Intel 'Coffee Lake-H' Performance Comparison: A worthy upgrade from 'Kaby Lake'?

To get an idea of how the new Core i7-8750H stacks up to the rest of the pack, we ran a few CPU and GPU benchmarks on two pre-production MSI laptops, the GE63 8RF Raider and GS65 8RF Stealth. Also included was the new Gigabye Aero 15X v8 — an incremental upgrade to last year's Aero 15X and the Asus ROG Zephyrus M GM501.

We had limited testing time with the MSI notebooks so we primarily ran Cinebench R15 single and multi-core as the CPU benchmarks of choice and 3DMark/3DMark 11 for the GPU. We also ran 50 loops of the Cinebench R15 multi-core test to see how the CPUs throttle under load. For the Aero 15X v8 and the Zephyrus M GM501, we could run a few more tests such as PCMark and Power Consumption benchmarks. The scores were compared against other contemporary CPUs including — 

• 7th generation 'Kaby Lake' Core i7-7700HQ (Gigabyte Aero 15X and the MSI GS63VR 7RG-005)
• 8th generation 'Kaby Lake-R' Core i7-8650U (Microsoft Surface Book 2 and Dell Latitude 7390 2-in-1)
• 8th generation 'Kaby Lake-G' Core i7-8809G (Intel Hades Canyon NUC8i7HVK)
• 8th generation 'Coffee Lake-S' Core i7-8700K (Eurocom Sky X4C)
• AMD Ryzen 7 2700U (Acer Nitro 5), 
• AMD Ryzen 7 1700 (Desktop)
• AMD Ryzen 7 1800X (Desktop)

The above comparison ensures that we are covering all sorts of TDP envelopes ranging from 15W to 95W to comparatively judge the performance of the i7-8750H.

We ran Cinebench R15 to evaluate both single and multi-core performance. The first thing that was clear is that raw single-core strength is definitely not CFL-H's forte. While the 95W hexa-core 8700K leads with 192 points, it was pleasantly surprising to see the modest 15W i7-8650U in the Surface Book 2 come as the runner-up with 178 points tying the i7-8809G. All CFL-H i7-8750H notebooks stacked up together and posted north of 170 points — good enough, but definitely not ground-breaking. The i7-8650U in the Dell Latitude 7390 2-in-1 is just 1 point shy of the lowest score posted by a laptop with an i7-8750H. The i7-8750H shows a modest ~8% improvement in single-core performance over the i7-7700HQ but posts significant leads over the Ryzen brethren further cementing Intel's advantage over AMD in single-core performance.

Multi-core is where the i7-8750H starts showing its mettle. While the higher-end Ryzens clearly dominate the multi-core test (as expected), the i7-8700K put up an impressive 1359 points, leading the i7-8750H by about 20%. This is understandable given that the 8700K has higher clocks and a higher TDP of 95W, which gives it enough headroom to boost. Taking these into consideration, the performance of the 8750H is still commendable, with almost half the TDP rating of the i7-8700K and reduced clocks. The 8750H has managed to beat the i7-7700HQ by about 50% at the highest and even the i7-8809G by a comfortable margin. The added cores have definitely paid off in this regard.

Discrete Single and Multi-core benchmarks in Cinebench are good indicators of burst load, but to determine performance under sustained load, we run a loop of the Cinebench R15 Multi-core benchmark 50 times. Due to the prevalence of poor thermal management in thinner and lighter laptops, the Cinebench loop test is instrumental in determining sustained real-world performance for heavy tasks. This is especially relevant for the Coffee Lake H-series due to the rather high turbo speeds. Generally, CPUs struggle to sustain the boost clock for longer periods and often throttle under load. It piqued our interest to see how CFL-H handles throttling and we observed some rather interesting results. Both MSI notebooks posted lower Cinebench R15 multi-core scores than the GM501 and the Aero 15X v8. As such, we found that neither MSI laptop could sustain the turbo clocks for long. The GE63 8RF Raider had an average speed of 3.1 GHz under load while the GS65 8RF Stealth fared even lower at 2.9 GHz. The GM501 and the Aero 15X v8, however, posted better results. 

The graphs below show that the Asus Zephyrus M GM501 is consistent in clock speeds after the second run. The initial run had a peak clock of 3.9 GHz, but in the subsequent run it dropped down to about 3.3 GHz within a few seconds. From there on, there was not much change in the scores until the completion of the loop. The Gigabyte Aero 15X v8 painted a different picture, however: It started off at 3.9 GHz and was constantly wavering between high and low speeds. It had its lowest ebb in the 14th run, wherein the speed dropped to about 2.6 GHz but it somehow managed to sustain an average speed of 3.6 GHz for the rest of the run with intermittent lows. For perspective, the Gigabyte Aero 15X (i7-7700HQ) offered more stable scores throughout the loop without hard drops. The construction of both the Aero 15X models is the same, which makes us lean towards the fact that it is indeed the thermal output of the CPU that is the limiting factor here. Even under throttling, it must be noted that the 6C/12T i7-8750H was still able to sustain higher scores in the test compared to the 4C/8T i7-7700HQ.

PCMark helps in evaluating overall system performance by simulating typical home, office and creative workloads. The i7-8750H led the pack in the PCMark 8 Work score with a modest 10% lead over the i7-7700HQ but trailed behind the i7-8700K and the i7-8809G in the Home scores. The difference to the i7-7700HQ in this regard was just about 5%. The i7-8750H in the Asus GM501 shone in the Digital Content Creation tests, though: Although it significantly trails behind the i7-8700K, it manages to have a 10% lead over the 65W Ryzen 1700, which is to be appreciated. The GM501 also posted a significant 23% lead over the i7-7700HQ-powered MSI GS63VR and the i7-8809G-powered Hades Canyon NUC. In the overall PCMark 10 scores, the i7-8750H in the GM501 comes very close to the i7-8809G in the Hades Canyon while the Aero 15X v8 ties with the Ryzen 1700. There is a 5-14% improvement over the i7-7700HQ as well. These scores imply that for overall day-to-day computing and content creation, CFL-H is more than capable of mincing anything you throw at it, often offering a perceivable performance benefit over the i7-7700HQ.

Power consumption for CFL-H seems to be on the higher side. At an idle average and load average consumption of 18W and 91W each in the Aero 15X v8, CFL-H is not the most power-efficient chip out there even when directly compared against the i7-7700HQ-powered Aero 15X, which had 13W idle average and 79W maximum average. The 8809G posts lower averages than the other Coffee Lake platforms, but it is a NUC, not a laptop, making it a poor comparison. If battery life is what you're after, CFL-H does not seem to offer much incentive over the 7th generation i7-7700HQ. For longer work days, you'd be better off choosing the i7-8650U, which barely sips power when idle (5.7W idle average) and is quite reasonable under load (29.2W load average). 

Note: Although power consumption values appear on the higher side at the moment, they are also largely dependent on software optimizations at the firmware and OS level. Values may change as vendors release software optimizations over time. 

We ran some synthetic graphics benchmarks to see how CFL-H benefits high GPU workloads. The results have been compared across other contemporary notebooks.

Fire Strike is the staple test here as it is a very strong predictor of heavy game performance. We will examine the overall total scores first: While the i7-8700K and GTX 1080-powered Sky X4C naturally led in the overall Fire Strike score with an impressive 18,551 points, our MSI GE63 Coffee Lake Presample with GTX1070 (non-Max-Q) was not too far behind it with the second strongest overall score of 15,200. To isolate how much of a benefit Coffee Lake will be to gamers coming from Kaby Lake's 7700HQ, the laptops to compare are the Aero 15X (7700HQ) and Aero 15X v8 (8750H), as they both use the same Geforce GTX 1070 Max-Q GPU. We can see a single digit score increase of 9% with the move to Coffee Lake — a fair improvement, but an incremental one rather than a quantum leap.

When moving to the Graphics score, it's no surprise that the difference between systems is significantly less, as this sub-score is intentionally the most GPU-bound. Here, the Coffee Lake Aero 15X posts just a 4% higher score than it's Kaby Lake predecessor.

Fire Strike Physics is typically where heavy duty CPUs can show their number-crunching prowess, and the hexa-core chips represent themselves well here: With the exception of the Asus GL702ZC with its 8-core Ryzen CPU, the top half of the physics leader-board is exclusively Coffee Lake hexa-core CPUs. Though it is not the focus of these tests, it is interesting to note that the Hades Canyon NUC with 8809G Kaby Lake-G CPU cleanly bisects the leader-board, separating Coffee Lake from the 7700HQ-powered laptops.

Finally, the Fire Strike Combined benchmark stresses the GPU and CPU at the same time, emulating some of the more CPU/GPU-intensive games out there. We can see the expected single-digit performance increase again between the Aero 15x systems, this time at 7%. Due to the mixed load, this score will be more affected by how well the cooling solution has been implemented in each system than the other scores, which may explain why the MSI GS65 Coffee Lake Presample, Asus GL702ZC, and Intel Hades Canyon score so low.

3DMark 11 is a much older benchmark and is not as representative of gaming performance as 3DMark Fire Strike, but we can still note some trends in the results. In the 3DMark 11 Performance Combined test, the Asus GM501 is within reach of the 8700K-powered Sky X4C, posting an impressive 11,707 points. Again, we see just a 6% improvement here with the Aero 15X v8 versus the v7.

The Physics scores followed a similar trend to Fire Strike, though showing a less exaggerated increase between generations compared to Fire Strike's physics test. One notable outlier is the Kaby Lake-G 8809G in the Hades Canyon NUC, which manages to beat out the Asus GL702Zc with Ryzen 1700 as well as the Gigabyte Aero 15X v8 and MSI GS65, both with 8750H CPUs.

Overall, when coupled to the same GPU, expect to see graphics performance gains in single digit percents with the i7-8750H when compared to the i7-7700HQ.

AMD has had octa-core Ryzens available for enthusiasts for quite sometime now and has been quite successful at it. Intel wanted to fervently halt AMD's advances in this segment and thus, factored in a lot of new additions to the CFL-H lineup. The preliminary benchmarks run on new CFL-H systems helped us to better understand the new CPUs in relation to the currently available offerings. The Core i7-8750H will likely be the CPU of choice in most gaming notebooks set to launch in 2018, and while there are some obvious benefits via the increased core clocks and the cores themselves, the performance manifested thus far does not show it to be a must-have upgrade —especially, if you've already got an i7-7700HQ along with a decent discrete GPU.

Single-core tests — There is nothing to write home about with respect to the single-core performance as it trails significantly behind even the i7-8650U of the Surface Book 2 15-inch and is not very far off from a similar implementation in the Latitude 7390 2-in-1. While it is marginally better than the i7-7700HQ in most notebooks, the i7-8750H does not offer too many incentives to upgrade over the i7-7700HQ (or even the 15W i7-8650U), especially for running serialized workloads such as 3D modelling or most games, which do not take full advantage of a multi-core setup. 

Multi-core tests — The results speak for themselves as the best performing i7-8750H notebook, the Asus ROG Zephyrus M GM501, is not very far away from the Ryzen 1700-powered Asus GL702ZC. In fact, all the CFL-H samples we've tested had bested the 7700HQ and the 8809G by a mile in multi-core tests. Contrast this with how the AMD Ryzen 7 2700U came very close to beating the 7700HQ in multi-core and you will see that Intel has clearly put in the efforts. While AMD will continue to be a better value proposition with its Ryzen Mobile APUs, there is no denying that Intel is beginning to realize the importance of strong multi-threaded performance. Those who perform rendering, virtualization, and high performance computing on the go for a living will be glad with the purchase of a CFL-H-powered notebook. 

Speed sustenance tests — While multi-core performance in the new generation is indeed commendable, it is better not to expect longer sustained speeds at heavy loads. This largely depends on the notebook OEM and the results can drastically vary for the same CPU across notebooks. If the OEM design lacks adequate cooling, processing speeds can start to plummet rapidly. Taking the performance of the GM501 and the Aero 15X v8 as examples, we see the effect notebook design can have on sustained speeds. Though Intel shows that you can achieve higher turbo boosts on paper, it seems almost improbable to reach those numbers in real life. Even if you manage to attain the higher boost, chances are that the CPU will start throttling within the next few seconds. Also, the slightly higher power draws means that OEMs will have to cram in larger batteries to ensure that the notebook can last a typical heavy work day — and that's not counting laptops like the Aero 15 and the Dell XPS 15 9560 that already have batteries at the legal size limit for air travel. 

Synthetic graphics tests — We didn't have a chance to run real gaming benchmarks yet but the scores present a 5-9% performance improvement when compared to similarly specced i7-7700HQ notebooks. However, physics simulations in games will stand to benefit greatly from the added horsepower of the i7-8750H. The i7-8750H trumps almost every other CPU in the 3DMark Physics scores with the exception of the i7-8700K, with which it comes close to. Most games (even those based on DirectX 12) are still not well optimized to effectively task more than 4 cores. Therefore, the hexa-core CFL-H might not offer significant real world benefits over a quad-core 'Kaby Lake' CPU for gaming. Other than Physics, the standard graphics 3DMark benchmarks seem to benefit from having more powerful GPUs and not CPUs with higher core counts. In the 3DMark 11 scores, for example, we see the Aero 15X v8 and the Aero 15X have very similar scores, as they both use the same GTX 1070 Max-Q GPU. However, put in the standard GTX 1070 and you see the scores immediately making a significant jump as in the case of the GM501 and the GE63. Thus, while the i7-87H might not bode well in combination with anything less than a GTX 1060, it highly favors anything above a GTX 1070 Max-Q. Therefore, laptops with a GTX 1050 Ti, for example, will be better off with the Core i7-7700HQ or the i7-8650U than the i7-8750H.

The anticipation of new hexa-core 45W chips from Intel has been brewing since late 2016 when the first specifications were leaked. We have come a long way since then, with the Core i7-7700HQ featuring predominantly in almost every enthusiast notebook for the better part of 2017. It was naturally expected that Intel would be delivering an upgrade to its 45W lineup and it finally did. The upgrades are not merely superficial and come with added cores and increased clocks. This generation sees the introduction of the Core i9 in place of the i7-7820HK and marks the debut of Intel's Thermal Velocity Boost that can offer significant burst speeds subject to certain conditions. 

Some of the notebooks with CFL-H to watch out for in 2018 include the MSI GT75 17, Alienware 17, Asus ROG G703, Acer Nitro V, Acer Aspire 7, HP Omen 15, HP Omen 17, Dell XPS 15 9570, Asus Zenbook Pro UX550, and the Samsung Odyssey Z 15 in addition to the notebooks mentioned above. That's a whole lot of options right there with even more expected to join the fray in the course of the year.

Ultimately, it all boils down to this — is your fairly new 7700HQ-powered notebook in need of an immediate upgrade to CFL-H? Not really. While the under-the-hood changes are definitely welcome, there are only a few scenarios that help realize any tangible benefits: if your work involves software designed to extensively harness the multi-core capabilities of this chip, then the answer is a resounding yes. If you are not a very heavy gamer with no regards to physics simulations, there's really no incentive to splurge cash on a new CFL-H notebook for the sake of it. Streamers who look to record, edit and broadcast their gaming adventures stand to gain a lot from the superior multi-core performance of these CPUs. Then again, the new chips absolutely fly when paired with the best GPUs out there therefore, it makes sense to hold off purchase until you can get a CFL-H notebook with a high-end GPU if maxed out gaming is what you're after.

Overall, the value of the new CFL-H chips is their forward-facing nature. Software that isn't optimized for high core-counts yet will be better suited to these chips in the near future. To that extent, the new chips offer enough power to spare for multi-threaded workloads, though these specific use cases are somewhat rare. As a package, the strong leads in some areas (core/thread count at 45W TDP) combined with only incremental improvements in others (single-core speed, graphics performance with GTX 1060 cards or weaker) and even regression via increased power draw make it appear (at the moment) that this Coffee Lake is in fact, part espresso but also part milk.