Does your laptop need 6 or 8 cores?
I’ve compared Intel’s 11th gen i5-11400H against the i7-11800H in both games and applications
to show you what the differences are.
All testing has been done with the exact same laptop chassis, meaning I can fairly compare
things like thermals, battery life, power draw and more.
Thanks to XMG for sending their Core 17 over so I could do this comparison, you can check
them out with the links in the description.
These are the differences in specs between the two Intel processors I’m comparing.
The i7 has two extra cores, but double the amount of cache.
The maximum possible clock speeds from the i7 are just 100MHz higher than the i5.
Performance will of course vary based on power limit, and I’ve tested both laptops at both
45 and 80 watts.
I tested up to 80 because that’s the maximum option supported by the control center software
on these machines, and it seems to overwrite anything else set in Intel XTU so I can’t
go higher.
I also tested 45 watts as technically that’s the spec on the Intel website, but also a
lot of laptops that are under combined CPU plus GPU load are only going to run up to
45 watts on the processor anyway.
Here’s a shot of the internals of both laptops, so exact same cooling solution, same RTX 3050
graphics, same memory kit, same battery, same everything except the processor, making this
ideal for comparing.
I’ll start out with application and thermal tests first so you can get an understanding
of how these machines actually differ, then we’ll of course check out gaming afterwards,
or you can time travel with those timestamps below.
I will also be comparing both of these Intel processors against AMD’s Ryzen processors
very soon, so make sure you’re subscribed for those upcoming comparisons.
I’ve measured the temperatures of both laptops while running the Blender benchmark, a heavily
multithreaded test.
I’ve tested with both laptops limited to a 45 watt TDP down the bottom, and with the
higher 80 watt TDP above.
With the lower power limit the i7 chip is actually running cooler, perhaps as the same
amount of power is spread out over more cores.
The i7 was just slightly warmer once both have higher power limits though.
We can see why this was the case when actually checking the TDP levels reported by hardware
info.
At 45 watts, well, surprise surprise both are running at 45 watts, but with the 80 watt
limit our i7 laptop is actually being power limited.
Technically this means in heavily multithreaded tests like this, the i7 could see even further
gains with a higher power limit, though this would also result in higher temperatures.
Both laptops were running around the same clock speed in this test with a 45 watt TDP,
despite the difference in the core counts.
With the higher power limit though, the i5-11400H is reaching its 4.1GHz all core turbo boost
speed.
The i7-11800H is not though, it has more cores to power and as mentioned, is actually power
limited even with the higher 80 watt TDP supported by the laptop.
Here are the actual performance differences we’re looking at in Blender, which is the
workload that was run for those previous thermal examples.
With both chips capped to 45 watts there’s only a one second difference in the BMW test,
while the Classroom test is only 3% faster on the i7.
It seems like the additional cores of the i7 don’t really get to work without higher
power limits, as the 80 watt limit then puts the Classroom test almost 31% faster than
the i5, but again it’s worth mentioning that in this test the i7 wasn’t hitting
its all core boost due to the 80 watt limit, so a higher limit could increase this further.
Cinebench was seeing a similar behavior for the multicore scores.
The i7 was just one percent higher than the i5 when both were running at 45 watts, but
then with the higher power limits the i7’s cores are able to get to work and put it 24%
ahead of the i5.
We’re not expecting single core performance to really change between different power levels,
as a single core won’t be using enough to trigger the power limit.
The i7 was around three and a half percent higher for the single core test here.
The Geekbench test also covers both single and multicore, and the i7 was almost scoring
5% higher than the i5 here, whether we’re looking at lower or higher power limits, again
it doesn’t matter for single core performance.
The i7 was also 5% ahead in multi-core with the lower power limit, but then it gets a
higher 26% lead over the i5 with the higher power limit.
V-Ray uses the processor to render out a scene.
This is a multithreaded test, so we’re expecting the i7 to do better, though like the previous
tests there’s a far smaller difference between the two at the lower 45 watt power limit.
The i7 was less than 4% ahead of the i5 there, but then this increases to a 35% higher score
with the higher power levels.
The Corona benchmark also uses the processor to render a scene, and the differences were
basically the same as V-Ray just before it with the lower power limit, but with the higher
power levels the i7-11800H was now able to consistently complete this task 43% faster
than the i5-11400H.
Handbrake was used to convert a 4K h.264 video file that I shot to 1080p h.265.
This is another threaded test, so again less of a difference with the lower 45 watt power
limit.
The i7 was 6% faster in this case despite its additional cores, but then it’s 23%
faster once those extra cores are able to get the power they clearly need.
7-Zip was used to test compression and decompression.
This application had above average differences compared to others tested, even with the lower
45 watt TDP, so perhaps the cache difference matters more here.
Again like the others, the difference is larger with the higher power limit as the i7 can
better get to work.
Adobe Photoshop was tested with the Puget systems benchmark.
Both laptops have the same RTX 3050 graphics with same power limits, as that may get used
here.
The i7 was scoring 8% higher with the lower 45 watt power limit, and then 11% higher with
the higher limit, so not too much change.
Linux kernel compilation was one of the better results out of everything tested, though the
results were a little strange.
The i5-11400H was scoring about the same amount regardless of the power limit.
I was using Intel rapl to modify power limits in Linux, as all other tests were done in
Windows.
I have my doubts that the i5 was hitting its all core boost within 45 watts here given
this wasn’t the case in any of the other tests, so this could be a Linux power limit
failure.
Back to Windows tests.
Microsoft Excel was tested with the Hardware Unboxed large number crunch test.
This test likes cache, and the i7 has double the total amount of available cache, which
probably explains why this application saw the largest differences between the two processors.
The i7 was 31% faster at 45 watts, and 70% faster at 80 watts.
These are the differences when looking at all of the applications just tested with both
limited to a 45 watt TDP.
Some tests saw basically no change, while a few were able to hit double digit gains.
On average the i7 was 8% faster, but as this includes a random mixture of single and multithreaded
tasks it’s not a useful metric.
With the higher power limit in place there are now far more double digit gains, the i7
was now almost 29% faster on average, but again that applies only to these specific
tests and is not a general statement about how much faster the i7 is, as I’m showing
both single and multicore tests here.
The single core tests at the bottom only had minor differences, while most of the multithreaded
tasks could now get quite decent gains on the i7 with more power.
Just before we get into the game testing, I’ve also tested battery life on both in
the lowest balanced performance mode.
This was done by playing the same YouTube video on both with keyboard lighting off and
the screen set to 50% brightness, which is the same panel in both laptops.
The i5 laptop was lasting just 9 minutes longer, so nothing major and too small of a difference
to draw a solid conclusion from.
Let’s check out the gaming differences next.
Unfortunately both of these laptops only have RTX 3050 graphics, so we’re only going to
look at 1080p results here.
I have also tested at all setting presets instead of just maximum, as many modern games
might be GPU bound at higher settings.
I also need to note that although both laptops were tested with the maximum CPU power limit
in the control center software, while both of these machines are under sustained CPU
and GPU stress test the CPU only went up to 55 watts, which based on what I’ve seen
so far is an above average result.
A lot of other laptops only let the CPU go up to 45 watts in games.
Basically this will vary between laptops.
Shadow of the Tomb Raider was tested with the games benchmark.
There’s no difference in average FPS between medium and highest settings, but there’s
some change with the lower setting presets, as these are typically less GPU heavy.
Best case the i7 was 7 and a half percent faster than the i5 with the lowest setting
preset.
Fortnite was tested with the same replay file on each laptop.
Again there’s only a notable difference at lower setting presets.
At maximum the i7 was just 1 FPS ahead, or 1% faster, margin of error stuff really, but
it was 15% higher at low settings, not that above 300 FPS on the i5 is at all unplayable
or anything.
CS:GO is a game that actually depends on the processor, so it wasn’t too surprising to
find that this game had one of the biggest differences between the two processors.
The i7 was reaching 7% higher average FPS with the highest setting preset, while it
was 15% faster at minimum settings, the largest difference out of all 11 games tested at minimum.
Cyberpunk 2077 on the other hand had basically no difference between the two processors.
In terms of average FPS we’re looking at less than a 1 FPS difference in either direction,
with similarly minor changes to 1% lows.
Red Dead Redemption 2 was tested with the games benchmark, unfortunately I couldn’t
test ultra settings as the RTX 3050 graphics being limited to 4 gigs of VRAM prevents it
running, however the i7 was about 9% faster than the i5 with the high setting preset,
though this is only about 5 FPS or so.
Assassin’s Creed Valhalla was tested in the same manner, and is another game that
also has problems with the 4 gigs of VRAM available with the 3050, which is why performance
between ultra high and high settings is so low.
There’s basically no difference between them even at lower setting presets though.
Watch Dogs Legion was generally ahead on the i7, but again it’s not really a difference
you’re likely to notice in most cases, just a 1 FPS difference in the averages between
ultra and medium settings, while low settings was just 4% ahead of the i5.
Control is a fairly GPU heavy game, so it wasn’t too surprising to see no difference
between the 6 or 8 core processors here.
Rainbow Six Siege also had basically no differences between the two processors, just a 1 FPS difference
in the averages between ultra and medium settings, while low settings had a whopping 4 FPS gain
on the i7.
That was sarcasm by the way.
The differences in average FPS were small in The Witcher 3.
There’s a one to two FPS difference in either direction, margin of error stuff, though the
1% lows are at least looking slightly more consistent in favor of the i7, but not by
much.
Battlefield V was likewise ahead in terms of 1% lows with the i7, while average FPS
could vary a bit more one way or the other.
On average out of these 11 games tested, at maximum settings the i7-11800H was just 2%
faster, though as we can see it does vary by game, and honestly most of the results
are within margin of error ranges anyway.
The i7 is doing better if we instead compare minimum setting levels, as the processor typically
matters more because these presets are often less GPU heavy.
The i7-11800H was almost 5% faster than the i5-11400H at minimum settings, and those esports
titles are right up the top with relatively big gains compared to most others.
So based on these results it would seem that either 6 or 8 cores are perfectly fine when
it comes to gaming.
Esports games where the processor does actually make more of a difference saw bigger performance
gains on the i7, and much of the i7’s performance improvements are probably down to it having
double the cache as well as higher clock speed.
Actually, the higher clock speed might not even get hit, it depends on the game.
As we saw earlier in blender anyway, if all cores are loaded up with higher power limits
the i5 can actually clock higher as it has fewer cores to power.
As for price differences, I’ve been advised that the i7 is about $80 to $100 USD more
expensive compared to the i5 on the purchasing side, so by the time the OEM takes some profit
it’ll probably be a little more expensive than that, but it will of course depend on
things like volume discounts which will vary based on which companies buying them and how
many.
If gaming is your focus then honestly I think you’re going to be perfectly happy with
the 6 core i5-11400H, at least in the mid range, you can definitely save some money,
you don’t necessarily need the i7 for gaming.
Maybe if you’re playing a lot of esports titles the i7 might be worth the extra.
With either of these processors, I’d say it depends more on the GPU at this point.
Personally I’d be going for something more than the 4 gig of VRAM in the RTX 3050, as
we did see that was actually a limiting factor in some of the games tested.
I think something like the RTX 3060 would be a great sweet spot, but again that does
cost more money.
If you’re doing productivity tasks though, then the 8 core i7-11800H could be worth the
extra.
As we’ve seen with the higher power limit, which is fairly common in CPU only workloads,
there can be reasonable performance improvements in multithreaded applications, but yeah realistically
it’s kind of hard to go wrong with either of these processors.
I’m just happy to see that quad core i5s appear to be dead in gaming laptops.
The next thing you’re probably wondering is how do these Intel processors compare against
AMD’s Ryzen 5000?
Well lucky for you I’m planning on comparing the 6 core i5-11400H against the Ryzen 5 5600H
and I’m also going to compare the 8 core i7-11800H against the Ryzen 7 5800H, so definitely
make sure you’re subscribed for those upcoming comparison videos, there are a lot more on
the way!
Come and join me in Discord and get behind the scenes videos by supporting the channel
on Patreon, and check out some of my other recent laptop comparison videos over here,
I’ll see you over in one of those next!.