Intel Ivy Bridge Core i5-3427U / Ultrabook Platform Review: Making Slower Faster

Performance – Competitors, Processor

Performance – Competition

To gain a sense of how the Ivy Bridge low-voltage processor performs we of course need a proper frame of reference. 

Normally we reference specific laptops as points of comparison, but since this is a reference platform review we will instead be citing specific hardware. And since we’re effectively testing two different parts – the Core i5 processor and the Intel HD 4000 IGP – we’ll be using two different sets of competitors.

We’ll be stacking up the Core i5-3427U against the Intel Core i5-2467M (from the Acer Aspire Timeline Ultra M3), the AMD A10-4600M (from AMD’s Trinity reference platform) and the Intel Core i5-2540M (from the HP dm4t Beats Edition). We won’t be including the Ivy Bridge quad-core because, frankly, that processor will trounce everything listed here to such a degree that it will skew the graphs and your impression of what these processors can do.

We’ve already tested Intel HD 4000, but only with the Core i7-3720QM. The version shipped with ultrabooks has a lower clock speed and therefor needs to be re-tested. Our competition will be Intel HD 4000 (from the Core i7-3720QM), the Radeon 7660G (from the AMD Trinity reference platform) and the Nvidia GT 630 (from the Ivy Bridge reference platform). 

Let’s get to it, shall we?

Performance – Processor

As always we dive in with SiSoft Sandra’s processor benchmarks. They provide a good baseline for the relative performance of any processor.

SiSoft Sandra starts off by telling us a not unexpected story. The new Ivy Bridge low-voltage part is a fair bit quicker than the older one, beating it by about 30% overall in the Arithmetic test. This is a good start for the new Core i5-3427U. Let’s see if it can keep the momentum in our next benchmarks.

The multi-thread capability of 7-Zip allows the AMD A10 quad-core to make up ground here, basically tying the powerful Core i5-2540M and beating the Core i5-3427U. The new Ivy Bridge low-voltage part holds its own, however, by coming extremely close to the performance of the last-generation Sandy Bridge dual-core.

The AMD Trinity part falls back in Peacekeeper, which favors strong single-core performance. The new 3427U beats the older 2467M by about 12 percent but falls significantly behind the Core i5-2540M.

Performance – General

Now let’s look at two general application performance benchmarks that play a significant load on the processor. We start with Windows Live Movie Maker, which we use to save a standardized video clip to 1080p. Fast processors get a chance to strut their stuff in this scenario.

Intel’s new Core i5-3427U upsets both the Sandy Bridge dual cores in this benchmark, which is a bit of a surprise. AMD’s Trinity trails way behind the Intel products. This software clearly responds favorably to new Intel products.

Next up with have the freeware batch photo editing app BatchBlitz. This program is easier to use than the batch photo editing options in many free image editing suites. It can cram through photos quickly but isn’t particularly well optimized for many threads.

The new Ivy Bridge low-voltage part once again upsets both Sandy Bridge dual-cores and also defeats the AMD Trinity system. In fact, the Core i5-3427U is nearly 50% quicker in BatchBlitz than the Core i5-2467M. That’s a major victory for Ivy Bridge.