In the second half of 2020, Intel launched the 11th generation Core processor Tiger Lake-UP3 series aimed at thin and light notebooks. By 2021, Intel also updated its mini PC product line, introducing the new Cheetah Canyon NUC equipped with the 11th generation Core Tiger Lake-UP3.
This month, the PConline testing room conducted the first evaluation of the Cheetah Canyon NUC (model NUC11PAHi7, equipped with Core i7-1165G), but that article mainly focused on the experience aspect without detailed performance testing of the product.
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In fact, I believe that although the Cheetah Canyon NUC is just a mini PC, its motherboard’s power supply and heat dissipation capabilities cannot be compared with those of desktop PCs. However, the heat dissipation efficiency of the Cheetah Canyon NUC will far exceed that of traditional thin and light notebooks or business laptops, and its stronger heat dissipation capability helps to release hardware performance better. In this review, we will conduct detailed tests on the Cheetah Canyon NUC to showcase the “full power” performance of the Core i7-1165G7.
Test Platform Introduction and Power Configuration
The Cheetah Canyon NUC is a barebone system that does not come pre-loaded with memory and hard drive, requiring users to purchase them separately. To maximize overall performance, I selected two 16GB DDR4 3200C22 modules to form a dual-channel 32GB configuration (unfortunately, the memory used for this test is 2R×16, not 2R×8, resulting in slightly fewer bank groups), along with a 500GB Samsung 980 Pro SSD as the system drive.
Using AIDA64 to test memory performance, the read speed is 47574MB/s, write speed is 45558MB/s, copy speed is 39825MB/s, and latency is 81.6ns, which is quite standard. If the 32GB dual-channel memory used were 2R×8, the efficiency would be slightly higher.
Using CrystalDiskMark to test the Samsung 980 Pro SSD, it can be seen that the PCIe 4.0 protocol supported by Tiger Lake-UP3 has been put to good use. With good heat dissipation, the read speed reaches 6346.25MB/s and the write speed is 4845.46MB/s, showcasing the performance of the new generation of high-end SSDs.
Hardware enthusiasts know well that the 11th generation Core Tiger Lake-UP3, including the Core i7-1165G7, is positioned for thin and light notebooks but is very sensitive to power settings. As mentioned earlier, this is precisely the advantage of the Cheetah Canyon NUC. According to AIDA64 and HWiNFO64, the Cheetah Canyon NUC sets a long-term power limit of up to 40W for the Core i7-1165G7, while the short-term power limit is as high as 67W, far exceeding the power settings of thin and light notebooks.
Of course, the PL1 and PL2 settings are theoretical. The power consumption at which the processor can operate will be directly affected by the motherboard’s power supply and heat dissipation capabilities. At an ambient temperature of 26°C, using AIDA64 for single-core FPU stress testing, monitored in real-time with HWiNFO64, after 8 minutes of operation, the Cheetah Canyon NUC can maintain the Core i7-1165G7 running stably above 40W power consumption, with all-core frequency around 3.6GHz.
Notably, considering that the Willow Cove microarchitecture of Tiger Lake-UP3 supports the AVX-512 instruction set, this brings a certain degree of power increase at the same frequency. If the AVX-512 instruction set is turned off during AIDA64 FPU stress testing, or if the application load during actual use does not support the AVX-512 instruction set, then under the 40W power released by the Cheetah Canyon NUC, the Core i7-1165G7 can maintain stable all-core turbo frequencies around 3.9GHz-4.1GHz, nearly reaching the upper limit.
Introduction to Willow Cove Microarchitecture and Theoretical Performance Testing
Before conducting tests, let’s review the architectural features of the 11th generation Core processor Tiger Lake-UP3. Tiger Lake-UP3 is a direct successor to Ice Lake-U, with comprehensive optimizations in core microarchitecture, integrated graphics scale, process technology, memory controller, and more.
The core microarchitecture used in Tiger Lake-UP3 is called Willow Cove. Intel states that Willow Cove is designed based on the Sunny Cove microarchitecture of Ice Lake, with many commonalities between the two, from the front end to the out-of-order buffer and back-end execution units. However, Willow Cove has improved the cache system, significantly increasing cache capacity, with each core having 1.25MB of L2 cache and 3MB of L3 cache. The larger cache helps improve the processor’s efficiency in dense computations. Additionally, Willow Cove supports CET technology to counter cache side-channel attacks, enhancing security.
Previously, Intel conducted detailed tests on Willow Cove, using the Core i7-1185G7E (4.4GHz Willow Cove microarchitecture) and Core i7-8665UE (4.4GHz Skylake microarchitecture) to run SPECrate2017 int. The results showed that Willow Cove achieved approximately a 23% improvement in IPC compared to Skylake. In fact, those familiar with Intel’s processor microarchitecture know that Sunny Cove used in Ice Lake achieved an IPC improvement of 18% over Skylake. Roughly calculated, this means that Tiger Lake (Willow Cove) has an IPC improvement of about 4% over Ice Lake (Sunny Cove).
From the perspective of microarchitecture design, the 4% IPC improvement of Willow Cove compared to Sunny Cove is not significant and may even be imperceptible. But why can the core computing performance of Tiger Lake-UP3 achieve a double-digit improvement? The answer lies in the fact that Tiger Lake-UP3 utilizes 10nm SuperFin technology, achieving substantial optimization, marking the largest performance enhancement at this node.
Ultimately, with the support of 10nm SuperFin technology, Tiger Lake-UP3 has significantly increased core operating frequencies, approaching the 5.0GHz mark, and the power consumption curve has also improved significantly.
Returning to the Cheetah Canyon NUC under test, this product is equipped with a Core i7-1165G7 processor, with specifications of 4 cores and 8 threads, a base frequency of 2.8GHz, and a maximum turbo frequency of 4.7GHz, with 5MB of L2 cache and 12MB of L3 cache. Below are the detailed parameter information recognized by AIDA64 CPUID:
CPU-Z is a commonly used processor testing software, currently updated to version 1.95. The time for running Version 17 tests is short and the load is low, allowing the Core i7-1165G7 on the Cheetah Canyon NUC to run at full turbo frequency, achieving a single-thread score of 625.5 and a multi-thread score of 2840.1. This single-thread score is already comparable to that of the Core i9-10900K with a turbo frequency of 5.3GHz, indicating the efficiency improvement of the Willow Cove microarchitecture.
Version 19 AVX2 tests have long been a stronghold for Intel processors, and the Core i7-1165G7 based on the Willow Cove microarchitecture continues this advantage, achieving a single-thread score of 903.1 and a multi-thread score of 4202.2 when running at full turbo frequency. However, possibly due to the half-throughput nature of AVX-512, the backend can only execute one 512-bit FMA, leading to the Core i7-1165G7’s scores in Version 19 AVX512 being roughly equivalent to those in Version 19 AVX2 tests.
Geekbench 5 is a popular cross-platform processor performance testing software. The Core i7-1165G7 on the Cheetah Canyon NUC achieved a single-thread score of 1579 and a multi-thread score of 5396. For reference, the Core i9-10900K with a turbo frequency of 5.3GHz scores just over 1400 in Geekbench 5 single-thread tests, indicating that the IPC improvement of the Willow Cove microarchitecture in Geekbench 5 tests exceeds 25%.
Next, let’s talk about the commonly used Cinebench, a testing software developed based on Cinema 4D, which has become widely popular and is now updated to version R23. Due to being based on a single software application scenario, Cinebench cannot fully reflect the overall performance of the processor.
Specifically, for the Cheetah Canyon NUC, the equipped Core i7-1165G7 scored 589 points in single-thread tests and 2624 points in multi-thread tests in R20 under 40W PL1 power release; in R23, the single-thread score was 1544 points and the multi-thread score was 6799 points. The single-thread test is quite impressive, also surpassing the desktop Core i9-10900K with the Skylake architecture, reflecting the IPC improvement of the Willow Cove microarchitecture; in multi-threading, thanks to better heat dissipation capabilities and higher power configurations, the Cheetah Canyon NUC still outperforms thin and light notebooks equipped with the Core i7-1165G7 on the market.
POV-Ray is an open-source free software for rendering three-dimensional images using ray tracing, and using version 3.7.1 for testing, the Core i7-1165G7 on the Cheetah Canyon NUC achieved a single-thread score of 633.27 PPS and a multi-thread score of 2724.11 PPS.
Using Blender 2.83 LTS for testing, importing the BMW27 material, the Cheetah Canyon NUC completed the rendering in 6 minutes and 15 seconds. This time is about 1 minute shorter than previous tests of mainstream thin and light notebooks equipped with the Core i7-1165G7.
V-Ray, developed by the professional rendering company CHAOSGROUP, is one of the most popular rendering engines in the industry. Using version 5.0.20 Benchmark for testing, the Cheetah Canyon NUC scored 4901 vsamples in rendering, also outperforming the Core i7-1165G7 with a 28W PL1 configuration.
As mentioned earlier, the Willow Cove microarchitecture of Tiger Lake-UP3 supports the AVX-512 instruction set and its extensions. Currently, some software can effectively utilize the AVX-512 instruction set, such as the y-cruncher software for calculating pi (supports AVX-512 IFMA).
Specifically, using the Cheetah Canyon NUC to run y-cruncher to calculate 1,000,000,000 digits of pi, it took about 60 seconds, even faster than many gaming laptops equipped with 8-core processors. For a 4-core 8-thread processor, this is quite rare, demonstrating the high efficiency of the Willow Cove microarchitecture under the new instruction set. Of course, the performance of AVX-intensive calculations is greatly affected by cache and memory; the memory used this time is 32GB dual-channel 2R×16. If 32GB dual-channel 2R×8 memory were used, even better results might be achieved.
Xe LP Architecture Iris Xe Graphics Performance Testing
In addition to the improvements in the Willow Cove microarchitecture, another significant upgrade of the 11th generation Core processor Tiger Lake-UP3 is the integrated Iris Xe graphics.
After Intel announced its return to the discrete graphics market, it showcased ambitious plans, with the Xe GPU architecture including Xe HPC for HPC fields, Xe HP for data centers, Xe HPG for gamers, and low-power Xe LP. The Iris Xe graphics integrated into Tiger Lake-UP3 is based on the Xe LP architecture.
The Iris Xe graphics equipped with the Core i7-1165G7 is a full-blood version, with 96 execution units and a maximum frequency of up to 1.3GHz. Of course, there are many factors that affect the performance of integrated graphics, including heat dissipation and power consumption, as well as the memory equipped in the system. The memory controller of Tiger Lake-UP3 supports both LPDDR4x-4266 and DDR4-3200, but the Cheetah Canyon NUC does not come with LPDDR4x-4266 memory, which is a bit regrettable.
Comprehensive Performance + Practical Application Testing
Focusing on the overall performance of the machine, I first used PCMark 10 for testing. In the standard test, the Cheetah Canyon NUC scored 5088, which is not much different from high-end thin and light notebooks equipped with the 11th generation Core Tiger Lake-UP3.
In the PCMark 10 Office + Edge application test, the Cheetah Canyon NUC scored 11257, breaking the 11000-point barrier, slightly outperforming high-end thin and light notebooks equipped with the 11th generation Core Tiger Lake-UP3.
The organization UL, which develops PCMark and 3DMark, recently launched a new benchmarking software called Procyon, which includes running scripts for Adobe-related software, providing benchmark tests for photo editing and video editing.
In the photo editing benchmark test, Adobe Lightroom was used to import, process, and modify selected images, and Adobe Photoshop was used for image editing and layer adjustments. The version of Adobe Lightroom used for this test was 10.1.1, and the version of Adobe Photoshop was 22.2.0. The final comprehensive score for the Cheetah Canyon NUC was 6029, with an Image Retouching score of 6258 and a Batch Processing score of 5810.
In the video editing test, using Adobe Premiere Pro for video export, the integrated 96EU Iris Xe graphics of the Core i7-1165G7 showed its capabilities again, achieving an overall score of 2113. This is slightly stronger than the desktop platform of the Core i9-10900K using only the UHD 630 integrated graphics.
Conclusion — What More Can We Expect from the Cheetah Canyon NUC?
The 11th generation Core Tiger Lake-UP3 has been on the market for a long time, but since it is positioned for thin and light notebooks and business notebooks, most OEM manufacturers have been quite conservative in tuning the heat dissipation of these two types of products. Therefore, neither players nor the media can fully understand the “full power” performance of Tiger Lake-UP3 through products available on the market.
The emergence of the Cheetah Canyon NUC changes this situation, allowing ordinary users to experience the full power performance of Tiger Lake-UP3. From the test results, it can be seen that the Core i7-1165G7 in the Cheetah Canyon NUC can not only provide strong single-thread performance (single-core turbo frequency is less sensitive to power consumption, not requiring 40W) but also, more importantly, based on the 40W power release, the actual all-core turbo frequency of the Core i7-1165G7 in the Cheetah Canyon NUC is higher than that of thin and light notebooks, and multi-thread performance has steadily improved.
However, it is somewhat regrettable that because the maximum specification of Tiger Lake-UP3 is only 4 cores and 8 threads, there are no more core products. Therefore, excluding higher loads like AVX-512, the 40W power all-core turbo frequency has basically reached its limit. Even if the Cheetah Canyon NUC’s heat dissipation can still handle it, there won’t be much gain in performance. The 4-core 8-thread specification may be quite suitable for thin and light notebooks at present, but if viewed as a compact desktop with stronger heat dissipation capabilities, a 6-core 12-thread specification would be more perfect.
Regardless, we can fully understand the “full power” performance of the Core i7-1165G7 from the tests of the Cheetah Canyon NUC. Supported by new technologies such as the 10nm SuperFin process, Willow Cove core microarchitecture, and Xe LP graphics architecture, Tiger Lake-UP3 has achieved generational performance improvements compared to both the initial 10nm process Sunny Cove microarchitecture Ice Lake-U and the 14nm++ Skylake microarchitecture Comet Lake-U.
Based on this performance, I am even more looking forward to the performance of the 11th generation high-performance mobile version of the Core Tiger Lake-H45 series. Positioned for high-end gaming laptops, Tiger Lake-H45 also features the Willow Cove core microarchitecture, with a higher single-core turbo frequency than Tiger Lake-UP3, reaching up to 5.0GHz. More importantly, Tiger Lake-H45 can offer 8 cores and 16 threads, meeting all market expectations. In the future, I believe that in mid to high-end gaming laptops and mobile workstations with excellent heat dissipation capabilities, Tiger Lake-H45 will unleash even more powerful performance!
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