The Intel Core i3-1005G1 is a low-power, Ice Lake family processor (SoC) featuring 2 cores, 4 threads, 4 MB of L3 cache and the UHD G1 (32 EUs) iGPU. It saw the light of day in 2019. The chip is designed for use in highly portable laptops of the more affordable flavour; the CPU cores run at 1.2 GHz to 3.4 GHz which is not a lot.
Architecture & Features
Ice Lake family chips are powered by Sunny Cove CPU cores.The latter aim to do what Palm Cove cores (that we never really got a chance to get a taste of) were expected to do, delivering a double-digit IPC uplift over the venerable Skylake architecture thanks to a range of small improvements across the board including scheduler improvements, larger caches and buffers, and support for new instruction sets.
Thunderbolt 3 support is built right into the Core i3 (meaning it has several PCIe 3 lanes exclusive to Thunderbolt devices, reducing the number of additional components required for Thunderbolt to work) and so is Intel CNVi Wi-Fi 6 support (making it easier for Intel to sell its proprietary WLAN cards to laptop makers). The Core i3-1005G1 also has the DL Boost and GNA features for applications centered around machine learning.
The 4 GT/s bus is indicative of a consumer-grade chip, since CPUs for gaming laptops and portable workstations usually employ the faster 8 GT/s bus. RAM support is nothing to sneeze at, at up to DDR4-3200 or LPDDR4-3733. NVMe SSDs are supported, with data transfer rates limited to 3.9 GB/s (this is what four PCIe 3 lanes are good for). SATA drives and even eMMC chips are also natively supported here.
This is not a user-replaceable CPU, as it gets permanently soldered to the motherboard (BGA1526 socket interface).
OS support is limited to 64-bit Windows 10 and 64-bit Windows 11, as well as many Linux distros.
Performance
The average 1005G1 in our database is a disappointment, its multi-thread benchmark scores only matching those of Intel's Core i5-7267U and AMD's Ryzen 3 2300U. This is unfortunately in line with what we've been seeing from other Ice Lake family processors; they tend to be held back by their comparatively low clock speeds. While not as slow as many Celerons and Pentiums, this Core i3 will still look out of place in anything but the most affordable laptops and mini-PCs.
With its long-term CPU power limit of 25 W, the Lenovo V17-IIL 82GX008TGE is among the fastest laptops built around this Core i3 that we know of.
Graphics
The Core i3-1005G1 features the UHD Graphics G1 (32 EUs) graphics adapter running at up to 900 MHz. This DX12-compatible iGPU is not much faster than the dated UHD 620 graphics solution, making it almost useless to gamers, and there are no cutting-edge features such as ray tracing support to be found here, either. The list of supported resolutions tops out at 5120 x 3200, and there is no hardware AV1 codec support meaning such a video will be SW-decoded with rather low energy efficiency. The usual HEVC, AVC and VP9 options are supported, thankfully.
The G1 will drive up to 3 monitors simultaneously, provided the system has the outputs required. Higher-end Ice Lake chips are equipped with the G4 (48 EUs) or the G7 (64 EUs) adapters that are significantly faster.
Power consumption
The Core i3 has a 15 W default TDP (also known as the long-term power limit), a value that laptop makers are allowed to reduce slightly - 13 W being the lower limit - resulting in lower clock speeds and lower performance. Either way, that's a tad too high to allow for passively cooled designs.
The SoC is built with Intel's second-gen 10 nm process (not "10 nm SuperFin" or "Intel 7") for average, as of late 2022, energy efficiency.
The Intel Core i7-1270P is a higher-end Alder Lake-P family CPU, an expensive 28 W part meant for use in ultra-light, ultra-thin (yet actively cooled) laptops. This CPU was announced in early 2022 and it has 4 performance cores as opposed to the 6 cores of the top-of-the-line 1280P (P-cores, Golden Cove architecture) mated to 8 efficient cores (E-cores, Gracemont architecture). The P-cores are Hyper-Threading-enabled for a total of 16 threads when combined with the E-cores. The clock speeds range from 2.2 GHz to 4.8 GHz for the performance cluster and 1.6 GHz to 3.5 GHz for the efficient cluster. Full vPro feature set is supported by this Core i7 ("Enterprise" tier, allowing for remote device management). Its shortcomings as compared with the mighty i7-1280P include the smaller L3 cache, lower core count, lower clock speeds; the performance is slated to be significantly lower as a result.
A brief look at the specifications instantly reveals this i7 series chip to be very similar to the Core i5-12600H, a more power-hungry processor targeted at gaming laptops.
Architecture
The i7 is a continuation of Intel's efforts to use the ARM-developed big.LITTLE technology for its own benefit. A single "little" Alder Lake core is supposed to be as fast as a Skylake core (as found in the venerable Core i7-6700HQ among other options) which is six years old at this point. All of an Intel Core i7-1270P's CPU cores enjoy access to 18 MB of L3 cache. The integrated memory controller supports various memory types up to LPDDR5-5200, DDR5-4800, LPDDR4x-4267 or DDR4-3200. Intel suggests using no more than 64 GB, for reference. Just like the other 12th Gen Intel Core processors, Core i7-1270P comes with Thread Director which is a new functionality designed to help Windows 11 decide which cores to use for what workload for best performance and efficiency possible. Hardware acceleration of AI algorithms is supported via GNA 3.0 and DL Boost (via AVX2). PCI-Express 5.0 support has not found its way into Alder Lake P processors, so users will have to be content with PCI-Express 4.0 for the time being. Four PCI-Express 4 lanes allow for a read/write rate of up to 7.9 GB/s, provided a suitably fast NVMe SSD is used.
Please note this is not a user-replaceable CPU. It gets soldered permanently on to the motherboard (BGA1744 socket interface).
Performance
The 12 CPU cores are not just able to outshine any outgoing quad-core Tiger Lake part, the i7-1195G7 included. The average 1270P in our database directly competes with the Ryzen 7 5825U, the Ryzen 7 7730U and the Ryzen 7 7735U, meaning this little Core i7 is fast enough to make most consumers happy as of mid 2023.
The fairly high processing power comes at a cost. A single Golden Cove core can consume more than 20 W when under heavy load. Your mileage may thus vary depending on how high the Power Limits are and how competent the cooling solution of your laptop is.
Graphics
The built-in graphics adapter in the form of the 96 EU Iris Xe running at up to 1.40 GHz has seen no change from what was built into the 11th Gen Tiger Lake-UP3 processors, like an i7-1165G7, which is hardly a downside as this iGPU is loaded with modern features such as AV1 video decoding capability and SUHD 4320p monitor support. Up to 4 monitors can be used simultaneously with this iGPU. We expect the gaming performance to be reasonably close to that of NVIDIA's MX350.
In other words, the Xe is good enough for most games at 1080p resolution / Medium settings, provided the Power Limits are high enough and the cooling solution is competent enough. Fast RAM is a prerequisite for decent performance as well (the Xe has to make do with no dedicated video memory).
Last but not the least, we discovered that the GPU utilization when playing YouTube UHD 2160p60 videos is higher than it was with Tiger Lake chips.
Power consumption
The i7's base power consumption (also known as the default TDP or Power Limit 1) is 28 W, with 64 W being its maximum Turbo power consumption (also known as the PL2). As for the "Minimum Assured" power consumption, Intel's guidelines mention 20 W. All in all, an active cooling solution is a must for such a chip.
The CPU is built with Intel's fourth-gen 10 nm process marketed as Intel 7 for decent, as of late 2022, energy efficiency. It's still a rather power-hungry CPU; a single P-core will happily consume more than 20 W when under heavy load. A couple of the higher-end 7 nm U-class AMD Ryzen 5000 chips are not nearly as power-hungry while delivering similar or higher performance levels.
Average Benchmarks Intel Core i3-1005G1 → 100%n=35
Average Benchmarks Intel Core i7-1270P → 238%n=35
- Range of benchmark values for this graphics card - Average benchmark values for this graphics card * Smaller numbers mean a higher performance 1 This benchmark is not used for the average calculation
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