It's time we look at Intel's new Tiger Lake portable CPUs, beginning with the Core i7-1165G7, a section that will be generally found on the standard to very good quality ultraportables. Intel declared Tiger Lake months prior and frameworks are presently promptly accessible with the new chips.
Tiger Lake and the Core i7-1165G7 speak to a redesign of Intel's portable contributions, specifically Ice Lake, which wasn't unreasonably incredible. With AMD raging into the PC market with Ryzen 4000 of every 2020, Tiger Lake is Intel's large reaction that is loaded up with new highlights.
There have been minor updates to the CPU center plan too, moving from Sunny Cove up to Willow Cove. Most strikingly, reserve sizes have expanded from 8MB L3 on top-end quad-centers, up to 12MB. We additionally get a lot bigger GPU configuration dependent on Intel Xe design, pressing 96 execution units, higher recurrence memory uphold, Thunderbolt 4 and PCIe 4.0, and better equipment increasing speed for video encoding and interpreting.
The Core i7-1165G7 that we're assessing is Intel's second-from-top and most broadly utilized Tiger Lake UP3 processor. UP3 is the thing that used to be known as the U-arrangement, in the ~15W power range. It packs four Willow Cove CPU centers and eight strings, which is a shortfall on AMD's 8-center plan they are at present contributing in this force class. Notwithstanding, Intel is endeavoring to compensate for that with high clock speeds.
With this age, Intel has changed how they are announcing key measurements like a base clock, rather than giving us this incentive for simply 28W and 12W setups, rather than the default 15W. There's a 2.8 GHz base at 28W, which is a lot higher than the 1.50 GHz base that the Ice Lake Core i7-1065G7 offered at 25W. Notwithstanding, the base recurrence pick up is a lot lower at 12W, only 200 MHz higher than previously.
| Intel UP3 | Graphics | Cores / Threads | Graphics (EUs) | Cache | Operating Range | Base Freq (GHz) | Max Single Core (GHz) | Max All Core (GHz) | Graphics Max (GHz) | ||
| Core i7-1185G7 | Iris Xe | 4/8 | 96 | 12MB | 12-28W | 3.0 | 4.8 | 4.3 | 1.35 | ||
| Core i7-1165G7 | Iris Xe | 4/8 | 96 | 12MB | 12-28W | 2.8 | 4.7 | 4.1 | 1.30 | ||
| Core i5-1135G7 | Iris Xe | 4/8 | 80 | 8MB | 12-28W | 2.4 | 4.2 | 3.8 | 1.30 | ||
| Core i3-1125G4 | UHD | 4/8 | 48 | 8MB | 12-28W | 2.0 | 3.7 | 3.3 | 1.25 | ||
| Core i3-1115G4 | UHD | 2/4 | 48 | 6MB | 12-28W | 3.0 | 4.1 | 4.1 | 1.25 | ||
Ice Lake's genuinely prohibitive recurrence cap has been lifted gratitude to 10nm SuperFin. Lift
timekeepers with the 1165G7 now top out at 4.7 GHz on a solitary string, contrasted with a fairly pitiful 3.9 GHz with the 1065G7, in correlation.
The Tiger Lake GPU has updated from a Gen11 plan to Xe-LP. This brings a large group of upgrades, including 96 execution units versus 64 beforehand and a recurrence knock from 1.1 to 1.3 GHz max. Like with the CPU center, Intel is promoting higher frequencies at all voltages with the new Xe plan.
These are the nuts and bolts of the new Core i7-1165G7. This is certifiably not a straightforward 100-200 MHz recurrence knock on existing designs as we got for quite a long time in the Skylake time, this is a generous update. Shockingly, the name didn't get a similar treatment: Core i7-1165G7 remaining parts one of the most noticeably terrible named CPUs in the business at the present time.
For the present survey, we'll be experiencing both efficiency and gaming benchmarks, contrasting the 1165G7 at both 15W and 28W force levels to other U-arrangement portable CPUs like Ryzen, Ice Lake, Comet Lake, etc. There's a ton of benchmarking to overcome so lash yourselves in.
We're happy to report we're putting together this audit with respect to four distinctive i7-1165G7 PCs, which gives us the most thorough information we've had for such a dispatch. So how about we go through the test frameworks...
Tiger Lake Powered Laptops
First up, we have Intel's new NUC M15 marked as the Schenker Vision 15. This is Intel's 15-inch Tiger Lake reference plan that they are offering to OEMs, which is very decent in general with that MacBook tasteful. It has the 1165G7 running at 28W or higher, despite the fact that we've left it at 28W in the default power profile. 16GB of LPDDR4X memory and a lot of sufficient cooling which keeps it pretty calm, in addition to a 1080p presentation.
The XMG Core 14 is a ground-breaking 14-inch convenient framework that packs both a 1165G7 at up to 28W and a GeForce GTX 1650 discrete GPU. 32GB of double channel DDR4-3200 memory, in addition to a 512GB Samsung SSD and a 1080p showcase. It's not the slimmest framework going around but rather this thing sneaks up all of a sudden in this structure factor with that GPU inside.
At that point, we go to the Dell Inspiron 14 7000. It has the Core i7-1165G7 inside approaching 20W long haul, in spite of the fact that for this audit we're utilizing the 15W force profile. It likewise includes GeForce MX350 discrete illustrations, 16GB of LPDDR4X memory, and a 2560x1600 showcase. We like this framework a great deal, given its top-notch assemble and versatile nature.
At long last, we have the Schenker Via 14, a transportability-centered 14-inch PC that likewise includes the i7-1165G7 at up to 20W, however for this audit we're utilizing the 15W force profile. 16GB of double channel DDR4-3200 memory, a 1080p showcase, and a thin body that is ideal for a PC that depends entirely on coordinated illustrations.
Testing Notes
The explanation we have picked these force profiles to use with these workstations explicitly, regardless of whether they are not the 'most prominent' accessible in certain examples, is to give us the best one type to its logical counterpart correlations with chips that we've just tried, generally at either 15W or 25W.
As we've discussed already, the force level is pivotal in PC structure factors as while a more powerful level conveys better execution, it likewise requires all the more cooling so either a thicker or stronger plan. We don't believe it's reasonable to look at one CPU running at 15W in a thin and light suspension with restricted cooling, to a beefier plan with a discrete GPU running at 28W. Anyway, we have left lift arrangements as default, with these Tiger Lake frameworks boosting somewhere in the range of 35 and 50W for changing timeframes, in some cases for numerous minutes.
The outcomes you'll find in the accompanying outlines are normal of benchmark stumbles into workstations with a similar arrangement, we've tried numerous PCs for practically all the CPUs in the diagrams, so this should give you a summed-up gander at execution. OEMs can design their workstations anyway they like, so you may see a 5% distinction from the normal outcomes at a similar force level contingent upon the PC you purchase, that is by and large what we've seen.
On the off chance that you're considering getting an ultrathin PC, at that point, the 15W numbers will be more in accordance with what you'll see, while those purchasing more premium and bigger plans should look all the more carefully at 25W+ numbers.
Benchmarks
We should get into the benchmarking and we'll begin with Cinebench R20. Being a multi-string remaining task at hand, this is definitely not a solid suite of Intel's Tiger Lake stage, given that it has only four centers contrasted with 6 and 8 centers for the majority of AMD's Ryzen lineup. Thus, in the more powerful class, the 1165G7 isn't serious, falling 30% behind the Ryzen 7 4700U and 45% behind the Ryzen 7 4800U. At 15W these edges are bigger.
Anyway, there's some uplifting news here when contrasting with other Intel processors. At 28W versus 25W for the 1065G7, Intel's new Tiger Lake configuration is a sound 24 percent quicker gratitude to a lot higher supported multi-center clock speeds.
At 15W, the additions aren't as considerable, with the 1165G7 pulling 12% ahead. It appears to be that 10nm SuperFin plays significantly more pleasantly at 28W than it does at 15W, which would clarify Intel's solid spotlight on the more powerful setup. Toward the day's end, however, in this benchmark, the 1165G7 can't coordinate the Ryzen 5 4500U in multi-string execution.
While Tiger Lake's Cinebench MT execution is unremarkable, the inverse is valid for single-string. The 1165G7 is effectively the quickest portable CPU we've tried for single-string execution, beating any remaining plans by a considerable sum.
The Core i7-1165G7 at 28W is 23% quicker than the Ryzen 7 4800U, AMD's quickest Renoir plan. Nonetheless, to support up to 4.8 GHz, a solitary Willow Cove CPU center really devours more than 15W of intensity, around the 20-22W imprint in my testing, which is the reason when Tiger Lake is arranged at its default 15W TDP, single-string execution drops outside the lift time frame.
This is as opposed to AMD's plan, which can run a solitary center underneath 15W, so Ryzen sees an irrelevant presentation decrease at 15W. The outcome is that while the 1165G7 is 23% quicker than the 4800U at a more powerful level, it's just 15% quicker at 15W.
In general, the single-string execution is still great and plainly the capacity to support up to 4.8 GHz is giving Intel a solid success. Seeing a U-arrangement class processor beat each H-arrangement chip also is very bizarre and could make a Tiger Lake PC the most ideal decision on the off chance that you depend on a solitary strung efficiency remaining burdens.
Next up is Handbrake, which tests CPU encoding over a drawn-out period. As this is a multi-strung test, Tiger Lake is disappointing, neglecting to beat the Ryzen 5 4500U. While the 1165G7 is quicker than the 1065G7 – 16% quicker at 28W, and 8% quicker at 15W – that is not even close to the necessary add up to overcome any barrier to Ryzen with simply a quad-center plan. The Ryzen 7 4800U is particularly noteworthy here at 15W, totally crushing the 1165G7.
It's fundamentally the same as the story with Blender CPU encoding, where indeed Tiger Lake falls generously behind Renoir for multi-center execution. While the 1165G7 advantages from a sound 21 percent execution pick up over the 1065G7 at 28W, that isn't exactly enough to beat the 15W Ryzen 5 4500U, indicating that Intel's quad-center plan isn't generally ideal for productivity in these outstanding burdens.
In GCC assemblage in Cygwin, the Core i7-1165G7 is certifiably not an especially incredible decision, delivering accumulation times just somewhat better than the Core i7-1065G7. This implies that Tiger Lake falls well behind AMD's Ryzen processors again for weighty code arrangement work, in spite of the fact that I do presume this will change contingent upon the gather. The more single-strung, the better the outcomes will be for Tiger Lake, yet when multi-stringing becomes an integral factor, at that point the 1165G7 gets given up.
It's a fairly better story in Chromium accumulation as the Core i7-1165G7 is at any rate serious with the Ryzen 5 4500U at 25W and 28W, however, it actually gets outflanked by AMD's better quality Zen 2 APUs.
MATLAB’s built-in benchmark uses a combination of multi-threaded, single-threaded, and memory heavy functions. Here the Core i7-1165G7 is a very strong competitor, edging out the 1065G7 by 17% at 28W and 8% at 15W, to be the fastest overall U-series processor. The additional frequency offered to Tiger Lake allows it to retake the performance crown from AMD, which just barely outperformed Ice Lake with its highest-end Renoir configuration.
Next up we have our Excel large number calculation test, which like many functions in Excel uses multithreading and hits the cache quite hard. For a CPU with just four cores, the Core i7-1165G7 punches above its weight, outperforming the six-core, twelve thread Ryzen 5 Pro 4650U, and matching the Ryzen 7 4700U in the higher power class. While not the overall fastest CPU in this division, that goes to the 4800U, the 1165G7 is a good mobile processor for Excel workloads.
When Renoir hit the market, AMD was able to claw out a victory in PCMark 10’s Essentials test, especially with their high-end Ryzen 7 APUs. In this workload which covers app loading, light web browsing, and video conferencing, the i7-1165G7 does offer 12 percent more performance than previous generation parts, so it’s able to match the Ryzen 7 4800U for basic workloads. Given the 4800U is quite rare on the market, perhaps the 4700U is a better comparison, where the 1165G7 is slightly faster in the 7-8% range.
However the performance lead is really only apparent when the 1165G7 is allowed to use 28W of power: in this range, the 1165G7 is 14% faster than the 4800U when viewing the overall applications score, and 22% faster than the 4700U. These numbers drop a bit, to 5% and 12% respectively, when comparing at 15W which is a much narrower margin. Like in our custom workload, Excel is the strongest result for Ryzen, while PowerPoint is king on Tiger Lake.
Another lighter workload that is common for ultraportable laptops is compression and decompression work. Here we’re looking at compression, and as the test is multi-threaded, this is an area where Tiger Lake falls behind relative to Ryzen 7 processors. At 28W the 1165G7 is around that of the Ryzen 5 Pro 4650U, while at 15W it’s slightly ahead of the 4500U. Compression isn’t Zen’s strong suit, but the power and efficiency of their eight-core design are too strong.
Decompression is especially weak on the 1165G7, getting absolutely destroyed in particular by the SMT-enabled parts in AMD’s line-up. The battle between Tiger Lake and the 4700U is much smaller, however, the 1165G7 is still at least 25 percent slower, which makes Ryzen the clear choice for those that do a lot of decompression work on their laptop
On the other hand, another more lower-level task that is often key to performance is cryptography, and here Intel’s accelerated AES-256 block is substantially faster than Ryzen. It’s actually pulled even further away from Ice Lake on average, delivering at least 40% more performance than Ryzen laptops. This test is quite a memory sensitive so the gains are higher on LPDDR4X laptops that have higher bandwidth.
Acrobat PDF to image exporting is highly single-threaded, so it’s no surprise that the 1165G7 is the fastest mobile CPU we’ve tested. We’re seeing performance 20% better than the 1065G7, around the mark of our Cinebench results, which allows it to handily beat Ryzen 7 by between 20 and 25 percent.
Where Tiger Lake’s media engine is really allowed to shine is in the playback test. The 1165G7 is substantially faster than other integrated GPU solutions at 28W, and performance is still slightly ahead of the Ryzen 7 4800U at 15W.
For DaVinci Resolve exports, there’s not much separating the Ryzen 7 4800U and Core i7-1165G7 in their higher power classes, and the 1165G7 is just 8 percent ahead of the 4700U. However, roles are reversed at 15W, with the 4700U now the faster chip. Realistically in such a GPU limited test such as DaVinci, you won’t want to be exporting too many files on an ultraportable laptop APU; you can see here that as soon as you add a decent discrete GPU into the mix like you get in the XMG Core 14, performance nearly doubles and it only grows from there with beefier GPUs and CPUs.
And finally, we’re going to close out the productivity tests with hardware-accelerated Handbrake encoding using either NVENC, VCE, or QuickSync. Handbrake still heavily utilizes part of the CPU for this test, so despite having a decent encoding engine, the 1165G7 here is CPU limited and slots between the Ryzen 5 4500U and Ryzen 5 Pro 4650U. This can be bumped up a class through the use of an Nvidia discrete GPU, which despite QuickSync’s improvements, still appears to hold the superior H.265 encoder.
With that said, QuickSync is clearly doing quite a bit of work here, as previously with CPU only encoding the 1165G7 was 35% slower than the 4700U. With hardware-acceleration for both, the 1165G7 is 25% slower, suggesting QuickSync to be faster than AMD’s VCE.
Gaming Performance
Moving into gaming, we’ll start with Grand Theft Auto V. Here are the results with the CPU at 15W, and what you’ll spot is that the Core i7-1165G7 isn’t all that competitive in this power class up against Ryzen, falling below the Ryzen 5 option even with fast LPDDR4X memory.
At 15W, there is some merit to including a low power discrete GPU like the MX3250, which is substantially faster than other integrated options in this game.
At 28W, the 1165G7 is significantly more competitive, matching the Ryzen 7 4700U and 4800U and getting close to previous MX250 discrete options. Nvidia GPUs are still the far better choice for this game though, with a GTX 1650 providing over double the frame rate in some situations using low settings.
In Civilization VI, the 1165G7 is able to match the Ryzen 7 4700U on average frame rate at 15W, which is quite neat and shows strong progress for Intel’s new Xe GPU in a game that did not run well on Ice Lake. We’re seeing better performance than the MX250, but not quite at the level of the 4800U or MX350. At 28W, the 1165G7 is able to flex its muscles a bit more and get much closer to the 4800U, now exceeding the performance on offer from the 4700U and MX350.
In CS GO, you’ll be wanting a 1165G7 laptop with LPDDR4X memory because there is a significant performance discrepancy between this memory and DDR4 configurations. With DDR4, we’re only seeing a performance at the level of the Ryzen 7 4700U, but with LPDDR4X Intel pulls ahead of the Ryzen 7 4800U.
At 28W, the performance combination of Intel’s high frequency, fast Xe GPU, and strong single-thread performance allows the 1165G7 to be the far faster mobile platform for gaming in this title.
Gears 5 running at 1080p medium settings is very punishing on integrated GPUs. At 15W, the Core i7-1165G7 sits between the Ryzen 7 4700U and 4800U in terms of performance. But at 25W, the Intel processor is substantially faster, offering a 15% higher average frame rate than the 4800U even when using the slower DDR4 memory option. It’s also faster than Nvidia’s MX350.
Similar story in F1 2019. At 15W, the 1165G7 sits between the Ryzen 7 4700U and 4800U in terms of performance, although it requires LPDDR4X memory to get there. Both products fall short of Nvidia’s MX350. At 25W though, especially with LPDDR4X memory, Intel is clearly the faster option with about a 20% lead on the 4800U and Nvidia MX350.
And finally, we get to Rainbow Six Siege at 1080p medium settings, where at 28W the 1165G7 delivers a really playable experience around the 60 FPS mark, quite a bit ahead of AMD’s best Ryzen 7 APUs. This lead holds true at 15W as well, although only with LPDDR4X memory as again DDR4 is quite a hindrance on Intel’s integrated GPU performance due to far lower memory bandwidth.
Performance Comparisons
Combining these data points for gaming suggests that in the higher power class, with LPDDR4X memory, the Core i7-1165G7 is at worst around the mark of the Ryzen 7 4800U, and in the best cases, 30% faster or more. DDR4 configurations will be worse. Then at 15W, Tiger Lake isn’t as efficient and will likely fall between the 4700U and 4800U which all things considered is still a very competitive result for Intel.
The Core i7-1165G7 is a substantial upgrade on the Core i7-1065G7 at the higher 28W/25W power configuration, especially for designs that both have the same core count. Intel is offering 20% better multi-thread performance, and upwards of 30% better single-thread performance in some workloads, plus a much faster GPU.
At 15W the margins are much narrower, with 15% better single-thread performance and 10% better multi-thread performance in typical workloads. That’s still again, but points to Intel’s 10nm SuperFin being more optimized for 28W power classes versus 15W. That’s evident even in Intel’s own graphs comparing Sunny Cove and Willow Cove, where the gap between these designs grows as voltage increases.
So what we end up with is quite a large difference between 15W and 28W configurations, with gains seen even in single-threaded workloads as hitting that 4.8 GHz mark will require more than 15W on a single core.
Comparing the 1165G7 to AMD’s more commonly used Ryzen 7 4700U processor, these parts trade blows. AMD’s design is faster for multi-thread performance, often substantially so given the core count discrepancy. However the 1165G7 is up to 25% faster for single-thread workloads, and that leads to better performance in areas like Office applications and Photoshop. The 1165G7 is also faster for hardware acceleration like in Premiere or DaVinci. However, the gap between Tiger Lake and the 4700U shrinks at the lower power class, with AMD able to claw back some wins on occasion.
It’s much the same when putting the 1165G7 up against AMD’s flagship Ryzen 7 4800U. The 4800U’s lead in multi-core tests grows quite a bit when adding in SMT, however, the 1165G7 is still the faster processor for single-threaded tasks and accelerated workloads. Again at 15W, the margins are more in favor of AMD but Intel is still able to provide better performance in some key workloads.
What We Learned
The Core i7-1165G7 is one of Intel’s better CPUs to hit the market in the last 5 years. Both Intel desktop and mobile CPU offerings have stagnated for some time, more so on the desktop side, but there's been criticism across all areas of their CPU division. The Core i7-1165G7 presents the most substantial gains over prior generations since Kaby Lake Refresh, which bumped Intel’s mobile U-series from 2 to 4 cores.
With significant improvements across all areas of the chip, 10nm SuperFin has allowed Intel to substantially increase CPU frequencies versus Ice Lake. This leads to much better single-thread and multi-thread performance at the same voltage level. The Xe GPU is even better, providing an enormous performance leap on the 1065G7. This is complemented by a strong set of platform features, like Thunderbolt, PCIe 4.0, and improvements to the media engine and other areas.
The gains over Ice Lake are most notorious in the higher power configuration, which for this generation is 28W. It’s clear why Intel has placed a bigger focus on this TDP config, as the 1165G7 isn’t nearly as impressive at 15W. In some instances Intel requires the extra power to beat Zen 2-based Ryzen, with AMD's APUs generally being more efficient for lower-power systems at 15W.
In the battle between Tiger Lake and Ryzen Renoir, the talking point that continually bobs up is the CPU core count. AMD fans love to dunk on Intel for only producing a quad-core design for ultraportables, compared to AMD’s eight cores. But that’s unfair to Intel in our opinion, as the Core i7-1165G7 has other strengths which are very relevant for thin and light laptops.
In most of the simple, everyday, lighter tasks that buyers generally use an ultraportable laptop for, Intel provides better performance. Thanks to much higher single-thread performance, the Core i7-1165G7 is faster than the Ryzen 7 4700U or 4800U for things web browsing, app loading, Office productivity, photo editing in Photoshop, and even some accelerated encoding work. These are most of the core workloads for an ultraportable laptop design. We mean, generally you wouldn’t do CPU-based rendering on a laptop, whereas on a desktop that’s a more relevant test.
How much faster than AMD? That will depend on the workload, the power configuration, and the Ryzen CPU in question. In short, we observed 10 to 20 percent more performance in these apps, which is a decent difference.
AMD is able to shave off that margin if we’re talking about 15W designs with the Core i7-1165G7 going up against the Ryzen 7 4800U, but unfortunately for AMD, the 4800U is a rare beast. Intel are more often going to be competing against the far more common Ryzen 7 4700U (which itself is still reasonably hard to get given supply constraints), and the 1165G7 is able to pull further ahead versus that design.
With Tiger Lake, Intel has been able to complement the everyday workload package with better integrated gaming performance, especially at the higher TDP. If most of what you do in your laptop involves web browsing, office app productivity, photo editing, and a bit of light gaming, then the Core i7-1165G7 is the better mobile processor to get. We suspect this covers a large portion of ultraportable laptop buyers, so while Intel would love to be able to offer 8 cores, they don’t really need it to be competitive.
On the other hand, Ryzen 7 APUs with 8 cores are substantially faster for any heavier multi-threaded CPU limited work. AMD is over 50% faster in multithreaded tests, which makes a 4700U or 4800U better if the apps you use hit a lot of CPU cores. People that want a portable laptop for code compilation, compression work, data crunching in Excel, or CPU-based video encoding should all look to Ryzen. And if you're specifically after an ultrathin 13-inch design that operates at 15W, you can also throw in a few more wins like in Premiere and some games.
This brings us back to something we said in our Ryzen 4000 reviews. AMD is currently able to offer transformative performance for ultraportables, bringing what used to be H-series 45W performance that required more bulky laptops, into thin and light designs. Intel's offerings are not at the same level there.
Ultimately, it will come down to how you use your laptop, and what matters most to you. There's no single "best" choice for an ultraportable laptop between the Core i7-1165G7 and a Ryzen 7 APU, and obviously there are other factors to consider like design and budget.
Needless to be said, our main focus in this review was on performance. We didn’t discuss other aspects to the platform -- in particular battery life. While getting more performance at the same power level generally leads to better battery life, it won't tell you much about idle power. You should look to specific laptop reviews as this can vary greatly from one model to another, depending on capacity and configuration.
Intel enjoys of a more mature laptop ecosystem. While Ryzen 4000 was a step in the right direction for the company, there are still few premium ultrathin AMD designs, while Intel is used in major high-end laptops from nearly every brand, think Dell XPS, Razer Blade, HP Spectre, and so on.
Last but not least, we're hearing loud noises about AMD Zen 3 APUs not that far away. We can probably expect those to show up in the first quarter of 2021. So while Tiger Lake may be the superior platform for single-thread and GPU performance today, that could change in a few months since we know what to expect from Zen 3 after using it on the desktop side.