Fastest 4.5 Watt Core M 5Y71 In Asus T300 Chi Competitive With Full Core i5 CPUs

MojoKid writes: Asus unveiled its latest addition to the Transformer series at CES in January, the Transformer Book Chi, which just recently began shipping. Available in three sizes, the new Transformer Book Chi Series features a 2-in-1 detachable design. The flagship Transformer Book T300 Chi offers a 12.5-inch screen, an Intel Core M processor, and a fanless cooling solution. The 2-in-1 detachable design employs a magnetic hinge that supports four usage modes: Attached, Detached, Flipped, and Tented. The T300 Chi measures about 0.65 inches when docked, making it slightly thinner than an Apple Macbook Air. Asus claims the T300 Chi is the world's thinnest Windows tablet, measuring just 0.28 inches thick. More interestingly, perhaps, is that Asus built this machine with Intel's fastest Core M chip, the Core M 5Y71. In the benchmarks, it competes well even with full-sized ultrabooks, though battery life does take a hit due to the system's mechanical limitations and smaller 31Whr battery. At prices from $400 to $900, this might be an interesting choice for anyone considering the new Surface 3, too.

Comments

So?

[pushing-robot]

Intel is slapping i5 (and i7) on some pretty slow chips these days...

Re:So?

[sexconker]

Charging more for less, the Intel way!

Re:So?

[Anonymous Coward]

The i5 and i7 designations don't indicate performance but feature sets. Current i5 processors don't have hyper-threading, for example, but all current i7 processors do. The low end Pentiums didn't have virtualization support (but current Pentium-N do). All in all though, Intel branding and marketing with regard to their core product is a clusterfuck. Not even people who care about these things can readily tell which is the better CPU anymore.

No! Faster laptops, please.

[BrendaEM]

I am getting tired of Volkswagon Beetle laptop computer. Intel is just now making a U-series processor as fast as an 4-year old M.
Are we heading into the computer dark ages?

Re:No! Faster laptops, please.

[ChunderDownunder]

It's a tablet. They're cramming the computer into the screen. So it needs to run cool.

Contrast that with a traditional laptop whose internal organs rest underneath the keyboard. It blows out excess heat out each side using a fan.

If you want a noisy, fast, Core i7 laptop, don't get a convertible.

Re:No! Faster laptops, please.

[nctritech]

I picked up an Asus Q551LN recently and despite it being a "convertible" laptop (which I will never "convert" but the only other i7-4xxx 15" options were a junky plastic HP and a "Republic of Gamers" cinder block) it has a proper cooling system in the hinge area similar to an older MacBook Pro (though not nearly as poor). It's a Core i7 ULV; it's not noisy but it's pretty darn fast. Admittedly, it's half the PassMark score of a 4710MQ, but the low TDP (it barely gets warm) and the fact that I don't have to lug around one of those absurdly fat gaming laptops totally offset the performance drop.

Turbo

[darkain]

According to Passmark, this chip is clocked at 1.2GHz with a "Turbo" speed of 2.9GHz. In other words, it can do very short bursts at nearly 2.5x the clock speed, then have to scale back down to normal because of the heat it would generate. So while this thing looks awesome in synthetic benchmarks, how would it seriously handle in a sustained computing environment?

Re:Turbo

[pushing-robot]

Benchmarks are a more 'sustained' CPU load than typical home/office use. If anything, I think these would feel faster than the tests imply. Not everyone spends their day compiling code or applying Photoshop filters. (What's wrong with them?)

Re:Turbo

[ArchieBunker]

What tablet is used in a sustained computing environment? This about portability and battery life, not rendering models or transcoding video.

Re:Turbo

[drinkypoo]

What tablet is used in a sustained computing environment? This about portability and battery life, not rendering models or transcoding video.

The first time you have to play a HD video whose codec isn't supported by the GPU and its drivers, you'll know.

always felt a 10.1 was just right for tablets

[Trax3001BBS]

Any smaller you have a large phone, larger a laptop, but this ASUS could change my mind; looks nice. If only it weren't a windows OS.

Misleading headline?

[Narishma]

It may be competitive with an i5 (whatever that means) but only short bursty workloads because if it's anything like the other Core M processors out in the wild, it will start heavily throttling after a couple of minutes.

After Market Battery

[jbeaupre]

I bought an after market lithium battery and now my laptop lasts for days, weeks, even months between charges. The extra weight is a tradeoff. When people see it, they ask "What the hell is that!" But that's normal when you are cutting edge.
http://www.teslamotors.com/pow...

Re:After my Transformer Infinity, never again

[Bing Tsher E]

I have a current Asus Transformer running Windows 8.1 and it's been a great tablet. If I tried to pretend it was a laptop I would probably be disappointed. But at the time I was trying to decide between buying a new 10" Android laptop and this thing, which runs real x86 Windows software. For the same price point I opted for the x86 tablet and I haven't looked back. I have an Asus 10" Android tablet that is about two years old and I haven't turned it on in weeks.

The Windows tablet stuff only needs enough people to try it and figure it out before Tablet Windows kills either Android or iOS on the tablet. Probably not both, but one or the other will die soon.