First benchmarks of an Intel Ice Lake processor show its potential

First benchmark of an Intel Ice Lake processors, which equals the Whiskey Lake in performance, but its iGPU offers a beastly performance.

Today the Ice Lake @ 10nm processors were presented by Intel. These new processors are based on a very promising lithography. They are solutions for portable computers with low consumption and good performance. To offer the best possible autonomy, the frequencies have been adjusted quite low. Also, these processors implement the new iGPUs.

The first review with its corresponding benchmarks has been leaked and gives us a glimpse of the potential of this new architecture. Although Ice Lake has lower frequencies than Whiskey Lake, the performance is on par and in some cases above. Above all, the big leap is in the iGPU, which allows you to play games without the need for a dedicated graphics card.

Intel processor used for the review

The processor used for the benchmarks is the Core i7-1065G7. This Intel processor has 4 cores and 8 threads at a base frequency of 1.3GHz and will reach 3.9GHz in Boost mode. Only one of the cores will reach 3.9GHz, all cores will reach a maximum of 3.5GHz. This processor has a TDP of 15W that can reach a maximum of 25W.

The review compares the Core i7-1065G7 processor with the Intel Core i7-8565U processor. This processor also has 4 cores and 8 threads, working at a base 1.8GHz and in Boost mode it will reach 4.6GHz. The TDP is the same, but the 8th Gen processor has better frequencies.

Most relevant results of the review of the Intel Ice Lake processor

Cinebench R15 multi-core

• Core i7-1065G7 @ 15W: 590 points
• Core i7-1065G7 @ 25W: 758 points
• Core i7-8565U @ HP Specter x360: 607 points
• Core i7-8565U @ Dell XPS 13: 712 points

Cinebench R20 multi-core

• Core i7-1065G7 @ 15W: 1252 points
• Core i7-1065G7 @ 25W: 1633 points
• Core i7-8565U @ HP Specter x360: 1152 points
• Core i7-8565U @ Dell XPS 13: 1710 points

Cinebench R15 single core

• Core i7-1065G7 @ 15W: 184 points
• Core i7-1065G7 @ 25W: 181points
• Core i7-8565U @ HP Specter x360: 170 points
• Core i7-8565U @ Dell XPS 13: 183 points

Cinebench R20 multi-core

• Core i7-1065G7 @ 15W: 464 points
• Core i7-1065G7 @ 25W: 456 points
• Core i7-8565U @ HP Specter x360: 402 points
• Core i7-8565U @ Dell XPS 13: 459 points

In applications that take advantage of AVX512, VNNI or ISA instructions, added in these processors, or the acceleration by GPU, the Ice Lake offer a great performance improvement. The key, above all, is in the iGPU. You can see how the performance is improved from 37FPS on Whiskey Lake to 64FPS on Ice Lake under CS: GO. The original Crysis with very high graphics runs at 47FPS versus 27FPS for 8th Gen iGPUs.

Under the original Crysis, the NVIDIA MX150 gives us 65FPS, but it is a dedicated GPU. The problem with this is that it increases consumption, reducing autonomy and also costs.

The truth is that these Intel Ice Lake processors seem like a very interesting and high-performance solution. It remains to be seen how AMD will respond to these processors.