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The mobile duel of the year.

Intel finally announced the 10th Generation Comet Lake-H processors for mobile devices today. Notebookcheck has the scoop on what you can expect from the new 14nm processors in terms of performance.

These new chips rock the Comet Lake-H microarchitecture, which is on Intel's 14nm process node. AMD Ryzen 4000-series (codename Renoir), on the other hand, is based off AMD's Zen 2 microarchitecture and the 7nm process node from TSMC. From a technological standpoint, AMD's offerings are more modern.

Being H-series parts, Comet Lake-H and Renoir processors are mobile-friendly with TDP (thermal design power) ratings of 45W. In AMD's case, the chipmaker has a special HS-series branch that's optimized for 35W. Both chipmakers have processors that max out at eight cores and 16 threads. However, the Comet Lake-H portfolio starts at four cores, while the Ryzen 4000 lineup starts at six cores.

Processor Cores / Threads Base Clock (GHz) Boost Clock (GHz) L3 Cache (MB) Memory Support TDP (W)
Intel Core i9-10980HK
8 / 16 2.4 5.3 16 Dual DDR4-2933 45
AMD Ryzen 7 4900H
8 / 16 3.3 4.4 8 Dual DDR4-3200 45
Intel Core i7-10875H
8 / 16 2.3 5.1 16 Dual DDR4-2933 45
AMD Ryzen 7 4800H
8 / 16 2.9 4.2 8 Dual DDR4-3200 45
Intel Core i7-10850H
6 / 12 2.7 5.1 12 Dual DDR4-2933 45
Intel Core i7-10750H
6 / 12 2.6 5.0 12 Dual DDR4-2933 45
AMD Ryzen 5 4600H
6 / 12 3.0 4.0 8 Dual DDR4-3200 45
Intel Core i5-10400H
4 / 8 2.6 4.6 8 Dual DDR4-2933 45
Intel Core i5-10300H
4 / 8 2.5 4.5 8 Dual DDR4-2933 45

Intel 10th Gen Comet Lake-H Benchmarks

Notebookcheck compared the i9-10880H, i7-10750H and i5-10300H SKUs against the Ryzen 9 4900HS, (which we also tested in our Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 review ) and Ryzen 7 4800H. The site also pulled in the new chips' Coffee Lake-H counterparts, the i9-9880H, i7-9750H and i5-9300H. The Comet Lake-H laptops used for testing used dual-channel DDR4-2666 RAM.

The publication noted that the i9-10880H and i7-10750H results are from two different laptops. Consequently, the results will vary according to the laptop's design and cooling solution. Notebookcheck averaged the Ryzen 4000-series and Coffee Lake-H results scores across a different number of devices.

Processor Cinebench R20 (Single Core) Cinebench R15 (Single Core)
Intel Core i9-10880H
508 214
Intel Core i7-10750H
504 213
Intel Core i9-10880H
500 212
Intel Core i7-10750H
500 210
AMD Ryzen 9 4900HS
495 193
Intel Core i9-9980HK
472 198
Intel Core i5-10300H
470 194
Intel Core i9-9880H
457 190
Intel Core i7-9750H
440 183
Intel Core i5-9300H
415 173

Based on Notebookcheck's results, Intel is still the king of single-core performance, but AMD isn't too far behind. The Cinebench R15 results show the i9-10880H as being up to 10.9% faster than the Ryzen 9 4900HS. On the more recent Cinebench R20 benchmark, the i9-10880H's lead dropped to just 3%.

Generation-over-generation improvements will depend on which Comet Lake-H and Coffee Lake-H models you compare. For comparison, the i9-10880H delivers up to 7.6% and 11.2% more performance in Cinebench R20 than the Core i9-9980HK and Core i9-9880H, respectively, according to the benchmarks shared today.

Processor Cinebench R20 (Multi Core) Cinebench R15 (Multi Core) 3DMark Time Spy (CPU Score) 3DMark Fire Strike (Physics)
AMD Ryzen 9 4900HS
4,288 1,863 8,966 21,873
AMD Ryzen 7 4800H
4,192 1,837 8,360 21,660
Intel Core i9-9980HK
3,544 1,637 8,519 19,640
Intel Core i9-10880H
3,380 1,797 9,015 21,658
Intel Core i9-10880H
3,366 1,785 8,680 21,113
Intel Core i9-9880H
3,277 1,503 7,206 17,743
Intel Core i7-10750H
2,968 1,418 7,419 18,769
Intel Core i7-10750H
2,943 1,404 5,474 17,703
Intel Core i7-9750H
2,556 1,178 6,366 16,305
Intel Core i5-10300H
2,154 921 5,043 12,998
Intel Core i5-9300H
1,727 784 4,074 11,376

The tides turned in AMD's favor when it came multi-core performance. The Ryzen 7 4800H outperformed the i9-10880H by 24% and 2.2% in Cinebench R20 and Cinebench R15, respectively, in Notebookcheck's testing.

Although the i9-10880H's results look bad compared to the Ryzen 7 4800H, the Comet Lake-H showed improved multi-core performance over the prior i9-9980H. According to Noteboocheck's results, the i9-10880H is up to 3.1% faster than the i9-9980H in Cinebench R20 and up to 19.6% quicker in Cinebench R15.

With Zen 2, AMD has almost caught up to Intel in regard to single-core performance. If Intel doesn't move to a new microarchitecture and process node soon, we suspect that AMD will pass Intel when it graduates to Zen 3, 7nm+ chips. Notebookcheck's numbers showed Comet Lake-H failing to compete with Renoir in the multi-core performance race and barely clinging to the single-core ribbon.
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