Apple Silicon|Intel

Intel 10th Gen Comet Lake Mobile CPU Early Benchmark: Look out, AMD Ryzen 4000

9th Gen Intel Core Mobile H-Series Processor

9th Gen Intel Core Mobile H-Series processor (Image credit: Intel)

An upcoming Intel Core i9-10980HK laptop chip has hit Geekbench 4 before being announced, as spotted by hardware sniffer @TUM_APISAK .

The high-end i9-10980HK, which is the successor to the current Core i9-9980HK mobile processor, is reportedly based on the Comet Lake microarchitecture. However, the 14nm chip should retain the majority of the characteristics of its Coffee Lake predecessor, with upgrades mostly coming in the form of improved clock speeds .

The Geekbench 4 listing shows the i9-10980HK with an eight-core, 16-thread configuration with 16MB of L3 cache , just like the i9-9980HK . The octa-core chip reportedly runs with a 3.1 GHz base clock , approximately 29.2% higher than that of the i9-9980HK. The boost clock improvement isn't as impressive, though. According to the entry, the  i9-10980HK boosts up to 5.27 GHz, which is only 270 MHz or 5.4% faster than the i9-9980HK.

Intel Core 10980HK Specs

ModelCores / ThreadsBase / Boost Clock (GHz)L3 Cache (MB)TDP (W)
Intel Core i9-10980HK*8 / 163.10 / 5.271645
Intel Core i9-9980HK8 / 162.40 / 5.001645
AMD Ryzen 9 4900HS*8 / 163.00 / 4.40835
AMD Ryzen 9 4900H*8 / 163.00 / 4.40845
AMD Ryzen 7 4800H8 / 162.90 / 4.20845

*Specifications are not confirmed.

The i9-9980HK conforms to a 45W TDP (thermal design power), so it's only natural to expect the i9-10980HK to do the same. Comet Lake desktop chips are rumored to feature a higher TDP in comparison to their successors due to the increase in core count. In the i9-10980HK's case, the chip doesn't come with more cores than its predecessor; however, the faster clock speeds should make it run a bit hotter than the i9-9980HK.

THe i9-10980HK will go head-to-head against the likes of the AMD Ryzen 7 4800H and Ryzen 9 4900H (unannounced) APUs that operate within the 45W envelope.

Intel Core i9-10980HK geekbench

(Image credit: Primate Labs Inc.)

The i9-10980HK as with the Ryzen 7 4800H and Ryzen 9 4900H haven't officially launched yet. Until we get reviews of the processors, take these early performance numbers with a grain of salt.

The i9-10980HK reportedly scored 6,321 and 32,038 points in Geekbench 4's single-core and multi-core tests, respectively. A Ryzen 7 4800H Geekbench entry from last week shows the octa-core chip putting up 5,228 single-core and 31,614 multi-core scores. This would mean the i9-10980HK has the advantage in single-thread performance by 20.9%. The performance difference in multi-threaded performance is only a mere 1.3%.

While the i9-10980HK appears to beat the Ryzen 7 4800H, AMD still has the Ryzen 9 4900H up its sleeves. Sadly, neither the Ryzen 9 4900H nor Ryzen 9 4900HS , (an Asus-exclusive, according to AnandTech ), have appeared in Geekbench's database, so a direct comparison isn't available yet.

  • N_tell
    Finally... something from INTEL.
    Reply
  • shiitaki
    Yes, something from Intel. The article is actually bad news for Intel because it doesn't mention Geekbench scores don't reflect the sustained performance since the very short tests run during the short term TDP power limit. The energy efficiency of the AMD chips is such that in anything runs for more than a minute will significantly go in AMDs favor. Another words AMD is going to run circles around Intel in making money. If all you want is some web browser, the new Intel is going to be great!! But then, do you need 16 threads?

    This is terrible news for Intel because it means no IPC improvement and thus AMD Zen 2 gen is going to slay Intel mobile where it really hurts, power efficiency.

    Nothing from Intel would be better, this just Intel proving to the world they have nothing. What is more alarming is the spin Toms is doing with this article, it's subtle but I would have expected more nuance and objectively, not such a superficial and simplistic article. The title is unjustified.
    Reply