Apple MacBook Pro 16 Core i9 gets consistently outperformed by the MSI P65 Core i9

When Apple dared to put the Core i9-8950HK in its 2018 MacBook Pro 15 last year, reviewers were quick to point out the heavy CPU throttling and the potential for it to perform just marginally better than the less costly Core i7 version at best. The implementation was so poor that Dell became extra wary of its own Core i9 XPS 15 SKU which launched a couple months later and also performed just marginally better than the Core i7 version. These underwhelming results shouldn't be surprising; such super-thin laptops do not have the cooling necessary to exploit and sustain the high Turbo Boost clock rates associated with the Core i9 series.

Realizing this, Intel dropped the base frequency of the 9th gen Core i9-9880H when compared to the 8th gen i9-8950HK (2.3 GHz vs. 2.9 GHz) while upping the number of physical cores from 6 to 8. The approach appears to have paid off as the multi-core performance gap between the Core i7-8750H or i7-9750H and the Core i9-9880H is much wider than what was observed with the Core i9-8950HK. In Apple's case, its Core i9-9880H in the 2019 MacBook Pro 16 is the third fastest in our database out of 8 other laptops equipped with the same Core i9-9880H CPU. The MSI P65 Creator beats it just marginally for second place. Performance sustainability is also better than expected especially when compared to the HP Omen 17 as shown by our CineBench R15 Multi-Thread loop test below.

There are a few caveats as usual. When running the same MacBook Pro 16 under Windows 10 Boot Camp, CPU performance actually drops by as much as 8 to 10 percent. Furthermore, the older MacBook Pro 15 design with the same i9-9880H CPU is the slowest laptop we've tested at roughly 12 percent slower than the i9-9880H in the MacBook Pro 16.

If you're in the market for a Core i9-9880H laptop, the recent MSI GE75 9SG is currently the fastest implementation at roughly 14 percent faster than the MacBook Pro 16 after accounting for any throttling. Its louder fans and larger 17.3-inch form factor are better at maintaining higher Turbo Boost clock rates to edge out every other i9-9880H laptop thus far.

Buy MSI P65 Core i9-9880H now on Amazon
MSI GE75 Core i9-9880H on sale now at Amazon