IFA 2019 | Gaming on 25 W Core i7-1065G7 Ice Lake-U can be up to 42 percent faster than 15 W version according to Intel

Mobile Intel 10th gen Core CPUs have gotten confusing. Not only will there be laptops sporting 14 nm Comet Lake-U and 10 nm Ice Lake-U to succeed the last generation 14 nm Whiskey Lake-U, Ice Lake-U itself can be further divided into 15 W and 25 W variants. The 25 W SKUs are expected to offer greater performance than the 15 W SKUs should OEM Ultrabook designs have the cooling capacity to support Intel's 25 W chips.

Just how much of a performance difference can we expect between 15 W and 25 W Ice Lake-U? Intel's own in-house benchmarks with the new upcoming Razer Blade Stealth show a 26 to 42 percent increase in gaming performance when jumping from 15 W Core i7-1065G7 to the 25 W Core i7-1065G7. Intel specifically chose the Blade Stealth to run these tests because it will be one of the few consumer laptops with both 15 W and 25 W Core i7-1065G7 Ice Lake-U options.

However, Intel's internal data don't match up very well with our own early tests on 15 W and 25 W Ice Lake-U. While we definitely noticed CPU performance differences between 15 W and 25 W, we weren't able to measure any major gains in frame rates between them when running games like Shadow of the Tomb Raider or Rocket League. Of course, the upcoming Blade Stealth will carry more mature market-ready drivers than what we observed on preliminary Ice Lake-U hardware.

Expect more Ice Lake-U and Comet Lake-U benchmarks in the weeks and months ahead when retail units will be readily available.