Final week Intel launched their Tiger Lake-H household of laptop computer processors. Aimed on the bigger 14-inch and above laptops, this processor household is Intel’s latest providing for the high-performance laptop computer market, stepping in above Intel’s mobility-focused U and Y collection of chips. Primarily based on the identical Tiger Lake structure that we first grew to become accustomed to final 12 months, Tiger Lake-H is greater and higher (at the least the place the CPU is worried), providing as much as 8 CPU cores and different advantages like further PCIe lanes. Total, Intel’s H-series chips have lengthy served because the efficiency spine of their laptop computer efforts, and with Tiger Lake-H they wish to proceed that custom.
Whereas final week was Tiger Lake-H’s official launch, as has grow to be more and more widespread for laptop computer launches, the embargoes for the launch data and for {hardware} critiques have landed on separate dates. So, whereas we have been capable of take concerning the platform final week, it’s solely right now that we’re capable of share with you our information on TGL-H – and our analysis on whether or not it lives as much as Intel’s claims in addition to the way it stacks as much as the competitors.
Like Intel’s different laptop computer chips, Tiger Lake-H has a number of aspects, with the corporate needing to steadiness CPU efficiency, GPU efficiency, and energy consumption, all whereas making certain it’s appropriate to fabricate on Intel’s revised 10nm “SuperFin” course of. Balancing all of those components is a problem in and of itself, by no means thoughts the truth that arch-rival AMD is seeking to compete with their very own Zen 3 architecture-based Ryzen 5000 Cell (Cezanne) APUs.
Intel Tiger Lake-H Shopper | ||||||||||
AnandTech | Cores Threads |
35W Base |
45W Base |
65W Base |
2C Turbo |
4C Turbo |
nT Turbo |
L3 Cache |
Xe GPU |
Xe MHz |
i9-11980HK | 8C/16T | – | 2.6 | 3.3 | 5.0* | 4.9 | 4.5 | 24 MB | 32 | 1450 |
i9-11900H | 8C/16T | 2.1 | 2.5 | – | 4.9* | 4.8 | 4.4 | 24 MB | 32 | 1450 |
i7-11800H | 8C/16T | 1.9 | 2.3 | – | 4.6 | 4.5 | 4.2 | 24 MB | 32 | 1450 |
i5-11400H | 6C/12T | 2.2 | 2.7 | – | 4.5 | 4.3 | 4.1 | 12 MB | 16 | 1450 |
i5-11260H | 6C/12T | 2.1 | 2.6 | – | 4.4 | 4.2 | 4.0 | 12 MB | 16 | 1400 |
*Turbo Enhance Max 3.0 |
Intel’s Reference Design Laptop computer: Core i9-11980HK Inside
For our Tiger Lake-H efficiency evaluate, Intel has as soon as once more despatched over certainly one of their reference design laptops. As with the Tiger Lake-U launch final 12 months, these reference design laptops usually are not retail laptops in and of themselves, however extra of a complicated engineering pattern designed to exhibit the efficiency of the underlying {hardware}. On this particular case, the BIOS identifies that the laptop computer was assembled by MSI.
Wanting to place their finest foot ahead by way of laptop computer efficiency, Intel’s TGL-H reference design laptop computer is, as you’d think about, a reasonably high-end system. The 16-inch laptop computer relies round Intel’s finest TGL-H half, the Core i9-11980HK, which affords 8 Willow Cove structure CPU cores with SMT, for a complete of 16 threads. This processor can turbo as excessive as 5.0GHz on its favored cores, a bit behind Intel’s previous-generation Comet Lake-H CPUs, however maintaining clockspeeds shut whereas making up the distinction on IPC.
Sadly, their need to place their finest foot ahead implies that Intel has configured the CPU on this system to run at 65W, reasonably than the extra typical 45W TDP of most high-end laptops. 65W is a legitimate mode for this chip, so strictly talking Intel isn’t juicing the chip, however the bulk of the Tiger Lake-H lineup is meant to run at a extra lap-friendly 45W. This provides the Intel system an innate benefit by way of efficiency, because it has extra TDP headroom to play with.
Intel Reference Design: Tiger Lake-H | |
CPU | Intel Core i9-11980HK 8 Cores, 16 Threads 2600 MHz Base (45W) |
GPU | Built-in: Xe-LP Graphics 32 Execution Models, as much as 1450 MHz Discrete: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 Laptop computer 30 SMs, as much as 1703MHz |
DRAM | 32 GB DDR4-3200 CL22 |
Storage | 2x OEM Phison E16 512GB SSD (NVMe PCIe 4.0 x4) |
Show | 16-inch 2560×1600 |
IO | 2x USB-C 2x USB-A |
Wi-Fi | Intel AX210 Wi-Fi 6E + BT5.2 Adapter |
Energy Mode | 65 W (Largely examined at 45W) |
In the meantime the deal with CPU efficiency with TGL-H does come at a price to built-in GPU efficiency. TGL-H components embody Intel’s Xe-LP GPU, however with solely 32 EUs as an alternative of the 96 discovered on high-end Tiger Lake-U techniques. With TGL-H, Intel is anticipating these techniques to be bundled with discrete GPUs, so that they don’t dedicate almost as a lot die house to an built-in GPU that will not get used a lot anyhow. To that finish, the reference system comes with an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 Laptop computer graphics adapter as properly, which is paired with its personal 6GB of GDDR6.
Rounding out the bundle, the system comes with 32GB of DDR4-3200 put in. Storage is supplied by a pair of Phison E16-based OEM drives, permitting Intel to indicate off the advantages of PCIe 4.0 connectivity for SSDs. Lastly, Wi-Fi connectivity can also be Intel-powered, utilizing the corporate’s new AX210 adapter, which affords Wi-Fi 6E + BT5.2 on a single M.2 adapter. It’s value noting that the AX210 is a completely discrete adapter, so it doesn’t leverage TGL-H’s built-in (CNVi) MAC, as that doesn’t help Wi-Fi 6E.
And, in line with making this reference system look as near a retail design as moderately doable, Intel even put the same old Intel Core and NVIDIA GeForce stickers on the laptop computer.
Sadly, we’ve had comparatively little time with the system forward of right now’s embargo. The embargo on efficiency figures was initially scheduled for final Thursday (Might 13th). Nevertheless resulting from delays in transport these laptops to reviewers, we didn’t obtain the system till the top of final week, and Intel bumped again the embargo accordingly. So with simply over two days to look over the system, we’ve actually solely had an opportunity to check out essentially the most vital facets of the system relating to efficiency.