Rare Intel Core i7-8706G Kaby Lake-G processor is almost as fast as the Core i5-8300H

Kaby Lake-G is so uncommon that we can literally count the number of widely available products currently shipping with the processor series with just our two hands. Thus, it's quite exciting whenever we get a new Kaby Lake-G system in our labs as we have almost no idea how it would perform when compared to the ubiquitous Kaby Lake-HQ or Coffee Lake-H series.

The newest Kaby Lake-G laptop of interest is the Dell Precision 5530 2-in-1 workstation based on the XPS 15 9575 2-in-1 series which, perhaps unsurprisingly, also uses Kaby Lake-G processors. What makes the Precision so special, however, is its Core i7-8706G SoC as this particular quad-core processor can be found on no other mass market laptop we know of thus far. On paper, its core specifications are identical to the Core i7-8705G including its base clock rate (3.1 GHz), Turbo Boost clock rate (4.1 GHz), L3 cache (8 MiB), and TDP (65 W). The differentiating factor is that the i7-8706G supports vPro whereas the XPS 15 9575 series does not.

So, how does it perform when compared to the existing i5-8305G, i7-8705G, and i7-8809G Kaby Lake-G options? While the i7-8705G offers a very minor boost over the i5-8305G at best, the i7-8706G is about 10 percent faster than the i7-8705G to imply that it is better at maintaining Turbo Boost clock rates for longer. Raw CPU performance is consequently comparable to the Core i7-7700HQ as found on most last generation gaming laptops.

By running CineBench R15 Multi-Thread in a loop, we can observe how the i7-8706G performs over time when under continuous stress. Our graph below shows that it can maintain a small but healthy lead over the i5-8305G and i7-8705G found on the XPS 15 9575 series. The i7-8809G is the much stronger processor overall due largely to its higher thermal envelope of 100 W.

For even more benchmarks on the Core i5-8305G, i7-8705G. i7-8706G, and i7-8809G, see our dedicated pages on each processor and our reviews below.

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