78 PCWorld OCTOBER 2019FEATURE 10TH-GEN CPU BUYERS GUIDE
this category, we rate the CPUs with the
highest clock speeds, and the capability to
actually hold them at the top. In this case, the
10th-gen Comet Lake CPUs that can hit
4.9GHz and 4.7GHz are likely to outpace the
10th-gen Ice Lake chips by a step or two.
Lower clock speeds, however, can be
mitigated by using each megahertz more
efficiently. Ice Lake CPUs will actually perform
quite well too.
The slowest performance will be in Core
i3 laptops, which are intentionally limited in
clock speed, and in the low-voltage, power-
efficient versions of Ice Lake and Comet Lake.
Although we rate these as “fair” for single-
core workloads, don’t interpret that as poor
performance.GAMING AND GRAPHICS
PERFORMANCE
Gaming and graphics performance is
pretty straightforward. The CPUs with
the best graphics performance will give
you smoother gaming or prettier graphics.
With this generation, the 10th-gen Ice Lake
chips with the “G7” rating get the highest
rating. In fact, it can be on a par with some
discrete graphics chips. We’re rating the
graphics performance of the 10th-gen
Comet Lake CPUs as “adequate,”
because for the most part, it’s the
same as previous 8th-gen,
7th-gen, and 6th-gen laptops in
graphics performance.BATTERY LIFE
Our last category is how we’d rate each CPU
model based on battery life. We say this with
the caution that battery life of a laptop is a recipe
based on each individual laptop design
including the screen quality and type, the screen
resolution, the battery size, and the tuning by the
laptop vendor. Still, the CPUs we rate as the best
are the ones intentionally tuned to lower power
consumption. For 10th-gen Comet Lake, it’s the
Y series of CPUs and the power-sipping dual-
core 10th-gen Ice Lake CPUs.VIDEO: PICK THE BEST
10TH-GEN LAPTOP CPU
Watch now at go.pcworld.com/10gThe new Inspiron 14 7000
ultralight laptops will also have
the latest 10th Generation Intel
Core processors.