Intel Core i3-7130U vs Qualcomm Snapdragon 850

Intel Core i3-7130U

The Intel Core i3-7130U is a dual-core processor of the Kaby-Lake architecture. It offers two CPU cores clocked at 2.7 GHz (without Turbo Boost) and integrates HyperThreading to work with up to 4 threads at once. The architectural differences are rather small compared to the Skylake generation, therefore the performance per MHz should be very similar. The SoC includes a dual channel DDR4 memory controller and Intel HD Graphics 620 graphics adapter (clocked at 300 MHz to 1,000 MHz). It is manufactured on improved 14 nm Intel process with FinFETs.

Performance

The average 7130U in our database only just matches the Core i5-4310U, a dual-core CPU of similar energy efficiency that launched in 2014, in multi-thread performance. While not as horribly slow as most N-class Intel chips, this Core i3 is unlikely to make a power user happy.

Your mileage may vary depending on how competent the cooling solution of your system is, and how high the CPU power limits are.

Power consumption

This Core i3 series chip has a default TDP, also known as the long-term power limit, of 15 W. Laptop makers are allowed to significantly reduce that value (7.5 W being the lower limit) resulting in lower clock speeds and lower performance.

Last but not the least, the i3-7130U is manufactured on one of the old 14 nm Intel processes for subpar, as of early 2023, energy efficiency.

Qualcomm Snapdragon 850

The Qualcomm Snapdragon 850 Mobile Compute Platform (or SD850) is a ARM based SoC for Windows laptops. It is a higher clocked version (3 versus 2.8 GHz) of the Snapdragon 845 for smartphones and also manufactured in 10 nm LPP FinFET at TSMC. It integrates 4x Kryo 385 cores (Cortex-A75) at up to 2.95 GHz (max) for performance and 4x Kryo 385 (at 1.8 GHz?) for efficiency. Furthermore offers an X20 LTE modem (Cat. 18 1.2 Gbps downlink, Cat 13 150 Mbps uplink), ac-WiFi and a dual-channel 32-Bit 1866 MHz LPDDR4x memory controller.

The performance of the Snapdragon 850 in Windows is in theory similar to a Intel Core i5 of the Y-series (e.g. Core i5-7y54). However, this is only the case for native ARM64 compiled applications and games. 32-bit applications that are not compiled for the ARM architecture only run in an emulation and perform much worse (e.g. see Cinebench R11.5 benchmark). 64-bit Intel/AMD apps are not supported at all.

The chip is very power efficient as its produced at TSMC in the modern 10nm LPP process. Therefore, laptops using the Snapdragon 850 can be passively cooled (no fan) and should not throttle under constant load.