PC World - USA (2020-11)

NOVEMBER 2020 PCWorld 43

CPU PERFORMANCE
With graphics out of the way, we move onto
the choppier waters of CPU testing. We have
no doubt that Intel wins graphics, but on the
other side of the aisle it’s more nuanced.
We’ll kick this off with the good news for
Intel: awesomely high clock speeds. With the
Core i7-1185G7 capable of hitting 4.8GHz on
boost, and 4.3GHz on all cores, it’s hands-
down the winner on lightly threaded tasks.
You can see this in one of the tasks that
typically leans on frequency more than core
count: Microsoft Office. When paired with
Microsoft Office, PCMark 10’s Applications
test runs the computer through Word, Excel,
PowerPoint, and Edge and measures its
response doing mundane office tasks. It’s
about as real-world as you can get because
you’re actually using Microsoft Office.
The 11th Core i7-1185G7 comes in about

24 percent faster than the lower-clocked

10th-gen Ice Lake Core i7. In a reversal, the

10th-gen Comet Lake Core i7 using the older

14nm cores actually outpaces the 10th-gen

Ice Lake chip. Why? We suspect the reason

the 6-core 10th-gen Comet Lake U is faster is

its higher boost clock compared to the

10th-gen Ice Lake. It’s not enough to beat the

new 11th-gen Tiger Lake, which has a

16-percent advantage over it.

Ryzen 7 4800U boasts more cores, but it

also can’t hit clocks like Intel can, which we

think is the reason the 11th-gen Core

i7-1185G7 comes in 30 percent faster than

Ryzen. That’s a hands-down win for the

11th-gen chip.

One thing we want to note: While it’s

demonstrably faster in the results, is it really

something you’d notice while you churn

through an email about TPS reports or work

on an Excel spreadsheet for corporate

accounting? That’s hard to say, but the

numbers, at least, give 11th-gen Tiger Lake

the win.

MAYBE CINEBENCH AIN’T

SO BAD, INTEL

Intel has long argued that Cinebench is

mostly irrelevant to those who use 13-and

14-inch laptops, because less than 1 percent

of people actually do 3D modeling on a tiny

laptop. That’s a fair point, but you can also use

Cinebench to measure single-threaded

performance. We use the newest version of

PCMark 10 Applications

Performance

Microsoft Office

Intel Ref 4/8 Tiger Lake (Core i7-1185G7/Iris XE) 41W PL1+ DT

Intel Ref 4/8 Tiger Lake (Core i7-1185G7/Iris XE) 28W PL1+ DT

Intel Ref 4/8 Tiger Lake (Core i7-1185G7/Iris XE) 28W PL1

Intel Ref 4/8 Tiger Lake (Core i7-1185G7/Iris XE) 15W PL1

Dell XPS 13 2-in-1 7390 4/8 Tiger Lake (Core i7-1065G7/Iris Plus) 46WPL1

Dell XPS 13 7390 6/12 Ice Lake (Core i7-10710U/HD) 22W PL1

Lenovo Slim 7 8/16 Matisse (Ryzen 7 4800U/Radeon) 38W PL1

LONGER BARS INDICATE BETTER PERFORMANCE

11,459

9,262

11,14 0

8,817

11,4 8 0

9,884

11,16 0