Fanless Mobile Core i System Announced

[Ogewo]

Acer announced a new tablet using some kind of heatpipe setup to run Core i3, i5, and i7 CPUs without a fan:

http://www.engadget.com/2016/04/21/acers-switch-alpha-12-is-a-silent-liquid-cooled-hybrid-laptop/

http://www.acer.com/ac/en/US/press/2016/182718

How do you guys this this will perform compared to the next best fanless x86 chip, the Core M? Can Core i offer any advantage under the same thermal restrictions?

Current light, fanless, Windows tablets I like are the HP Elite x2 1012 and Spectre x2, and Dell Inspiron 11 5175.

 

[Magic Carpet]

Likely to overheat in the hot weather, as a result throttling will occur. Not sure if Acer is serious, unless the whole chassis is designed to dissipate heat. User replaceable quiet fan is the best option, there is.

 

[Starjack]

And i thought the Core M series was good enough for them. Might still overheat, throttling and most likely decrease in performance over the time if more than one tasks was handled on the device. Although it might also come down to the nano-meter process and design of these chip sets as well. Having a heatpipe might work but not a game changer in the long run. The other thing is if they would be using the ultra-low versions of the CPUs instead of the mainstream ones.

 

[LTC8K6]

Which Core i3/i5/i7 chips?

There are 15 watt dual core i7 chips.

It doesn't sound like there would be a problem cooling those, given the description of the cooling system?

 

[Roland00Address]

So intel has the core line whose cTDP down tdp is only 7.5 watts. These models are

i7 6500U

i5 6200u
i5 6100u

i3 6100u

We know from a hands on that it is using a cpu that has this cTDP down option (the 6100u) so most likely it be using the feature of cTDP down but we will have to wait for it to hit shelves to be sure if it does or does not.

http://www.trustedreviews.com/acer-switch-alpha-12-review

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If it is using cTDP down I am curious how it would perform vs a core M especially a core M that uses CTDP up to 7 watts.

Now the core m and the core i architecture may be the same on the cpu part of the die but they are not the same chip due to other things being different such as the packaging and thus you use completely different motherboards, thus making it less likely for an OEM to invest on a "design model" / "form factor" and then offer both core m and the core i series which use different motherboards. It is probably much simpler for the OEM to see if cTDP down or cTDP up can fix this problem.

 

[Ogewo]

So intel has the core line whose cTDP down tdp is only 7.5 watts. These models are

i7 6500U

i5 6200u
i5 6100u

i3 6100u

We know from a hands on that it is using a cpu that has this cTDP down option (the 6100u) so most likely it be using the feature of cTDP down but we will have to wait for it to hit shelves to be sure if it does or does not.

http://www.trustedreviews.com/acer-switch-alpha-12-review

----

If it is using cTDP down I am curious how it would perform vs a core M especially a core M that uses CTDP up to 7 watts.

Now the core m and the core i architecture may be the same on the cpu part of the die but they are not the same chip due to other things being different such as the packaging and thus you use completely different motherboards, thus making it less likely for an OEM to invest on a "design model" / "form factor" and then offer both core m and the core i series which use different motherboards. It is probably much simpler for the OEM to see if cTDP down or cTDP up can fix this problem.

Thank you! It sounds likely that Acer is using these CPUs. The TDPd frequencies for the following 7.5w TDPd chips is 800 MHz:

i3 6100u
i5 6200u
i5 6300u
i7 6500u
i7 6600u

http://ark.intel.com/compare/88199,88197,88202,88192,88194,88190,88193,88180,88198

That's a bit low. Previous generation Core M 5Y10 had a base frequency of 800 MHz, and current gen Core M are 900 MHz - 1.2 GHz. And that's at 4.5w. So my conclusion is that we should be skeptical of this Acer until proven otherwise.