The $199 Motile M141 With AMD Ryzen 3 3200U Offers Surprisingly Decent Performance

[Michael]

Michael is the temperature data logged, anywhere? What about dmiinfo, so we can see how many DIMMs it's using and their speeds?

You've got to admit, those build benchmark results were very weird - the Ice Lake i7 got smoked even by a Coffee Lake i5! Both Dells!

Once we've ruled out the obvious culprits, another thing to consider is whether it's a kernel revision affected by this bug:

https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?pa...rallel-Job-Opt

...although I thought that was mainly affecting much higher-core-count CPUs.

I didn't do temp monitoring as part of this run, but as mentioned, the Dell XPS Coffee and Ice Lake models (among others) are easily impacted by thermal throttling. That is the issue with these build times, if I didn't mention it in this article I've mentioned it many times before that for this XPS even with Icelake thermal throttling during benchmarking is very easy to occur.

And for this Ice Lake laptop it is dual channel memory. (Sadly due to dmidecode requiring root access, the DIMM module info isn't displayed on PTS results aside from when running it as root.)

[starshipeleven]

Michael is the temperature data logged, anywhere?

I didn't explain myself: you don't always see temps rising, you see the performance tanking, and probably CPU freq is lower.
Modern laptop CPUs have thermal goals and power management controllers, and they are pretty good at it. As long as the OEM sets these tables properly it will never show high temps.
I've seen enough laptops where the heatsink fan just stopped working and the temps are still perfectly fine (while performance tanks hard).

[coder]

Modern laptop CPUs have thermal goals and power management controllers, and they are pretty good at it.

I presume he didn't run these benchmarks on battery, so that should eliminate the bulk of the power management from the picture (except to the extent it's used as a proxy for thermal management).

As long as the OEM sets these tables properly it will never show high temps.

I don't believe it's (entirely) a matter of a less efficient thermal solution leading to lower boost values. That could be, but not enough to explain the performance difference in spite of the cores' relative efficiency differences. On that point, here's what Anandtech found:





Source: https://www.anandtech.com/show/14664...ce-lake-10nm/4

There you have it. The integer performance of the i7-1065G7 is around 31.7% to 33.4% more efficient than that of a i7-8550U. In Michael's two build performance benchmarks of these exact same models, the latter was 53.7% and 57.6% faster than the Ice Lake - Dell implementations of each! And the Ice Lake even had 2x the RAM!

Note that these graphs also include Zen2 cores, whereas the Motile laptop is based on Zen1.

I've seen enough laptops where the heatsink fan just stopped working and the temps are still perfectly fine (while performance tanks hard).

If something like that happened, then his benchmarks are invalid and he should fix his laptop.

It seems like you agree that something is fundamentally wrong with those results. Do you not?

[starshipeleven]

I presume he didn't run these benchmarks on battery, so that should eliminate the bulk of the power management from the picture (except to the extent it's used as a proxy for thermal management).

It's always used in laptops (that have it enabled) because it's easier than designing or allocating enough space for a decent heatsink. It's the same general concept of always using the i7 xxxU that are the low-power parts that suck balls if compared to a normal mobile part (that is now relegated only for gaming laptops).
You can put a good name in the spec sheet even if in practice this is NOT going to act like one.

In Michael's two build performance benchmarks of these exact same models,

As I said, CPU model is only part of the picture. A common trend in modern laptops (Also Apple's) is to put a very powerful CPU with a subpar heatsink, and the end result is that of course it throttles itself and the performance tanks.
Afaik in the case of Apple the i9 was found to actually have a similar performance to the i7 due to this reason. While also reaching new record temperatures above 100 celsius or something.

If something like that happened, then his benchmarks are invalid and he should fix his laptop.

Yes and no. As he said in a post above, he knows those two laptops are very prone to thermal throttling, so there is the explanation why they suck balls so hard. The whole laptop is a lie.

While the fact that these laptops are a lie should be stated clearly every time there is a benchmark, they are "working as intended" so it's still a good thing to benchmark them as a "real life specimen" from the field.

[Cape]

I believe I am not mixing the different names. EU is based on the EEC. The inner market, though heavily expanded and revised are based on the EEC.

https://europa.eu/european-union/about-eu/history_en#1980-1989

EEC - EC - EU.

And claiming that Italy was great in the 80's. With 21 % inflation?.... And claiming that you had better living standards than West-Germany. Perhaps northern italy, not
southern. Your corruption and mafia is legendary, lowest birth rate in Europe, failed implementation of politics by overbureaucratizing every govermental department is what I believe is Italy's biggest problem. And including one major obstacle is too high taxes for the middle class, and too low on the top 1%. Leading to tax evasion, failed govermental budgets, inflation etc. . The most effective prime minister you had was Monti.

Kind regards from an ignorant non-eu member european.
B.

Inflation has nothing to do with living standard or competitiveness of a country. The only problem with inflation is if you are a foreign investor or if you like to keep your money under the bed.
Also mafia and corruption are meme. We had both but none have ever been a big problem.
Sure, we have heavy taxation and bureaucratizanion. But that's because of fuckin EU imposing a nonsensical budget! Tax evasion is actually lower than Germany!!

Monti is actually the WORST prime minister ever: he's the one who expanded our national debt and shrank our GDP the most! Please, cut the bullshit! It's our life at stake! Not your opinions!

[starshipeleven]

Inflation has nothing to do with living standard or competitiveness of a country. The only problem with inflation is if you are a foreign investor or if you like to keep your money under the bed.

or in a bank, or anywhere else where interest rate does not cover the inflation's effect. Which is most places. Of course most of the problem is for relatively poorer people who can't just buy a house or assets that don't depreciate to keep their money. I remember gold being a thing to store value in a more or less inflation-safe way.

Also mafia and corruption are meme. We had both but none have ever been a big problem.
Sure, we have heavy taxation and bureaucratizanion. But that's because of fuckin EU imposing a nonsensical budget! Tax evasion is actually lower than Germany!!

This is just plain bullshit, mafia and corruption are a significant issue as money is systematically wasted on useless overinflated crap, high taxes in Italy have been an issue well before EU even existed, tax evasion is and has always been worse than Germany for that exact reason. Hell, you'd be hard-pressed to find someone that actually pays VAT below Tuscany. Electronic purchasing (credit card or online) has taken so fucking much out of the tax evasion you have no idea.

You kids need to fucking study modern history and not just parrot bs they feed you.

[coder]

You can put a good name in the spec sheet even if in practice this is NOT going to act like one.

You're ignoring the part where two Dell laptops, in the same power and performance class, have a performance disparity of more than 2x (from 202.4% to 210.2%) of what they should. Anandtech's data came from actual benchmarks, so they're fairly applicable.

I think you're just arguing out of boredom or something, rather than thinking seriously about the magnitude of the performance discrepancy and the likelihood of deeper or additional problems.

As he said in a post above, he knows those two laptops are very prone to thermal throttling,

If they're both impacted by thermal throttling, then why the huge discrepancy between them?

While the fact that these laptops are a lie should be stated clearly every time there is a benchmark, they are "working as intended" so it's still a good thing to benchmark them as a "real life specimen" from the field.

No, he shouldn't say that, because that's too simplistic, and he wouldn't say that, because it sounds too opinionated. What he should do is post a graph of their clock speeds and temperatures, and let readers decide for themselves. At least, it could explain (or not) the massive performance discrepancy I noted.

It's the same general concept of always using the i7 xxxU that are the low-power parts that suck balls if compared to a normal mobile part

I have a Skylake U-series laptop and I'm happy with it. It's a lot faster than my old laptop, it was inexpensive, it's small, lightweight, has pretty good battery life, and I don't really notice the fan. It might help a number of those things that I went with an i3 CPU. If it were a "normal mobile part", it would be much thicker, heavier, more expensive, and overkill for my needs. I'm even satisfied with the integrated graphics.

[starshipeleven]

You're ignoring the part where two Dell laptops, in the same power and performance class, have a performance disparity of more than 2x (from 202.4% to 210.2%) of what they should.

On the contrary, I'm saying this is more common than people think it is.

If they're both impacted by thermal throttling, then why the huge discrepancy between them?

Worse heatsink in one of the two? You would need to look at previous benchmarks and see if they keep the same discrepancy to confirm or deny this theory.

No, he shouldn't say that, because that's too simplistic, and he wouldn't say that, because it sounds too opinionated. What he should do is post a graph of their clock speeds and temperatures, and let readers decide for themselves.

I assume that he has enough data to back up the statement already, and no, if temperatures rise and clock speeds a re lowered that's throttling and the laptop is a lie, there is no need to sugarcoat it or leave it to the reader.

I have a Skylake U-series laptop and I'm happy with it.

WTF is this? Also what does the random apples and oranges comparison with your old laptop add?

I'm not saying you should buy a laptop with a mobile i7 when you don't need it. I'm saying that an i7 U adds 250$ to the price without actually providing much more than a i7 sticker. An i7 U performs nearly the same as the i3 U of the same generation and is basically a mobile i3. There is really no sane reason to buy the i7 U over the i3 U of the same generation.

Meanwhile, people actually needing a mobile i7 are fucked because 99.999% of laptops use the U variant.

[coder]

Worse heatsink in one of the two? You would need to look at previous benchmarks and see if they keep the same discrepancy to confirm or deny this theory.

Well, I find it hard to believe the thermal solution is so much worse that the Ice Lake throttles twice as badly as the Kaby Lake-R CPU. If thermal throttling really is the only factor, then I'd expect some manufacturing defect is preventing adequate thermal conduction into its heatsink, or maybe one of its heatpipes got pinched.

I assume that he has enough data to back up the statement already, and no, if temperatures rise and clock speeds a re lowered that's throttling and the laptop is a lie, there is no need to sugarcoat it or leave it to the reader.

AFAIK, he hasn't conclusively demonstrated that its performance problems are entirely due to thermal throttling, in which case he certainly doesn't have enough data or analysis. Secondly, he seems to have only one product sample. It would be irresponsible journalism to make sweeping generalizations, based on empirical data from one sample. He would have to demonstrate that the product's thermal solution is working as well as its design will allow, in order to conclude that it's really suffering from a design flaw.

WTF is this? Also what does the random apples and oranges comparison with your old laptop add?

You seemed to be trashing the U-series, in general. I was simply relating my experience.

An i7 U performs nearly the same as the i3 U of the same generation and is basically a mobile i3. There is really no sane reason to buy the i7 U over the i3 U of the same generation.

For my generation of CPUs, that's the conclusion I reached. However, I see that the 8000 generation U-series i3's are still dual-core, while at least some of the i5's and i7's are quad-core.

Meanwhile, people actually needing a mobile i7 are fucked because 99.999% of laptops use the U variant.

No, just the ultrabook-style. If they need more horsepower, they can upgrade to a gaming laptop or mobile workstation.

Ice Lake is supposed to be a significant step forwarder in perf/W. Anandtech showed that even with a 17% smaller battery than its predecessors, it consistently demonstrated longer runtime on a consistent workload.

https://www.anandtech.com/show/15092...-lake-cometh/6

I shouldn't have to explain that more perf/W, with an equivalent (if anemic) thermal solution = more performance. The only way you get worse performance is if the thermal solution is downgraded by even more than the CPU's power-efficiency improved.

Anyway, the next page shows their power & thermal analysis, with the laptop (I think a higher-end model than Michael's) sustaining 25 W power draw, indefinitely. This shows a willingness by Dell to juice the CPU until it hits hard throttling - not back off early, as you'd previously claimed.

[creative]

That's pretty respectable for a trashbook (laptop in the sub-400$ price range). I also applaud on the choice to place a SSD in there.

Michael Is the screen an IPS? It seems it has decent viewing angles for a TN in the images

Thats a pretty good question but I feel the TN vs IPS thing is a bit overblown. A lot people completely discount TN. At very first I found TN drastically different than the IPS that I was used to but after adjusting stuff I found it to be much easier on my eyes and startlingly yes my eyesight has improved after moving away from IPS. At a glace yes my ips's displays look superior but after adjusting to my new TN... It is so much easier on my eyes.

All my displays except my phone have the eyecare stuff built into them but as far as eye strain? TN wins. The ips stuff straight away looks nice, sharp, colorful and luminous out of the box but something about it makes my eyes strain badly. There is just something more organic about twisted nematic.