That awkward moment when the Core i7-10875H outperforms the more expensive Core i9-10980HK

Much like what we discovered last year between certain 8th gen Coffee Lake-H Core i7-8750H and Core i9-8950HK laptops, there are some 10th gen Comet Lake-H laptops where the lesser octa-core Core i7-10875H would consistently outperform the supposedly higher-end octa-core Core i9-10980HK.

We recently had the chance to check out both the Gigabyte Aero 15 and Aero 17 each equipped with the Core i7-10875H and the MSI GS66 equipped with the Core i9-10980HK. At first glance, users would rightfully expect the MSI to outperform the Gigabyte laptops in CPU performance. CineBench, however, shows the Aero 17 outscoring the MSI by just a couple of percentage points. Running CineBench R15 Multi-Thread in a loop reveals better performance sustainability on the Gigabyte laptops as well; scores would stabilize at around 1560 points on the Gigabyte systems compared to 1525 points on the MSI after several loops.

An important advantage on the Core i9-10980HK that's not found on the Core i7-10875H is its unlocked multiplier for overclocking potential. Thus, it's possible for the Core i9 CPU to outperform the Core i7 after some tweaking and with the right cooling solution, at least in theory. The issue is that the stock Core i9 in the MSI GS66 already runs very warm at 90 C to 95 C when gaming meaning that there is very little headroom in the first place for any end-user overclocking.

Laptops sporting Intel Comet Lake-H CPUs have only been in the market for a couple of weeks as of this writing meaning we'll have to test a lot more units before diving in to any conclusions. Of the small handful we've seen thus far, however, no laptop has yet to fully exploit the Core i9-10980HK. We suspect that larger laptops like the Asus ROG G703 series or the MSI GT75 will be able to run the Core i9-10980HK at higher clocks for longer periods than on the GS66.