What is the P-cores and E-cores in modern Intel processors?

 

During the past years, Intel has made a technical revolution in the world of manufacturing central processing units for computers. After all the central processing units used were single-core only, it has evolved to include multi-core types of central processing units, and there have been dual, quadruple, and eight-core processors. The main goal of designing Multi-core processors is the distribution of tasks between those cores in order to be able to process data faster, which greatly improved the performance of computers.

 

The improvement of the performance of these multi-core processors was accompanied by the consumption of more energy, but with the advent of the twelfth generation (Alder Lake) of its processors, Intel provided us with a solution to this problem, which was represented in the design of two different types of cores integrated into a single CPU package, one of which is Type B or performance cores "P-Cores", and the other is type E or efficiency cores "E-Cores". In this article, we learn about these two types of cores integrated into the twelfth generation and later Intel processors.

 

How conventional multi-core processors work

 

The primary role that processors play in computers is to receive instructions and commands, then analyze them, process them, and send them to that part of the device that is concerned with executing them (hard disk, graphics card, internet, sound, etc.). The use of multi-core processors for computers is similar to the use of more than one processor together at the same time, which increases the speed of the device’s performance of the tasks required of it, but since all these cores are connected to each other in one circuit that is powered by the same socket, the speed of their connection together is greater and their performance is better than If several different processors are used to perform tasks in parallel.

 

Although multi-core processors provide the faster performance of tasks, their use is not considered an advantage all the time, as they consume more energy, and because all cores are exactly the same, they consume the same amount of energy even with the different types of tasks performed by the processor, and even when the device is in sleep mode, there is a minimum amount of power that the central processor will draw, no matter how simple its tasks are. There may not be a problem in this regard for a desktop computer that draws power directly from the power socket, but for laptops that draw its power from a battery, every watt of energy must be directed to its correct place, that is, every part of the device must be more Efficient in battery power consumption.

 

The twelfth generation of Intel processors

 

In the processors of this generation, Intel has designed the processors so that the processor chip itself includes two groups of cores, each group of which performs different tasks so that the largest group of cores deals with high-performance tasks, i.e. the performance of the processor is more focused on these tasks and this group is called performance cores. Performance Cores" referred to as "P-cores", while the smallest group of cores that handles the processing and execution of light secondary tasks such as surfing the Internet, and therefore the processor consumes less energy in executing those tasks that do not require a large processing speed and high performance, and this group is called Among the cores are Efficiency Cores, abbreviated as E-cores.

 

Smartphone processor manufacturers have taken a similar approach before with phones whose processors have an asymmetric mix of cores whereby the most power-hungry cores only work in the case of high-performance tasks such as playing video games or when some applications require better performance for some time to accomplish a specific task. Then those cores stop working so that the lower power-consuming cores start their work during simple tasks such as watching videos and browsing the web. For computers, Intel's Alder Lake processors are the first to adopt this approach in computers.

 

The number of performance cores and efficiency cores integrated into the CPU package differs in each type of the twelfth generation of Intel processors. The same number of cores as the full model of the 12th generation processor designed by Intel, the i7 processor contains four performance cores and 8 efficiency cores, while the i5 processor contains four performance cores and 6 efficiency cores.

 

Features of hybrid multi-core processors

 

The use of hybrid Intel processors that combine performance-optimized cores with improved energy-efficiency cores provides a number of advantages for both desktop and laptop computer users, the most important of which are:

 

● For laptop users: Hybrid processors can be especially beneficial for laptop users because the daily use of these devices, for the most part, does not include many high-performance tasks, and for some, it is limited to surfing the Internet, watching video and preparing reports, and therefore the efficiency cores will be consumed in The processor has less power, which preserves the battery life of the device, and reduces the temperature of the device during operation.

 

● For desktop computer users: When using a desktop computer or laptop directly connected to the power source, hybrid processors may have an additional advantage over others in playing video games, as the energy of the performance cores can be fully harnessed to run the game, while the efficiency cores group takes care of carrying out other light tasks such as Downloads and apps running in the background.

 

Disadvantages of hybrid multi-core processors

 

Although the group of performance cores and the group of efficiency cores in the new multi-core processors are designed so that each group of them performs different tasks without interfering with each other, there are still some issues related to the compatibility of these processors with the current architecture of computer operating systems, especially in cases 32-bit (x86) operating systems, as computer software developers did not expect computer processors to include more than one type of CPU, so their programs did not yet realize the difference between the two types of cores used by the new processor. This problem caused errors in the operation of some programs and caused them to behave in an undesirable way, such as the "Denuvo" program, which had a clear impact on the performance of games.

 

But fortunately, the current operating systems contribute to linking programs to the central processing units as needed, and thus the incompatibility problems are fixable, and the Windows 11 operating system, for example, contains a program to schedule the tasks of the hybrid processors, and in this way, it is possible to fix the incompatibility issues and prepare the programs in order to It deals with different types of CPU cores.

 

How to choose the appropriate hybrid processor type in terms of the number of cores

 

The production of groups of efficiency cores is easier and less expensive than the production of performance cores, and therefore when you buy a new processor if the hybrid type that contains performance cores and efficiency cores together, know that you pay the largest part of the product price for the performance improvement benefits provided by the processor, then you must Choose the appropriate processor according to the number of performance cores that meet the requirements for running high-performance applications that you use on your device.

 

Abstract | Multi-core CPUs provide better performance for computers and greater speed in performing operations and carrying out various tasks, but this improvement in performance is always accompanied by consuming more energy even in the case of light tasks that do not require high performance, due to the similarity of all the cores that it uses. The processor in its performance-enhancing characteristics, and therefore the use of multi-core processors may not be an advantage all the time, especially in the case of laptops whose battery drains faster with this improved performance.

 

Intel Corporation provided the solution to this problem, which was represented by its development of twelfth-generation processors. These processors are multi-core, but they contain two groups of cores, each of which performs different tasks, so one of them is dedicated to carrying out high-performance tasks such as video games and is known as the performance core, and the second is dedicated to working during light tasks that do not require high performance and consume less energy such as browsing Web and running background applications are called efficiency kernels. These processors combine the benefits of improving performance and energy efficiency and are especially useful for laptops, as they maintain battery life for a longer time, and reduce the temperature of the device during operation.