocks by around 300 megahertz across the board this gives the GPU at the very least in sustained workloads our full 18 watts to work with in actual practice when the GPU and CPU are fully utilized the GPU will run above 18 watts and a cpu below 47 months depending on the requirements like with any SOC algorithms determine how much power is allocated to each part of the chip depending on the workload but you can see just in the pl/1 limit that there is always some Headroom left for the GPU even under full CPU learn so how does Kb Lake cheaper form we'll start with the CPU performance then move into the GPU later with the CPU the most important comparisons between the core i7 8700 5g and intel's previous and current generation 8 seriously used in particular the i7 7700 HQ and the i 78750 H both a 45 watt CPU similar to the power available to the a 705 G CPU the 7700 HT with the same four calls while the 8750 H bumps it up to six cause looking at Cinebench r15 we can see that in the multi-threaded test the 8700 5g holds a decent eight percent performance advantage over the 7700 HQ using its higher clocked cause to its advantage in the single threaded test it pushes this imagine out to 13% again thanks to better boost clocks however it's in the multi-threaded test that the six core 8750 H dominates as expected with two extra cores the coffee like CPU is 46 percent faster it's a similar story in the handbrake x265 encoding test the 8700 5g is a mere 2% faster than the 7700 HQ but gets punished to the tune of 27 percent against the 8750 H having those extra cores in intel's newer H series CPUs really helps in these intensive encoding tests where cable 8g appears to be stuck with last gen CPU technology in Microsoft Excel the 8700 5g is 3 percent faster than the 7700 HQ but falls 33% behind the a 750 H again this is down to the 87 50 H having more cores which is a large advantage most modern multi-threaded workloads do D 705 G does hold a handy performance advantage in 7 zips compression and decompression benchmarks to the tune of 13 and 8% respectively compared to the 7700 H cube however once again the 8750 h comes in and smashes the 8700 5g achieving 38 and 57% more performance in these tests there's a pretty clear trend here and it's not one that favors K bhe over coffee like H in mixed workloads we start to get a good look at how the CPU and GPU combination stacks up when accelerating a premiere encode with lumetri effects the 87 o5g competes strongly with gaming laptops that pack faster GPUs the combination of a 7700 HQ and GTX 1060 is not seen in slim and light notebooks like the Dell XPS 15 2 in one yet KB Lake G is only 20% slower here photo drops accelerate an iris blur effect is another of that even with a much more powerful 6 core CPU and gtx 1070 max-q GPU it's only 28% faster across most CPU limited workloads though there is a pretty clear trend the 8700 5g is marginally ahead of the core i7 7700 HQ thanks to its slightly increased clock speeds but it lacks those extra cause of the 8750 h as such the 8750 h is often at least 40% faster in crucial workloads like video rendering let's take a closer look at the Vega M GPU included with the core i7 87 or 5g because that's where a lot of the interest will lie in particular be interesting to see how the Vega M GPU with 20 compute units stacks up against other popular discrete GPU options like the GTX 1015 I want to start with 3d marks entire suite of tests here because I think it paints a really interesting picture of how KB Lake G stands up against the GTX 1050 combined with the 7700 HQ unfortunately I don't have data for an AC 750 H and GT x 1050 combo just yet but hopefully I'll be able to follow up on that soon in any case with the more CPU demanding tests like Cloud Gate and sky diver KB Lake G is clearly behind the 7700 HQ with the discrete GTX 1050 in the overall score for Cloud Gate the 8700 5g is nearly ten percent behind the GTX 1050 however as you move into more GPU intensive tests the 8700 5g pulls well ahead and in the top tier times by test the Vega equipped processor is now 16% ahead in the overall score and 17 percent faster in the graphics core this paints a good picture for Kb like Jays game aspectus games are mostly going to be GPU bound on a GPU in the class of a 20 cu Vega for GPU computer heavy workloads as well you can expect cable 8g to outperform of gtx 1050 and fall just below a GTX and 50 Ti they're clearly well behind a gtx 1066 gigabyte similar results to 3d mark escena now to GTA 5 game tests when playing on knee maximum settings to 1080p which is quite GPU intensive the 8700 5g pulls 26% ahead although both systems are sub 30 FPS at this point using medium settings however the GTX 1050 gains an eight percent performance advantages the game loads up the CPU to a greater degree although you can clearly see with an 80 FPS average the GTA 5 is playable on cable 8g in rise of the Tomb Raider the gtx 1050 combo does slightly outperformed cable 8g using DirectX 12 and high settings of 1080p to the tune of 6% this is a game that class of GPU tends to struggle with and to get a good gaming experience I'd recommend turning down the quarry levels further in Deus Ex mankind divided the chorus of an 87 over 5g is a good eight percent faster than our discrete gtx 1050 congo at 1080p using the high preset it's also worth discussing where cable 8g falls relative to GPUs more commonly found in gaming laptops using a newer game testing suite you can see the 8700 5g provides almost exactly half the performance of the GTX 1066 gigabyte in Assassin's Creed origins using the medium preset at 1080p it's a similar story in games like watchdogs 2 and prey you're going to get around half the framerate of a genuine gtx 1060 gaming laptop if you're interested in a more detailed look at how cable a cheaper forms for gaming in a laptop form factor I'll be doing a follow up that will go through a ton more games and show if they're playable or not and what quality levels but in general the 8700 5g in this sort of form factor provides a decent entry to mid-level gaming experience with performance between that over gtx 1050 and gtx 750ti discrete GPU though closer to a 1050 Ti and more GPU intensive games so we've seen all the performance numbers and how KB Lake G stacks up to a range of hardware and I've got to say I'm pretty impressed with what you tell us managed to achieve here it's not gonna blow your socks off with screaming fires levels of performance but with the chorus of an 87 or 5g we're getting a CPU that's a bit faster than a core i7 7700 HQ and a GPU in the GTX 1050 to 1050 Ti range on a single chip and all that goodness fits into a TDP that makes the chip suitable for use in slim and light notebooks it's basically the fastest single chip compute solution available with a great balance of CPU and GPU power and that's all been made possible through combining Intel solid high-end mobile CPU with a powerful GPU from AMD a strange combination for sure and something I didn't think we never see but here we I it exists and it's definitely quite compelling however while the core i7 8700 5g is an interesting technical achievement it's Competitiveness up against other potential hardware combinations for ultra-thin laptops is a bit questionable and I think a lot of that comes down to Intel almost shooting themselves in the foot through the inclusion of odd core CPU rather than going all that with the six core coffee-like CPU by not including the latest CPU technology in this fascinating APU type product and then releasing it alongside new faster CPUs in turn is basically allowed a CPU plus discrete GPU option to better compete with KB Lake G than it otherwise could have take the combination of a core i7 8750 H and discrete nvidia geforce gtx 750ti the very combination you'll get with the latest Dell XPS 15 with this combo you'll get slightly more GPU power than the core i7 87 or 5g with Vega mg/l but crucially you get two extra cores and 40 to 50% more CPU power and that's one of Intel's own products directly competing against and providing a better option than cable 8g of course competing your performance is only one part of the story it also comes down to price and power consumption in a lot of cases unfortunately right now it appears cable hg is more expensive to integrate than the 8750 h plus gtx 750ti for a lower level of performance while not a direct apples to apples comparison the XPS 15 2 in one with kb lake g is 250 dollars more expensive than an otherwise identically configured XPS 15 with the 8750 h and 1050 TI inside even when factoring in a rough $100 price premium for the two-in-one design the exact margin news for Dells 13-inch variants kb lake g is adding to the total system cost or at best costing as much as the 8750 h plus 1050 TI combo option there may be some power savings to be had with kb lake g but right now it seems that the thin and light notebook cooler in a 15 inch system like the Dell XPS 15 line is quite capable of dealing with the power consumption of either this processor or the 8750 H paired with the 1050 Ti while I tend to think the ad 750 h+ GTX 1052 I will offer more performance and a better experience for laptop owners I don't think Kb like G or the cry 787 o5g is completely useless the single chip design of cable hg provides a clear space advantage over two separate chips and additional V Ram modules if properly harnessed this is manically - more space for other components like batteries and storage drives or it could bring this level of performance to smaller devices either of those things would be a huge win and would allow KB like G to occupy market segments that 8750 H+ 1050 t I could not service in product shipping right now though like the Dell XPS 15 2 in one I don't think that advantage is being fully utilized there's also a lot of promise to this single-chip large GPU design and I think a second generation to this product line could be highly competitive simply upgrading the CPU to a six core design or whatever Intel is using in their top and H series chips at the time along with refining the GPU to squeeze a bit more out of the power envelope will do wonders for this processor it's not unusual to see teething issues with the first gen product like this especially when it's competing against a refined product offering but I'm pretty excited to see what will happen in the future anyway those are my thoughts on KB Lake G and the 65 watt variant shipping in laptops today stay tuned for a deeper dive into gaming performance in the coming day so don't forget to subscribe to catch that in your inboxes consider supporting us on patreon to get access to our exclusive discord chat where you can ask us questions anytime you like and I'll catch you in the next one