Intel's Lion Cove P-Core and Gaming Workloads • Hacker News Board

Re: Intel's Lion Cove P-Core and Gaming Workloads

#101

Post by jama211 » Mon, Jul 07, 2025, 6:53 PM UTC

pjmlp wrote: post #22

jama211 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not “no effort to make sure it performs well in the first place”, that isn’t fair. Lots of effort probably went into it performing well, just this case isn’t handled yet and to be fair this only impacts some people currently and there is a chance to update it. This just reads like “if they haven’t handled this specific case they’ve made no effort at all across the board” which seems extreme.

Then why taking the effort to look better that it actually is?

Ok I’m lost

Re: Intel's Lion Cove P-Core and Gaming Workloads

#102

Post by zamadatix » Mon, Jul 07, 2025, 6:55 PM UTC

Havoc wrote: post #35

mort96 wrote: post #8

> E-Cores are turned off in the BIOS, because setting affinity to P-Cores caused massive stuttering in Call of Duty. I understand doing this for the purpose of specifically analyzing the P-core microarchitecture in isolation. However this does make the test less interesting for potential customers. I don't think many people would disable E-cores in BIOS if they bought this CPU, so for the purpose of deciding which CP…

Yeah intel either needs to ensure much better day 1 support for E / P core split or drop it entirely. People see them as an active negative right now rather than how intel pitches them

The recommended actions are built around the assumption optimal gaming performance is the only market segment to please. Of course, efficiency cores were never about pleasing that segment anyways - gamers want fewer huge cores, not lots of big cores or tons of efficient cores. That Windows gaming is slightly imperfect due to scheduling difficulties will not stop AMD, Intel, ARM, etc from continuing to use different sized cores on non-uniform interconnects if it means larger changes in perf/watt and perf/cost for that price.

In practice this is more of a problem for gaming news site headlines than users anyways. For all but the biggest enthusiast the uplift from going to a new system is usually so much they'd not notice it could be a couple percentage points better or that one game is still a bit hitchy. It's us ultra-nerds that care about the 1% lows between different top end CPUs, and we tend to be quickly convinced the problem is Microsoft's to solve for us when the scheduling problem hits ARM, AMD, and Intel based Windows devices equally.

Re: Intel's Lion Cove P-Core and Gaming Workloads

#103

Post by throwaway31131 » Mon, Jul 07, 2025, 7:29 PM UTC

yvdriess wrote: post #34

fortmeier wrote: post #24

I would like to understand more of the article, which book should I read?

https://archive.org/details/computerarchitectureaquantitativ...

That's more of a graduate level book. If you would like a book by the same author, that is lighter in content but much more approachable, I recommend this version: https://www.cs.sfu.ca/~ashriram/Courses/CS295/assets/books/H...

And don't forget to look at the online appendices on the MK website. They are also all very good.

Re: Intel's Lion Cove P-Core and Gaming Workloads

#104

Post by const_cast » Mon, Jul 07, 2025, 8:14 PM UTC

vel0city wrote: post #68

mathiaspoint wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is windows even usable on laptops still? Between the waking from sleep to check notifications and the intensity of all the new background tasks it likely isn't pleasant.

> Is windows even usable on laptops still? Is Linux even usable on laptops still? I've got a number of machines that still seem to fail to wake from sleep on even most recent and common distros. Is Mac even usable on laptops still? I've had a lot of coworkers and friends with Macs still run into hot bag situations often. > Between the waking from sleep to check notifications Its rarely ever actually Windows that's ca…

While this is definitely true, we have to acknowledge Windows has some unique challenges in this space. Sleep pretty much never works correctly on Windows laptops. For me, suspend does. In addition, Windows does have background processes doing god knows what. It's not uncommon to have some slowdown, open up Task Manager and seeing some process I-don't-know-what-it-does pinned at 99% CPU usage.

Re: Intel's Lion Cove P-Core and Gaming Workloads

#105

Post by SleepyMyroslav » Mon, Jul 07, 2025, 8:21 PM UTC

p_ing wrote: post #56

gruturo wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a giant pile of software - decades worth of it, literally - which was already written and released, much of it now unmaintained and/or closed source, where the effort you cite is not a possibility. By all means anything released in 2025 doesn't have that excuse - but I can't fault the authors of 15+ years old programs for not having a crystal ball and accounting for something which didn't exist at the time. I…

AMD and Intel do work with Microsoft (and I'm sure provide code to the Linux scheduler) to optimize the NT scheduler appropriately. Sometimes it doesn't happen Day 1 which is only a problem for the consumers that notice.

Imagine going back when 12th gen was released and posting your post. Alas, nothing has improved in 5 generations of hardware that required complete PC rebuild each time since then. Buying intel for gaming is like a test for ignorance now. There might be a decade before any trust can be restored in the brand /imho.

Re: Intel's Lion Cove P-Core and Gaming Workloads

#106

Post by vel0city » Mon, Jul 07, 2025, 8:35 PM UTC

const_cast wrote: post #104

vel0city wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Is windows even usable on laptops still? Is Linux even usable on laptops still? I've got a number of machines that still seem to fail to wake from sleep on even most recent and common distros. Is Mac even usable on laptops still? I've had a lot of coworkers and friends with Macs still run into hot bag situations often. > Between the waking from sleep to check notifications Its rarely ever actually Windows that's ca…

While this is definitely true, we have to acknowledge Windows has some unique challenges in this space. Sleep pretty much never works correctly on Windows laptops. For me, suspend does. In addition, Windows does have background processes doing god knows what. It's not uncommon to have some slowdown, open up Task Manager and seeing some process I-don't-know-what-it-does pinned at 99% CPU usage.

> Sleep pretty much never works correctly on Windows laptops

Sleep has worked pretty much fine on the vast majority of the Windows computers I've owned/managed, outside of a few troublesome devices such as this Legion Go and some network cards that would wake on any activity.

Meanwhile about half of my Linux machines over the years routinely fail to wake from sleep. Even today I still get issues on a modern-ish Thinkpad that fails to resume from time to time but which slept perfectly fine in Windows 10 and Windows 11 every time.

> It's not uncommon to have some slowdown, open up Task Manager and seeing some process I-don't-know-what-it-does pinned at 99% CPU usage

Yes, and I'm sure if an average user used ps aux on Linux they'd know what everything in that list is doing.

Re: Intel's Lion Cove P-Core and Gaming Workloads

#107

Post by const_cast » Mon, Jul 07, 2025, 8:46 PM UTC

vel0city wrote: post #106

const_cast wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While this is definitely true, we have to acknowledge Windows has some unique challenges in this space. Sleep pretty much never works correctly on Windows laptops. For me, suspend does. In addition, Windows does have background processes doing god knows what. It's not uncommon to have some slowdown, open up Task Manager and seeing some process I-don't-know-what-it-does pinned at 99% CPU usage.

> Sleep pretty much never works correctly on Windows laptops Sleep has worked pretty much fine on the vast majority of the Windows computers I've owned/managed, outside of a few troublesome devices such as this Legion Go and some network cards that would wake on any activity. Meanwhile about half of my Linux machines over the years routinely fail to wake from sleep. Even today I still get issues on a modern-ish Think…

> Sleep has worked pretty much fine on the vast majority of the Windows computers I've owned/managed

Good for you, and I believe you. However you're the only person I've ever met with this sentiment. IME even multi-thousand dollar Windows laptops do not sleep right.

Luckily, it kind of works out. Windows rots if it's left un-rebooted for a few days so forcing reboots with broken sleep almost optimizes the Windows experience.

> Yes, and I'm sure if an average user used ps aux on Linux they'd know what everything in that list is doing.

Fair, but they also don't need to. I never, ever have this problem on Linux. We do have background processes but they seem to be written by people who are, I'm assuming, not asleep. They work fine. Even file indexers like baloo work correctly. I can find any file on my computer on the order of milliseconds, and I never have high CPU usage. I'm being a bit cheeky here - it's very easy to hate on Windows search so I shouldn't be bragging about functional search.

There was that one Windows handheld recently that released a SteamOS version, but I can't remember the name. Anyway sleep works correctly on the SteamOS version, though that's mostly valve's work with properly suspending games. Oh and it gets an extra hour or so of battery. But the tradeoff is... wait... 10% extra performance in games? Through the translation layer? Wow, that's shocking.

Point being, Windows on battery-enabled devices is truly ass. The bottom of the barrel of experiences. It becomes evident when you try out other devices. I have a switch. I press the power button and it turns off. It turns back on instantly. The power doesn't drain. And, my game is right back where I left it. I didn't restore from a save. I'm not on the main menu. It literally suspended the entire state of the game and un-suspended it like nothing happened. That's unthinkable on Windows.

I would never, ever put my Windows laptop to sleep with an unsaved Excel sheet open. If it wakes up, there's a good chance that application is mysteriously restarted. I don't trust anything on Windows.

Re: Intel's Lion Cove P-Core and Gaming Workloads

#108

Post by SleepyMyroslav » Mon, Jul 07, 2025, 9:14 PM UTC

masklinn wrote: post #43

Havoc wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah intel either needs to ensure much better day 1 support for E / P core split or drop it entirely. People see them as an active negative right now rather than how intel pitches them

Scheduling is the OS’s decision not the CPU’s. Although Intel’s configurations are unhelpful to say the least: it’s hard to make good scheduling decisions when Intel sells a 2P, 8E, 2LE as a 12 cores to the user.

Normally "let me google it for you" is impolite on this site but I hope not in this case. Here we go:

"Intel Thread Director leverages machine learning to make intelligent decisions about how to utilize the different types of cores in a hybrid processor, leading to better overall performance and power efficiency."

Feel free to unsee it and ban me.

Disclaimer: I work in gamedev on engine and performance.

Re: Intel's Lion Cove P-Core and Gaming Workloads

#109

Post by vel0city » Mon, Jul 07, 2025, 9:38 PM UTC

const_cast wrote: post #107

vel0city wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Sleep pretty much never works correctly on Windows laptops Sleep has worked pretty much fine on the vast majority of the Windows computers I've owned/managed, outside of a few troublesome devices such as this Legion Go and some network cards that would wake on any activity. Meanwhile about half of my Linux machines over the years routinely fail to wake from sleep. Even today I still get issues on a modern-ish Think…

> Sleep has worked pretty much fine on the vast majority of the Windows computers I've owned/managed Good for you, and I believe you. However you're the only person I've ever met with this sentiment. IME even multi-thousand dollar Windows laptops do not sleep right. Luckily, it kind of works out. Windows rots if it's left un-rebooted for a few days so forcing reboots with broken sleep almost optimizes the Windows exp…

> There was that one Windows handheld recently that released a SteamOS version

It is the device I mentioned earlier. The same device I suggested wasn't sleeping right. And now sleeps fine for me, now that I've disabled that device from waking the machine.

> I never, ever have this problem on Linux

Good for you, and I believe you. I've experienced runaway processes many, many times on Linux systems. Its great when the desktop session gets completely locked up so I have to hop on a different tty to go kill something because the machine is just too overloaded.

> Oh and it gets an extra hour or so of battery. But the tradeoff is... wait... 10% extra performance in games?

Once again, I'd point to crappy drivers. Lenovo has been really slow to actually push graphics drivers on their devices. And Lenovo's tools for managing power profiles is pretty bad, if the reviewer wasn't manually changing between power profiles that could easily have explained those big battery life deltas. And once again that's a Lenovo thing, they really push managing the power profiles in their Legion app instead of using any kind of good profiles in Windows itself. I play pretty similar games to those games he reviewed with big battery life deltas, and I get roughly the same battery life as he did running SteamOS.

> The bottom of the barrel of experiences

I constantly get sleep issues on my Linux hardware where it just fails to resume and sits at a black screen or throws kernel panics. I've got coworkers whose external displays don't get reconnected right from sleep. These are pretty bottom of the barrel experiences. Meanwhile, every one of my Windows machines sleeps and wakes without any issues.

Re: Intel's Lion Cove P-Core and Gaming Workloads

#110

Post by smolder » Mon, Jul 07, 2025, 11:39 PM UTC

pjmlp wrote: post #14

mort96 wrote: post #8

> E-Cores are turned off in the BIOS, because setting affinity to P-Cores caused massive stuttering in Call of Duty. I understand doing this for the purpose of specifically analyzing the P-core microarchitecture in isolation. However this does make the test less interesting for potential customers. I don't think many people would disable E-cores in BIOS if they bought this CPU, so for the purpose of deciding which CP…

I think many haven't yet grasped the future is heterogeneous computing, especially, when many desktops are actually laptops nowadays. Software working poorly in such setup means no effort was made to actually make it perform well in first place. Games requiring desktop cases looking like a rainbow aquarium with top everything will become a niche, in today's mobile computing world, and with diminishing sales and atten…

You can still buy and build (I do) powerful gaming-capable systems that do not emit rainbow-puke or have transparent panels and other gimmicky stuff like that.