Are all Intel Core i7 chips powerful?

What is Intel Core i7? Are machines using Core i7 always powerful? Let's find out with HANOICOMPUTER in the following article!

Even many people who have used many laptops can still make this mistake. It is true that when comparing the same generation and the same chip line, i7 is usually stronger than i5, i5 is stronger than i3, but if we consider all products, things are different.

Let's take the example of 2 processors i7 10510U and i5 9300H. First, let's learn from the technical specifications of these 2 chips with HANOICOMPUTER.

Specifications of 2 processors i7 10510U and i5 9300H

Below is a table listing some of the basic specifications of the i7 10510U and i5 9300H.

	i7 10510U	i5 9300H
Release date	Quarter 3 – 2019	Quarter 2 – 2019
Lithography	14 nm	14 nm
Multiplier	4	4
Number of threads	8	8
Processor base frequency	1.80 GHz	2.40 GHz
Maximum turbo frequency	4.90 GHz	4.10 GHz
Cache	8 MB	8 MB
Bus Speed	4 GT/s	8 GT/s
TDP	15W	45 W

TDP (thermal design power) is the maximum heat dissipation capacity of a processor chip, present on every CPU or GPU, and is used to measure the amount of heat that the processor will generate when loading tasks on the system. As we know, in semiconductors, all the electricity going through the CPU will be converted into heat energy, so TDP can be considered as power consumption because the difference between these two numbers is not significant.

Let's compare the two processors i7 10510U and i5 9300H. We see that the indexes of these two processors are quite similar, with 4 cores and 8 threads. The base frequency of i7 10510U is 1.80Ghz, slightly higher than i5 9300H, while the turbo boost index is higher, 4.90 GHz compared to 4.10 Ghz.

Another obvious difference is that the TDP of the i7 10510U is 15 W while the i5 9300H is 45 W. An i7 with a TDP of only 15 W, why does it have a higher turbo boost? Does this mean the i7 10510U is more powerful than the i5 9300H?

Laptop i7 10510U and Laptop i5 9300H – Which laptop is more powerful?

The answer here is Laptop i5 9300H!

Considering single-core tasks

The maximum turbo frequency is the frequency that the CPU can achieve thanks to Turbo Boost technology. This technology pushes the clock speed up to handle heavy tasks, after processing the clock speed will return to the base state. Thus, considering single-core tasks, the i7 10510U is stronger than the i5 9300H.

However, the TDP index of i5 9300H is 45, 3 times higher than i7 10510U, which means the power consumption of i5 9300H can be 3 times higher than i7 10510U processor.

The clock speed of i7 10510U can reach 4.9 GHz, however due to limited power consumption, this clock speed cannot be maintained for a long time and after a few seconds, the clock speed of i7 10510U will gradually decrease.

Are all Intel Core i7 chips powerful? Picture 1

The i5 9300H processor can only go up to 4.1 GHz, but it has the power to maintain the maximum clock speed, the clock speed drops to 4GHz at most.

Are all Intel Core i7 chips powerful? Picture 2

If you calculate the instantaneous clock speed of i7 10510U is higher, but if you consider the long term, i5 9300H maintains higher clock speed because it is allowed to burn more electricity. Besides, i5 9300H processor is a processor specialized for gaming laptops - laptops designed with excellent heat dissipation. Being able to burn more electricity and being designed with better heat dissipation, this has further extended the clock speed holding time of i5 9300H.

Are all Intel Core i7 chips powerful? Picture 3

Considering multi-core tasks

What about multi-core tasks? 15W is not enough to provide enough power for the 4-core, 8-thread i7 10510U CPU to handle multi-core tasks at high clock speeds. Meanwhile, the i7 10510U processor can reach a clock speed of 4.9 GHz, but because it only consumes 15W, its clock-sustaining ability is not high, averaging only about 2 GHz when handling multi-core tasks.

Are all Intel Core i7 chips powerful? Picture 4

Meanwhile, the TDP of the i5 9300H is 45 W, which helps keep the average clock speed at 3 GHz or more, which is much higher. Therefore, when rendering videos on an i5 9300H laptop, the speed is much faster than when rendering on an i7 10510U laptop.

Are all Intel Core i7 chips powerful? Picture 5

In short, when dealing with complex multi-core tasks or calculating processing speed over a long period of time, the i5 9300H is still the winner.

Are all Intel Core i7 chips powerful? Picture 6

Hopefully this article has cleared up one of your frequently confused questions! Thanks for taking the time to read this!

Source: AMTECH Studio

Intel Core i7

Lesley Montoya

Update 16 January 2025

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