Intel Core i7-1165G7

The Intel Core i7-1165G7 is an upper mid-range, quad-core SoC designed for use in ultra-thin laptops. The Tiger Lake-UP3 processor was unveiled in September 2020; its Hyper-Threading-enabled Willow Cove CPU cores run at 2.8 GHz (base clock speed @ 28 W TDP) to 4.7 GHz (single-core Boost frequency). The all-core Boost frequency sits at 4.1 GHz. This i7 was the second-fastest CPU of TGL-UP3 line-up when Intel initially launched the series in 2020.

The i7 is ever-so-slightly inferior to Intel Core i7-1185G7 in that the vPro support is nowhere to be found, the clock speeds are lower, and the iGPU's clock speed is a little lower as well.

Architecture

A sizeable performance-per-MHz boost is one of the many benefits of Tiger Lake generation compared to the older Ice Lake and Comet Lake product families. Core i7-1165G7 is compatible with dual-channel DDR4-3200 or quad-channel LPDDR4x-4267 RAM; Intel recommends using no more than 64 GB, for reference. The processor also supports PCI-Express 4.0 (4 lanes) and is capable of HW-accelerating certain AI workloads. Thunderbolt 4, USB 4 and Wi-Fi 6 support is partially baked into the chip. Four PCI-Express 4.0 lanes allow for read/write rates of up to 7.9 GB/s, provided a suitably fast NVMe SSD is used.

The i7 is built with the second-gen 10 nm Intel process marketed as SuperFin that is supposedly comparable to TSMC's 7 nm process, the one Ryzen 4000 and Ryzen 5000 series processors are manufactured on. Both the CPU cores and the iGPU have access to 12 MB of L3 cache. The SoC is supposed to be soldered straight on to the motherboard (BGA1449 socket interface); it is thus anything but user-replaceable.

Performance

The average Core i7-1165G7 in our database is just as fast as Intel's Core i5-10200H and Core i7-10810U are, as far as multi-thread performance is concerned. It's even brave enough to come dangerously close to the costlier Core i7-1195G7 while unfortunately not being able to quite match the high bar set by AMD's Ryzen 3 5300U. That said, this is a very decent CPU; provided the long-term Power Limit is high enough (> 30 W) and the cooling solution is a good one, the i7 will have no trouble chewing through light video editing and 3D rendering jobs on the go with a bit of gaming possible as well (even if there is no dedicated graphics card). More on this below.

Graphics

The Iris Xe Graphics G7 (96 EUs) is based on Intel's Generation 12 architecture. It is a lot faster than the older Iris Plus G7 (Ice Lake) and UHD Graphics 620 (Comet Lake) solutions. The Xe has 96 Execution Units running at 400 MHz to 1,300 MHz, in the case of this Core i7.

This graphics adapter can drive up to 4 monitors in resolutions as high as SUHD [email protected] simultaneously, and the built-in video decoder is AV1-friendly. It will happily decode most other video codecs including HEVC, AVC, VP9, MPEG-2 and so on, too.

The Xe will let you play most games at 1080p / Low. It's nearly as fast as NVIDIA's GeForce MX350, surpassing anything we have seen from AMD's integrated graphics thus far. It is paramount that fast RAM is used as the Xe has no VRAM of its own. The other prerequisites for decent 3D performance are decently high Power Limits and a competent cooling solution.

Power Consumption

Core i7-1165G7 has a default TDP of 12 W to 28 W (OEMs get to set the value according to their needs), thus making the Core i7 a good fit for tiny mini-PCs, ultra-portable laptops and high-end tablets alike. The CPU will have performance sustainability issues if cooled passively which is something for OEMs to keep in mind.

Last but not the least, the fairly modern 10 nm manufacturing process and the low core count render the i7 a relatively energy-efficient CPU.

Series	Intel Tiger Lake
Codename	Tiger Lake UP3
Series: Tiger Lake Tiger Lake UP3 Intel Core i7-1195G7 2.9 - 5 GHz 4 / 8  12 MB L3 Intel Core i7-1185G7 3 - 4.8 GHz 4 / 8  12 MB L3 Intel Core i7-1165G7 « 2.8 - 4.7 GHz 4 / 8  12 MB L3 Intel Core i5-1155G7 2.5 - 4.5 GHz 4 / 8  8 MB L3 Intel Core i5-1145G7 2.6 - 4.4 GHz 4 / 8  8 MB L3 Intel Core i5-1135G7 2.4 - 4.2 GHz 4 / 8  8 MB L3 Intel Core i3-1125G4 2 - 3.7 GHz 4 / 8  8 MB L3 Intel Core i3-1115G4 3 - 4.1 GHz 2 / 4  6 MB L3
Clock Rate	2800 - 4700 MHz
Level 1 Cache	320 KB
Level 2 Cache	5 MB
Level 3 Cache	12 MB
Number of Cores / Threads	4 / 8
Power Consumption (TDP = Thermal Design Power)	28 Watt
Manufacturing Technology	10 nm
Max. Temperature	100 °C
Socket	BGA1449
Features	DL Boost, GNA, Wi-Fi 6 (Gig+), Thunderbolt 4, DDR4-3200 / LPDDR4x-4266
GPU	Intel Iris Xe Graphics G7 96EUs (400 - 1300 MHz)
64 Bit	64 Bit support
Architecture	x86
Announcement Date	09/01/2020
Product Link (external)	Intel Tiger Lake i7-1165G7

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