Intel Core i7-7700 vs Intel Core i7-10750H vs Intel Xeon E3-1505M v6

Intel Core i7-7700

The Intel Core i7-7700 is a fast quad-core processor for desktops based on the Kaby Lake architecture and was announced in January 2017. It is the top model of the 65 Watt consumer Kaby-Lake-H series at the time of the announcement. The faster CPUs, like the Core i7-7700K, are specified with 91 Watt. Besides four cores including Hyper-Threading (8 threads) support running at 3.6 - 4.2 GHz, the processor is also equipped with the HD Graphics 630 GPU as well as a dual-channel memory controller (DDR3L-1600/DDR4-2400). It is manufactured in a 14nm process with FinFET transistors.

Architecture

Intel basically uses the same micro architecture compared to Skylake, so the per-MHz performance does not differ. The manufacturer only reworked the Speed Shift technology for faster dynamic adjustments of voltages and clocks, and the improved 14nm process allows much higher frequencies combined with better efficiency than before.

Power Consumption

The chip is manufactured in an improved 14nm process with FinFET transistors, which improves the efficiency slightly.

Intel Core i7-10750H

The Intel Core i7-10750H is a fast 45 W processor designed for use in larger, beefier laptops. The Comet Lake-H family CPU was launched in mid-2020. It features six cores (twelve threads) running at 2.6 GHz Boosting up to 5 GHz (single-core Boost). The likely all-core Boost frequency is 4.3 GHz. Most of the specs are the same as the 10750H’s direct predecessor, the i7-9750H. The newer model has two advantages over its predecessor in that its Boost frequency is higher and the memory controller can now officially host memory clocked at 2,933 MHz, an upgrade over the 2,666 MHz limitation of the outgoing model.

Architecture

Comet Lake is a yet another revision of the dated Skylake architecture (not unlike the previous Coffee Lake, Whiskey Lake, Kaby Lake families) for similar feature set and performance-per-MHz figures. Core i7-10750H is manufactured on the third-gen 14 nm Intel process that is undeniably inferior to TSMC's 7 nm process, the one AMD’s Ryzen 4000 series laptop-grade processors are manufactured on.

The hexa-core CPU is compatible with up to 128 GB of dual-channel DDR4-2933 RAM and has support for PCI-Express 3.0 and Thunderbolt 3 but not the professional features (vPro, TXT, SIPP) as found in the case of Core i7-10850H.

Both the CPU cores and the iGPU have access to 12 MB of L3 cache. Four PCI-Express 3.0 lanes allow for read/write rates of up to 3.9 GB/s provided a suitably fast NVMe SSD is used.

The 10750H gets soldered permanently on to the motherboard (BGA1440 socket interface) and is thus pretty much impossible to replace.

Performance

Multi-thread performance is most similar to the Core i5-10500H, the Core i5-11400H and also the Ryzen 7 4700U. While perhaps not the best bang for the buck, the i7 is fast enough for any task, gaming included, as of late 2021.

Thanks to its decent cooling solution and a long-term CPU power limit of 75 W, the ThinkPad P15 Gen 1-20ST000DGE is among the fastest laptops built around the 10750H that we know of. It can be about 80% faster in CPU-bound workloads than the slowest system featuring the same chip in our database, as of August 2023.

Graphics

We've known the Intel UHD Graphics 630 iGPU for a while. This is the same iGPU the Core i7-9750H and Core i7-8750H processors had. In this i7, the 24 EU iGPU is clocked at 350 MHz to 1,150 MHz.

Intel UHD Graphics 630 will let you connect up to 3 monitors with resolutions of up to 4096x2304@60. The built-in video decoder will happily handle AVC, HEVC, VP9 and other popular video codecs (AV1 is not supported though). This is not a gaming GPU as it is not fast enough to handle most AAA titles released in 2020. At 720p, Escape from Tarkov runs at just 17 fps (low quality preset), to give you an example. As the iGPU has no VRAM of its own, it is paramount that it is mated to fast system RAM.

Power consumption

This Core i7 series chip is built with one of the old 14 nm Intel processes leading to subpar, as of early 2022, energy efficiency.

The Core i7-10750H has a default TDP, also known as the long-term power limit, of 45 W; laptop makers are free to reduce the value somewhat, 35 W being the lower limit, allowing for leaner designs at the cost of performance. Either way, a quality cooling solution is a must.

Intel Xeon E3-1505M v6

The Intel Xeon E3-1505M v6 is a fast quad-core processor notebooks based on the Kaby Lake architecture and was announced in January 2017. It is the second fastest mobile Xeon model and the performance is slightly better tha the 100 MHz slower clocked consumer Core i7-7820HQ. Compared to the Core processors, the chip also supports ECC-RAM (error correction). Besides four cores including Hyper-Threading support running at 3 - 4 GHz (4 cores up to 3.6 GHz, 2 cores up to 3.8 GHz), the processor is also equipped with the professional HD Graphics P630 GPU as well as a dual-channel memory controller (DDR3L-1600/DDR4-2400). It is manufactured in a 14nm process with FinFET transistors.

Architecture

Intel basically uses the same micro architecture compared to Skylake, so the per-MHz performance does not differ. The manufacturer only reworked the Speed Shift technology for faster dynamic adjustments of voltages and clocks, and the improved 14nm process allows much higher frequencies combined with better efficiency than before.

Performance

Thanks to the higher clocks, even the smaller model of the mobile Xeons is ahead of the fastest Skylake models (Xeon E3-1575M v6) and is therefore als powerful enough for very demanding applications.

Graphics

The integrated professional Intel HD Graphics P630 has 24 Execution Units (similar to previous HD Graphics 530) running at 350 - 1100 MHz. The performance depends a lot on the memory configuration; it should be comparable to a dedicated Nvidia GeForce 920M in combination with fast DDR4-2133 dual-channel memory. It offers certified drivers for 15 professional and CAD applications.

Contrary to Skylake, Kaby Lake now supports hardware decoding for H.265/HEVC Main 10 with a 10-bit color depth as well as Google's VP9 codec. The dual-core Kaby Lake processors, which were announced in January, should also support HDCP 2.2.

Power Consumption

The chip is manufactured in an improved 14nm process with FinFET transistors, which improves the efficiency even further. Intel still specifies the TDP with 45 Watts, but it can also be reduced to 35 Watts by the notebook manufacturers (cTDP down). This will obviously affect the performance, because the Turbo Boost cannot be maintained for longer periods.