You may not yet be clear on this new designation for Intel cores. E-Cores are single cores with modest performance and high efficiency, intended for light tasks such as Internet browsing. On the other hand, P-Cores are the “old-fashioned” cores, designed for heavy tasks like playing games, photo and/or video editing, etc.
Windows is not designed for these cores
The first thing you need to know is that Microsoft had never explored this type of core. Although there are several Windows optimized for ARM architecture processors and similar, this is not a complete implementation. Windows actually runs on ARM as a sort of emulation, it’s not specifically designed for that architecture.
Indeed, historically, Microsoft has worked with “simple” processors equipped with a single type of core. As Intel introduced a new design and being the largest PC processor manufacturer in the world, they had to adapt. So much so that Windows 11 is nothing more than a “big update” to Windows 10 to accommodate E-Cores.
Come on, it’s some kind of patch and it’s bad. It seems like he’s not getting the most out of the E-Cores, either because he doesn’t know when to use them or because he uses them inappropriately.
E-Core performance issue
You should know that, according to Intel, the E-Core In heavy tasks what would the games be like complement of the P nuclei. Basically, they would help in computing tasks, gaining extra performance. But it seems that is not the case.
TechPowerUp shows how Fallen Atlas improves without effective cores activated. More precisely, under DirectX12 with the Active E-Core andThe game runs on average at 136 frames per secondwhile with these disabled pull on 187 frames per second. down Vulcan we have something similar, since with the E-Cores assets it works for some 152 frames per second and with these disabled we are going to 197 frames per second. These tests were carried out with an Intel Core i9-13900K equipped with 8 P-Cores and 16 E-Cores.
It seems that this is not the norm
We found a video from DannyzReviews that appears to “debunk” this claim. According to the results shown, gaming performance deteriorates (or barely changes) if E-Cores are disabled. There is only one case where performance deteriorates significantly and that is in Metro Exodus Enhaced. This game with the efficient cores shows 145 FPS, but with them disabled it drops to 161 FPS.
What’s interesting is that there are many games in which there is almost no significant variation in performance, which shows that they don’t contribute to it either.
Game | Active E colors | Electronic colors disabled |
---|---|---|
Fallen Atlas (DX12) | 136 frames per second | 187 frames per second |
Fallen Atlas (volcano) | 152 frames per second | 197 frames per second |
A plague tale requiem | 167 frames per second | 166 frames per second |
Marvel’s Spider Man remastered | 194 frames per second | 184 frames per second |
Back | 194 frames per second | 193 frames per second |
Death Stranding | 240 frames per second | 240 frames per second |
Total War Warhammer III | 263 frames per second | 250 frames per second |
Microsoft Flight Simulator | 141 frames per second | 139 frames per second |
Speeds 5 | 249 frames per second | 229 frames per second |
Improved Metro Exodus | 145 frames per second | 161 frames per second |
CoD Modern Warfare 2 | 320 frames per second | 301 frames per second |
CSGO | 829 frames per second | 788 frames per second |
Cyberpunk 2077 and Red Dead Redemption 2 have our attention because they are two great games. This is likely due to a lack of optimization of these cores. What’s interesting is that Watch Dogs Legion, Control and Forza Horizon 5 remain unchanged. This may be because they don’t use the efficient cores of Intel processors, although we can’t guarantee that either.
We would like to point out that the CS:GO game appears here, and not its subsequent update, since these performance tests are carried out before the Valve game update.
We find that generally speaking, we see games getting a performance boost. This doesn’t happen in all cases, but it’s not new either. It is normal for games to have performance differences depending on the components. This could be due to the development engine or programming structure, among other factors.