Intel Core i5-10300H vs. AMD Ryzen 7 3750H: Another sideways step for Intel

Laptops sporting Intel 10th gen Comet Lake-H processors are now out in the wild meaning we can finally benchmark these CPUs in-house without relying on numbers provided by manufacturers, leaks, or "insiders".

The first processor under our microscope is the Core i5-10300H as found on the latest MSI GF75 10SCXR laptop. This particular CPU sits on the very bottom of the list in Intel's current Comet Lake-H family to replace the 2019 9th gen Core i5-9300H and 2018 8th gen Core i5-8300H.

On paper, the Core i5-10300H has all the markings of a minor gen-to-gen refresh. It's got the same number of cores, same cache sizes, same 14 nm lithography, and same integrated UHD Graphics 630 GPU as its immediate Core i5-9300H predecessor. Its maximum Turbo Boost clock rate is higher this time around (4.5 GHz vs. 4.1 GHz) with a slightly higher base clock rate (2.5 GHz vs. 2.4 GHz). Otherwise, we expect performance to be very similar to the Core i5-9300H.

Our benchmarks below show this to be the case. When compared to the average Core i5-9300H in our database recorded from a dozen different laptops, our Core i5-10300H test unit is only about 4 to 5 percent and 7 to 10 percent faster in single-threaded and multi-threaded workloads, respectively. If you own a Core i5-9300H or Core i5-8300H laptop, then upgrading to the Core i5-10300H won't get you very far.

By extension, raw multi-thread performance would also only be just slightly faster than the average AMD Zen+ Ryzen 7 3750H. A small handful of Ryzen 7 3750H, Core i5-8300H, or Core i5-9300H laptops are thus able to marginally outperform the Core i5-10300H in this scenario.