The Intel i7-8750H is quickly becoming one of the most popular laptop CPUs of its generation,
but how does it compare against the popular i7-7700HQ from the previous generation?
We’ll find out in this video with a series of gaming and application benchmarks to see
how they perform, and discuss the performance, temperature and battery life differences between
them to help you decide which you should buy in your next laptop.
Earlier this year Intel launched their new 8th generation Coffee Lake laptop CPUs, which
for the first time from Intel gives us up to 6 cores in a laptop with the 8750H and
above.
Before this the four core 7th gen 7700HQ CPU seemed to be commonplace in most of the laptops
that I tested, and a lot of you have asked me to compare the two chips.
Aside from those differences in core count, the newer 8750H can also reach higher clock
speeds when boosting.
How much of a performance difference does this make practically?
To test this I’ve run a lot of benchmarks on two different laptops with these processors
to find out.
The 7700HQ laptop is the MSI GE63 7RF, while the 8750H laptop is the newer MSI GE63 RGB
8RF.
Both laptops are basically exactly the same, with the only difference in specs being the
CPU.
They both have Nvidia 1070 graphics, and the same 16GB of DDR4-2400 memory running in dual
channel.
They’ve also got the same battery and cooling system, so we’ll look at the differences
in battery drain and temperatures too.
We’ll start off with the game benchmarks first, followed by various applications and
CPU specific tests afterwards.
Fortnite was tested on both laptops using the exact same replay, and we’re seeing
10% improvement to the average frame rate at epic settings, and a smaller 6% improvement
to the 1% low, so the differences here aren’t too large and both are providing a great experience.
Overwatch was tested by performing the same test run in the practice range, and at epic
settings there’s a much larger 21% improvement to the average frame rates with the 8750H,
and a much larger 51% improvement to the 1% lows, which are only just below the average
frame rate of the 7700HQ at epic settings.
CS:GO was tested using the Ulletical benchmark, and with all settings maxed out the 8750H
was performing 21% better on average than the 7700HQ, and this increases slightly to
a 22% improvement at minimum settings, with smaller differences in the 1% lows.
Rainbow Six Siege was tested using the built in benchmark, and there was almost no difference
at all here, however the older 7700HQ was actually slightly ahead in all tests, not
really sure why that was the case but the differences in CPU are pretty negligible in
this title.
Dota 2 was tested with an intensive replay, this test does not represent actual game play,
which would see larger frame rates.
In this specific repeatable test though the 8750H is averaging 28% better than the 7700HQ
with all settings maxed out.
Assassin’s Creed Origins was tested using the built in benchmark, and the 8750H is coming
out 11% ahead for average frame rates at ultra high settings, with a 10% improvement for
the 1% low result.
Far Cry 5 was also tested with the built in benchmark, and there was a similar improvement
seen here too.
At Ultra settings the 8750H was scoring 15% better in average frame rate with a larger
22% improvement noted for the 1% low.
Shadow of the Tomb Raider was once again tested using the built in benchmark, although smaller
differences in performance were recorded.
There was just a 6% boost to average frame rates with the highest settings with the 8th
gen chip, and a slightly larger 10% improvement at the lowest settings as we’re less GPU
bound.
Watch dogs 2 tends to be a pretty CPU intensive title, often maxing out all cores.
At ultra settings the 8750H is reaching 20% higher average frame rates than the 7700HQ,
with just a 12% boost to the 1% low result.
No real difference is seen at the lower less GPU bound settings either, with a lower 18%
improvement to average frame rates at low settings.
Ghost recon is another fairly intensive title, though I’ve found this one to be more GPU
bound at basically any setting level.
With that in mind, at ultra settings the 8750H was performing just 8% better in average frame
rates, with about the same result at low settings.
The Witcher 3 was averaging just under 10% better frame rates at ultra settings with
the 8750H, with a much larger 19% improvement to the 1% low result.
The 8750H pulls out further ahead as we lower the settings, however I think the larger increase
to the 1% lows from the 8th gen chip is more useful once we’re already averaging above
100 FPS.
Shadow of War was tested using the built in benchmark, and there was a 10% improvement
with the 8750H at ultra settings, with a slightly higher 11% improvement with the lowest settings
in use.
On average in the games tested, at max settings the 8750H was around 13% better in terms of
average frame rate when compared with the 7700HQ, but as you can see it really depends
on the particular game.
These results are in theory a worst case scenario too, as I’m comparing the games at max settings.
In many games, max settings will usually be more GPU than CPU bound, with lower settings
showing us a larger difference in performance, though again this depends on the specific
game.
Now let’s move away from gaming and into the application testing.
In these more CPU intensive tests both CPUs were undervolted by -0.150v in order to best
attempt removal of thermal and power limit throttling.
With that in mind however, there was still some power limit throttling on the 8750H CPU,
however I think it’s safe to assume that this will always be the case.
I’ve tested a heap of 8th gen laptops now and more than 90% of them would still power
limit throttle under stress test even while undervolted, so I think this still represents
a fairly real world scenario with these CPUs, honestly it would be unrealistic if I actually
tested one that didn’t throttle at all under full load.
This does mean that performance will vary between 8750H laptops based on power limits
and thermal solutions, but I think we’re showing a pretty good example of 8750H performance
here with undervolting applied.
Cinebench scales pretty well over multiple CPU cores, so in the multi core test we’re
seeing quite a large 68% improvement with the 8750H over the 7700HQ due to a combination
of those 50% more cores and higher clock speed.
The higher single core clock speed is shown in the blue bar, with the 8750H 16% ahead
in this one.
Adobe Premiere was used to export one of my laptop review videos at 1080p, and the 8750H
is getting the job done almost 30% faster when compared to the 7700HQ, not a bad result
as Premiere doesn’t generally scale too well with more cores, or at least that’s
the case with my 16 core Threadripper system.
Handbrake was used to encode a 4K video file to 1080p, and then a separate 1080p video
file to 720p using the HQ presets.
This test scales better compared to Adobe Premiere, with the 8750H performing 55% better
in the 4K test and then 68% faster in the 1080p test.
The 7-Zip benchmark was used to demonstrate the decompression and compression speeds of
both CPUs.
The decompression result sees the largest difference, with the 8750H running 55% faster
than the 7700HQ, and then 36% faster in the compression test.
I’ve used Veracrypt to test the AES encryption and decryption speeds, and we’re seeing
another large win for the 8750H, which is performing 69% better in encryption and 65%
better in decryption when compared with the 7700HQ.
The Corona benchmark renders a scene using the CPU, a task that scales well over multiple
cores.
In this test the 8750H is completing the task 54% faster than the 7700HQ.
The Vray benchmark behaves in a similar manner, with the 8750H completing the task 55% faster
than the 7700HQ.
In Geekbench 4 there was a 43% improvement to the multicore speeds with the 8750H, and
just a 10% improvement to the single core speed.
Passmark 9 saw similar increases with the 8750H, performing 42% better in multicore
but 22% better for single core.
On average we’re seeing the 8750H performing close to 50% ahead of the 7700HQ in all of
the multicore tests combined, which makes sense when you consider that it’s also got
50% more cores.
Of course not all applications will scale perfectly, as we can see, but I still found
it interesting that this was how things averaged out.
I only did 3 different single core tests here, and in these the 8750H was averaging 16% better
than the 7700HQ.
Now let’s take a look at the battery life of both laptops.
In the yellow bar I tested both laptops by running the Aida64 stress test, so smashing
all CPU cores with load.
As expected the 7700HQ laptop is lasting longer in this test, 27% longer than the 8750H laptop,
as it does have half the core count.
It’s also lasting a few minutes longer when gaming, shown by the green bar.
The blue bar shows just watching YouTube, which was interesting, in this test the 8750H
was actually better.
Both were using the Intel integrated graphics for this test, and apparently both chips have
the same Intel HD 630 graphics, so I’m not too sure why the 8750H lasted longer here.
Both laptops were running with keyboard and lid lighting off, screen on 50% brightness,
and background apps disabled.
As for the temperatures both laptops were tested with the same ambient room temperature
of 18 degrees celsius, and as we can see they also both have identical heatpipe design,
so the cooling system appears to be the same on both.
As the heatpipes are shared I’ve also included GPU temperatures just for fun, as a change
in one component may affect the other.
We can see that in most cases the 7700HQ laptop is running cooler than the 8750H under identical
tests.
While under stress test, with the fans maxed out and with a -0.150v CPU undervolt applied
shown by the black bar the 8750H was much hotter than the 7700HQ, owing to those extra
two cores and higher clock speeds.
Just quickly these are the clock speeds of the components during these tests.
We can see that when gaming and under stress test the 7700HQ is always able to reach its
3.4GHz all core turbo boost speed.
The 8750H on the other hand isn’t able to reach its 3.9GHz all core turbo speed at stock,
but then it’s only just behind once undervolted and with the fans maxed out, which as mentioned
earlier is pretty typical performance in most 8750H based laptops I’ve tested.
So which CPU should you get in a laptop?
If possible, I’d recommend the 8750H, as we can see here it’s performing a fair bit
better in all tasks thanks to the clock speed bump and additional two cores.
With that said though the 7700HQ is still a very capable laptop chip, especially in
gaming where more emphasis is typically placed on the GPU anyway.
In tasks such as rendering though where the extra CPU cores can be utilized well the 8750H
would be a much better choice, it really depends on what you’re doing and of course your
budget.
Many older 7th gen laptops may also be on sale and priced competitively compared to
their 8th gen counterparts, so still worth a look at.
If you’ve already got a laptop with a 7700HQ CPU I don’t think it’s really worth upgrading
to a new laptop just to get the 8750H, maybe if you’re doing core heavy work and you
really need it, otherwise you’ll have to replace the entire laptop as both CPUs are
soldered to the motherboard, which is an expensive process.
So what did you guys think about the differences in performance between Intel’s 7th gen i7-7700HQ
and 8th gen i7-8750H CPUs?
I think it’s great that Intel are finally offering more than 4 cores in laptops for
those that need them, and the clock speed boosts give us a pretty nice single core improvement
as well.
Be sure to let me know your thoughts down in the comments, and leave a like if you found
the comparison useful.
Thanks for watching, and don’t forget to subscribe for future comparisons and tech
videos like this one.