Intel Core i7-11850H vs Intel Core i7-7920HQ

Intel Core i7-11850H

The Intel Core i7-11800H is a high end octa core SoC for gaming laptops and mobile workstations. It is based on the Tiger Lake H45 generation and will be announced in mid 2021. It integrates eight Willow Cove processor cores (16 threads thanks to HyperThreading). The base clock speed depends on the TDP setting and at 45 Watt is at 2.4 GHz. The single core boost speed can reach up to 4.6 GHz, all cores can reach up to 4.2 GHz. The CPU offers 24 MB level 3 cache and supports DDR4-3200 memory. Compared to the slower clocked i7-11800H, the 11850H offers professional management features like Intel vPro, SIPP or TXT.

Thanks to the new Tiger Lake architecture, the i9-11850H should be similar or faster than the old Intel Core i9-10875H (Comet Lake-H, 2.3 - 5.1 GHz, 16 MB L3) in single and multi threaded performance and similar to the Ryzen 9 5800H (Zen 3, 3.2 - 4.4 GHz, 16 MB L3). Therefore, the i7 is well suited for even very demanding tasks.

The SoC also includes the improved Xe graphics card called UHD graphics with all 32 EUs.

Furthermore, Tiger Lake SoCs add PCIe 4 support (20 lanes in the H45 series), AI hardware acceleration, and the partial integration of Thunderbolt 4/USB 4 and Wi-Fi 6E in the chip.

The chip is produced on the improved 10nm process (called 10nm SuperFin) at Intel, which should be comparable to the 7nm process at TSMC (e.g. Ryzen 4000 series). The default TDP is rated at 45 W at 2.4 GHz base speed, at 35 Watt the base clock speed decreases to 2 GHz (cTDP down).

All articles on Tiger Lake can be found on our Tiger Lake architecture hub.

Intel Core i7-7920HQ

The Intel Core i7-7920HQ is a fast quad-core processor for notebooks based on the Kaby Lake architecture and was announced in January 2017. It is the top model of the consumer series at the time of the announcement. Only the Xeon E3-1535M v6 is faster (100 - 200 MHz higher Turbo clocks). Besides four cores including Hyper-Threading support running at 3.1-4.1 GHz (4 cores up to 3.7 GHz, 2 cores up to 3.9 GHz), the processor is also equipped with the HD Graphics 630 GPU as well as a dual-channel memory controller (DDR3L-1600/DDR4-2400). It is manufactured in a 14nm process with FinFET transistors.

Architecture

Intel basically uses the same micro architecture compared to Skylake, so the per-MHz performance does not differ. The manufacturer only reworked the Speed Shift technology for faster dynamic adjustments of voltages and clocks, and the improved 14nm process allows much higher frequencies combined with better efficiency than before.

Performance

The performance is a bit higher compared to the Skylake predecessor Core i7-6920HQ (2.9-3.8 GHz) thanks to slightly higher clocks (up to 7.9%), so it is the fastest mobile consumer processor in the beginning of 2017 (mobile Xeon E5-1535M v6 has even higher Turbo clocks). The performance is sufficient even for very demanding tasks and on par with powerful desktop quad-core processors.

Graphics

The integrated Intel HD Graphics 630 has 24 Execution Units (similar to previous HD Graphics 530) running at 350 - 1100 MHz. The performance depends a lot on the memory configuration; it should be comparable to a dedicated Nvidia GeForce 920M in combination with fast DDR4-2133 dual-channel memory.

Contrary to Skylake, Kaby Lake now supports hardware decoding for H.265/HEVC Main 10 with a 10-bit color depth as well as Google's VP9 codec. The dual-core Kaby Lake processors, which were announced in January, should also support HDCP 2.2.

Power Consumption

The chip is manufactured in an improved 14nm process with FinFET transistors, which improves the efficiency even further. Intel still specifies the TDP with 45 Watts, but it can also be reduced to 35 Watts by the notebook manufacturers (cTDP down). This will obviously affect the performance, because the Turbo Boost cannot be maintained for longer periods.