What is a Intel Core M Chip?

[DJW]

I see New Egg has a MS Surface Pro 4 with Intel Core M, 4GB Ram,128GB SSD, Win 10 Pro etc. today for $799. What is a Intel Core M vs Core i3,i5,i7 etc?

 

Dennis

[TreyandSusan]

More energy efficient (think longer battery life) at the expense of computing power.

It is faster that an Atom processor but not quite as fast as the newer i3,i5,i7

 

The core M will probably get faster as they progress (future)

 

Google search: Compare intel core M

 

It all comes down to what you do on the machine. (Sorta like buying an RV)

Browsing and simple document creation.editing - Core M should be fine.

The more you need to do the more power you need. Video editing i7

[jerryneal]

Virtually same, just lower power and clock speed to maintain battery longer and reduce heat.

[DJW]

Kinda like the old Celron Chip?

 

Dennis

[skp51443]

Not so much, the Celeron was designed to be cheap and for AC powered use, it has a lot less complex power management compared to the more expensive M series that were aimed at laptops.

 

Core M: http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/processors/core/core-m-processors.html

 

The m3/m5/m7 is more directly comparable to the i3/i5/i7 processors, it gives up a bit of performance but does a lot better at power saving.

 

An i / m comparison chart: http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/processors/vpro/core-processors-with-vpro-technology.html

[docj]

If you're really into detail here's a chart that allows you to compare items from the entire Intel processor line: http://ark.intel.com/ At this point the "m" processors aren't as powerful as the best of the i5 and i7 series (fewer cores, smaller cache, etc). But it's likely that the number and capabilities of the product line will increase.

 

As for power consumption, the 6th gen i7 line uses between 15 and 45 watts depending on number of cores, etc. The only m7 processor available at the moment uses 4.5 watts as do the other "m" series processors I looked at.

[DJW]

Great info guys, thank you

 

Dennis

[skp51443]

Not everyone is into saving power on their laptops, off topic a bit but funny.

 

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/02/05/eurcom_sky_x9w/

 

 

 

This time around the company's released the Sky X9W complete with a quad-core, eight-thread, Intel Core i7 6700K capable of operating at 4.2GHz and nestled amidst an Intel Z170 Express (Skylake) chipset. The NVIDIA Quadro M5000M dwarfs the CPU for core count: it's got 1,536 of its own.

Pack in 64GB of DDR4-2133, 2400 or 2666 RAM, if you please, then throw in up to four NVME SSDs and give them the RAID 10 treatment for data protection.

There's also a 17.3 inch 4K screen at 3840 x 2160.

This time around, Eurocom says the machine has a battery, which is a bit of a disappointment because it had previously labelled the portable power source an “uninterruptible power supply”. The company's also managed to shave 700 grams off previous mobile workstations to weigh in at a mere 4.8 kilograms.

Which is not to say a call to harden up would be fair: there's at least three fans we can see in this machine, a single USB-C port, a pair of mini display ports capable of driving four monitors, an HDMI outlet, five USB 3.0 ports, a pair of RJ45s and Wi-Fi.

Prices start at US$2,930, but the configurator lets you crank that up far higher – just the maximum GPU option we've mentioned above sees the machine hit $4309.

 

No problem getting this one over $7800.00 with a few options. :-)

 

[wildmandmc]

when you look at chips have to always look at what generation num they at. most ppl are unaware of this.

[docj]

when you look at chips have to always look at what generation num they at. most ppl are unaware of this.

 

Each successive generation uses smaller lithography features and with each reduction in size there are speed increases and power consumption decreases. My new 6th gen i7 runs much cooler than my older laptops with 4th gen processors.