Intel Core i9 8th-gen processor for laptops detailed in leaked benchmarks

A new leak has given us purported details of Intel’s first six-core Coffee Lake H (8th-generation) mobile processors – including a top-end Core i9 model – which could be pepping up a gaming laptop near you before too long.

This info comes from Cinebench benchmarks spilled by a Chinese website (spotted by Videocardz) which shows three six-core (12-thread) models: the flagship Core i9-8950HK, along with the Core i7-8850H and Core i7-8750H.

If this is on the money, the Core i9-8950HK will have a base clock speed of around 2.9GHz with boost to around 4.8GHz (maximum on a single core). The Core i7-8850H will run at a base clock of around 2.6GHz, with boost to 4.3GHz, and the i7-8750H will hit 2.2GHz and 4.1GHz respectively.

All of these chips run with a TDP of 45W, but there’s likely to be room to maneuver in terms of power usage to allow for overclocking.

In the Cinebench R15 scores cited, the i9-8950HK recorded a benchmark of 204 in single-core, 1,083 in multi-core. That compares to 181 and 1,288 for the i7-8850H, and the i7-8750H hit 178 and 1,270 respectively.

Performance puzzler

As you may have noticed, the multi-core benchmarks are odd results seeing as the Core i9 processor comes in with a lower score than the Core i7 models. It’s not clear why this is the case, and as Videocardz notes, it could be down to any number of factors and the exact configuration of the test laptops.

Clearly, we’ll see a different picture when the finished processors are unleashed, and the Core i9 will out-power the i7-8850H. It’ll definitely be interesting to see by how much, and what sort of performance levels this flagship mobile chip can hit.

But, even given the obvious glitch here, these results look exciting for the potential of packing much more power into notebooks with a six-core part.

You might recall that both the Intel Core i7-8750H and Core i7-8850H CPUs appeared in leaked retailer product listings we saw earlier this week, including one for an MSI laptop. Hopefully that’s an indication that we aren’t too far away from seeing the launch of gaming notebooks with these processors under the bonnet.

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