Three generations of 14 nm: Core i7-10510U offers just 20 percent faster multi-thread performance than the average Core i7-8550U

Though the CPU series launched in 2019, laptops with Comet Lake-U options were relatively uncommon. We've tested just 9 different Comet Lake-U Core i7-10510U laptops thus far with hopefully more to come throughout the rest of 2020. By averaging the scores of these laptops, we can see how much of a performance boost users can expect when compared to the average Whiskey Lake-U Core i7-8565U or average Kaby Lake-R Core i7-8550U laptop that the Core i7-10510U directly succeeds.

In short, the gen-to-gen raw multi-thread performance differences between these three generations of CPUs are relatively minor. Jumping from the average Core i7-8550U to the average Core i7-8565U will bring a 3 percent performance boost while the average Core i7-10510U will offer an 18 percent boost over the Core i7-8565U according to CineBench R15 Multi-Thread. The differences become even smaller when comparing CineBench R20 results since the newer benchmark is much longer for more accurate performance analyses. We believe that our sample sizes are large enough to say that any Core i7-10510U laptops yet to be released won't deviate too far from what we've seen thus far.

It's important to keep in mind that Intel has been focusing more on auxiliary features and power efficiency rather than pure raw performance during these past few CPU generations. For example, Comet Lake-U integrates support for Wi-Fi 6 and LPDDR4x memory in contrast to Whiskey Lake-U and Kaby Lake-R. Nonetheless, it's disappointing to see that Comet Lake-U is missing some key features from Ice Lake like an integrated Thunderbolt 3 controller or Intel Deep Learning compatibility.

Users looking for a larger performance boost out of Comet Lake-U should consider the hexa-core Core i7-10710U as found on the Dell XPS 13 and upcoming 2020 HP Spectre x360 15.