Fail | Apparently, LG thinks it's okay to sell a 10th gen Core i7 laptop that's slower than the 7th gen Core i5 model

Generally speaking, a U-series Core i7 CPU should be faster than a U-series Core i5 CPU. With that in mind, a newer 10th gen U-series Core i7 CPU should definitely be faster than a 7th gen U-series Core i5 CPU. Unfortunately, at least one OEM hasn't gotten the memo.

The 14-inch LG Gram 14T90N was supposed to be the "upgraded" version of the older LG Gram 14Z980 clamshell. It replaces the outgoing 7th gen Kaby Lake-R Core i5-8250U CPU with the newer 10th gen Comet Lake-U Core i7-10510U part that should absolutely outperform the older model on paper. The problem is that the Gram 14T90N would throttle the Turbo Boost potential of the Core i7-10510U so heavily that it would actually run slower than the Core i5-8250U when under stressful processing conditions.

To illustrate this, we would run CineBench R15 Multi-Thread in a loop on both the Gram 14T90N and Gram 14Z980 as shown below. The latter laptop would consistently outperform the former by 2 to 3 percent despite the fact that it carries the older, slower, and cheaper Core i5-8250U processor. Even the integrated UHD Graphics 620 GPU of the Core i5 would consistently outscore the newer Core i7 model according to 3DMark benchmarks. The only silver lining for the Core i7 part is its faster single-thread performance relative to the Core i5-8250U, but even then it is also the slowest we've recorded on any Core i7-10510U laptop thus far.

When consumers are charged a premium for Core i7 laptops, they expect them to perform faster than the cheaper Core i5 configurations. Surely that can't be asking for too much.

For more information on the latest LG Gram 14T90N, see our full review of the system here.