
In PCMark 7, the Ivy Bridge-based Core i7-3720QM at 2.6 GHz (with a 3.6 GHz maximum Turbo Boost frequency) outpaces the Sandy Bridge-based -2820QM by ~40%, and it surpasses the Arrandale-based Core i5 by ~275%. The -3720QM's score is even more impressive compared to AMD's A8-3520M, as the Llano-based APU barely manages to outperform Intel's Core i5-460M.
Drilling down, the testing reveals some interesting finds (which actually start to call PCMark's weighting into question). Even though the Core i7-3720QM clearly leads the pack, its performance advantage is evident in only a few scenarios.
| PCMark 7 Results | i7-3720QM | i7-2820QM | i5-460M | A8-3520M |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Video Playback | 23.12 FPS | 23.16 FPS | 23.14 FPS | 22.99 FPS |
| Video Transcoding | 169 531.73 KB/s | 17 416.99 KB/s | 1828.96 KB/s | 2460.25 KB/s |
| Storage: Gaming | 15.22 MB/s | 14.87 MB/s | 12.13 MB/s | 14.11 MB/s |
| Graphics DX9 | 22.99 FPS | 17.47 FPS | 13.29 FPS | 4.19 FPS |
| Image Manipulation | 11.55 Mpix/s | 9.3 Mpix/s | 4.00 Mpix/s | 7.41 Mpix/s |
| Storage: Importing Pictures | 26.37 MB/s | 26.58 MB/s | 25.42 MB/s | 24.12 MB/s |
| Web Browsing | 15.17 pages/s | 14.24 pages/s | 6.7 pages/s | 9.34 pages/s |
| Data Decrypting | 145.54 MB/s | 101.31 MB/s | 39.10 MB/s | 49.95 MB/s |
| Storage: Windows Defender | 5.37 MB/s | 5.25 MB/s | 4.22 MB/s | 4.97 MB/s |
The Core i7-3720QM particularly shines in tests involving:
- Video Transcoding
- DX9 Graphics
- Web Browsing
Because transcoding is so demanding, Intel built fixed-function hardware into its Sandy and Ivy Bridge-based architectures to address it, and the effect of that hardware is made apparent in PCMark 7, grossly inflating the synthetic's score compared to what you'd get from, say, an SSD or discrete graphics card.
With regard to 3D performance, the HD Graphics 4000 engine delivers ~30% higher results than HD Graphics 3000 in the DX 9 benchmark. Futuremark says that the Web browsing test has a 50/10/40% workload distribution between CPU, RAM, and GPU, making it an interesting measure of productivity.

Even though the AMD A8-3520M has four physical cores (compared to the Core i5-460M’s two cores), PCMark 7 works the Llano-based APU harder than the dual-core chip (indicated by overall CPU usage). And yet, our power consumption graph makes it clear that the APU still uses less power.
The Core i7-3720QM and Core i7-2820QM don't exhibit the same spikes in utilization, likely as a result of QuickSync offloading the demanding transcode workload from the general-purpose compute cores. Nevertheless, their higher performance incurs a greater power consumption penalty, and they both use more than AMD's A8-3520M.

- Understanding Ivy Bridge's Real Target
- Benchmark Results: PCMark 7
- Benchmark Results: Adobe Photoshop CS 5
- Benchmark Results: WinRAR 4.11
- Benchmark Results: iTunes 10.6.1
- Benchmark Results: WoW, Call Of Duty, And Battlefield 3
- World Of Warcraft: CPU Utilization And Power Consumption
- 3D Performance And Power Profiles, Demystified
- Quick Sync: Performance And Power Consumption
- Benchmark Results: Blu-ray Playback Efficiency
- Mobile Ivy Bridge: Paving the Way For Ultrabooks
Great job. Another excellent review Andrew.
There would be a performance difference in applications that could use the extra MHz (Video games, encoding/decoding) and performance would scale accordingly. Otherwise no you'd likely never notice.
Great job. Another excellent review Andrew.
To be fair, it was a low power APU being bench-marked against higher end, higher power, and newer chips. I would be surprised if it won much of anything, besides power usage, against the Sandy and Ivy i7s. A higher TDP mobile A8 might be able to beat HD 4000 if it had 1600MHz or maybe even 1866MHz memory, granted it still wouldn't win in CPU performance.
IIRC, the IGPs on the mobile chips can be OC'd, right?
Video Transcoding
DX9 Graphics
Web Browsing
Hmmm...wouldn't you agree that "data decryption" should be on this list too? The difference b/w each proc is significant...plus you've got hardware acceleration for AES256 on SB and IB...
I hope the mobile i3s get HD4000...still wondering why the i5s didn't get it...
The i5-460M is faster than A8-3520M, just not that much faster. I have a feeling you need to run the application and gaming tests on max performance all over again. It doesn't matter for the Intel part as Balanced pretty much performs like max performance.
ojas, All the Core branded mobile chips have the full graphics. For Sandy Bridge that's HD 3000, and for Ivy Bridge its HD 4000. I think you are too much into desktops.
I think that it's just the desktop i5s and i3s that won't have HD 4000. The mobile ones should have it, kinda like how the mobile Sandy i3s, i5s, and i7s more or less all have HD 3000, but the same is not true for their desktop counterparts. Well, the i5-3570K gets HD 4000, so it's the only exception to the desktop i5s not having HD 4000 and that's just because it's a K edition.
http://www.anandtech.com/show/4444/amd-llano-notebook-review-a-series-fusion-apu-a8-3500m/11
The Review clearly show the A8 with IGP is at least 2X as fast as the HD3000 with i5 CPU
Actually, that clearly shows that the 6620G of the A8s is only marginally better than the HD 3000 and that with the 6630M, the A8s are then closer to twice as fast (some of the time) as the HD3000-using equipped Sandy systems. Keep in mind that the mobile versions of Intel's IGPs are similar to the desktop versions, but the mobile Llano IGPs are much slower than the desktop versions, so on the mobile side, they clash much more, instead of Llano wiping the floor with Intel's IGPs. Trinity will almost certainly let AMD take the lead in mobile graphics IGPs again. Until then, AMD always has the ability to do CF with the IGP and still use similar amounts or even less power than Intel while beating Intel for graphics performance, although Llano clearly can't touch Sandy and Ivy in CPU performance.
http://ark.intel.com/products/family/65506
And don't forget VT-d. That will help you if you are interested in virtualization.
You must not be reading the same article as the rest of us if that's your conclusion.
Um...well, i'll cite this statement from Chris Angelini's desktop IB review:
First benchmark is Battlefield: Bad Company 2
DX10 Low, FRAPS Runthrough
1366x768
A8-3500M+6620G = 48.1FPS
i5-2520M+HD3000 = 30.4FPS
The A8 is 58% faster than the i5.
Second benchmark is Civilization V
DX10/11 Low, LateGameView Benchmark
1366x768
A8-3500M+6620G = 28.6FPS
i5-2520M+HD3000 = 10.7FPS
The A8 is 167% faster than the i5.
Third benchmark is DiRt 2
DX9 Ultra Low, Built-In Benchmark
1366x768
A8-3500M+6620G = 68.1FPS
i5-2520M+HD3000 = 44.3FPS
A8 is 54% faster than the i5.
Fourth benchmark is Left For Dead 2
Low, Timedemo
1366x768
A8-3500M+6620G = 67FPS
i5-2520M+HD3000 = 48.5FPS
A8 is 38% faster than the i5
Fifth benchmark is Mafia 2
Low, Built-In Benchmark
1366x768
A8-3500M+6620G = 34.2FPS
i5-2520M+HD3000 = 16.5FPS
A8 is 108% faster than i5.
Sixth benchmark is Mass Effect 2
Low, FRAPS Runthrough
1366x768
A8-3500M+6620G = 52.1FPS
i5-2520M+HD3000 = 35.8FPS
A8 is 43% faster than i5.
Seventh benchmark is Metro 2033
DX10 Low, Built-In Benchmark
1366x768
A83500M+6620G = 28.6FPS
i5-2520M+HD3000 = 17FPS
A8 is 68% faster than i5.
Eighth benchmark is STALKER: Call of Pripyat
Low + Object, Standalone Benchmark
1366x768
A8-3500M+6620G = 61.7FPS
i5-2520M+HD3000 = 36.3FPS
A8 is 70% faster than the i5.
StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty
Low, FRAPS Playback
1366x768
A8-3500M+6620G = 49.4FPS
i5-2520M+HD3000 = 51.2FPS
i5 is 5% faster than A8.
Ninth benchmark is Total War: Shogun 2
Low, Replay Benchmark
1366x768
A8-3500M+6620G = 79FPS
i5-2520M+HD3000 = 55.1FPS
A8 is 43% faster than i5.
Total for A8-3500M+6620G = 516.8
Total for i5-2520M+HD3000 = 345.8
The A8 is clearly not double the i5. When I said marginally, I missed that the post I replied to referred to i5s, not i7s, so yes, I was wrong on that. However, the post that I replied to was still wrong as well. The i7 would have changed that total FPS from 345.8 to 397.9. The A8 is only 49% faster than the i5, on average, and that is very far from double. The i7 would have brought that down to a mere 30%. Still, I suppose that this is a good deal more than marginally greater, so yes, I was wrong, but nonetheless, so was the post that I replied to. The A8 might be about twice as fast as the mobile i3s with HD 3000, but not the i5s and not even close at that.