Exclusive first benchmarks of 10th gen Comet Lake-H demonstrate Intel's leads in single-core but not too far ahead of AMD Ryzen 4000

We had access to single-core scores from Cinebench R15 and R20. As you can see below, the Core i9 and Core i7 SKUs manage a nearly 10% improvement over the AMD Ryzen 9 4900HS in Cinebench R15 single-core. The Core i9-10880H is about 8% faster than the Core i9-9980HK, 13% faster than the Core i9-9880H, and 11% faster than the Ryzen 9 4900HS. What we see here is that compared to the Core i9-9880H, all 10th gen Comet Lake-H processors including the Core i5-10300H show gains in single-core performance. The Ryzen 9 4900HS is on par with the Core i5-10300H in this test.

The differences reduce in Cinebench R20 single-core with the Core i9-10880H only being 3% faster than the Ryzen 9 4900HS and about 8% faster than the Core i9-9980HK. The gains for the Core i9-10880H rise to 11% when compared with the average Core i9-9880H scores. We also see that the Core i9-10880H and the Core i7-10750H are on par with each other when it comes to single-core performance. Therefore, gamers who don't really need an 8-core system should be able to do just fine even with the 6-core Core i7-10750H. 

Overall, we see that Intel continues to retain the single-core performance crown with the 10th generation. However, AMD has significantly closed the gap with even more tighter numbers possible depending on the chassis and thermals. 

For multi-core, we compared the results from Cinebench R15 and R20 and Passmark. We also factored-in 3DMark Time Spy CPU and Fire Strike Physics scores to get an idea of CPU performance in GPU-intensive applications.

As expected, AMD has the lead here. In Cinebench R15 multi, the Ryzen 9 4900HS had only a 4% lead over the Core i9-10880H. Appreciable gains are seen with the Core i9-10880H in comparison with the average Core i9-9980HK scores, but the Ryzen 9 4900HS and Ryzen 7 4800H still top the chart.  

The difference in multi-core performance becomes even more apparent in Cinebench R20 with both the Ryzens leading by at least 24% when compared to the Core i9-10880H. Even the Core i9-9980HK seems to have a 5% lead over the Core i9-10880H. The gap widens dramatically as we move down to the Core i7-10750H and Core i5-10300H parts.

In 3DMark Time Spy CPU, the Core i9-10880H and the Ryzen 9 4900HS seem to be evenly poised. That being said, we do see a 25% improvement compared to the average Core i9-9880H results. A similar result is seen in the Fire Strike Physics test as well; both the Core i9-10800H and the Ryzen 9 and Ryzen 7 show appreciable improvements over the Core i9-9980HK. In PassMark, the two additional cores in the Core i9-10800H seem to afford a moderate 16% performance increase over one of the Core i7-10750H laptops.

We do notice some anomalies in the scores, especially with regard to the Core i7-10750H from different devices in PassMark, 3DMark Time Spy CPU, and Fire Strike Physics. There could be many reasons for this, but we think it has to do with the pre-production laptop samples the scores stem from. We do not see this disparity in a purely CPU-only test such as Cinebench. 

Taking into consideration the available single-core and multi-core tests, it seems as if Comet Lake-H may not have too much of an incentive to upgrade if you already have a 9th generation Coffee Lake-H Refresh-powered laptop. Single-core performance has always been Intel's stronghold and Thermal Velocity Boost and Turbo Boost 3.0 further help by allowing boosts up to 5.3 GHz.

That being said, AMD is right on Intel's heels and has managed to largely close the performance deficit. Multi-core performance is still AMD's forte and the Ryzen 4000 H-series CPUs hold their ground well against the Core i9-10880H these tests. While these scores gives a fair idea of the performance that can be expected from Intel's latest offerings, do remember that these are still preliminary scores. We will get an even more clearer picture once Comet Lake-H-powered laptops become more broadly available.

Update: Changed the i9-10880H to i7-10875H in the benchmarks as the 10880H was not released but split into i7-10875H and the faster i9-10885H.

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