Why you should look out for 11th Gen Intel Core H-series processors when buying a laptop- Technology News, Firstpost

Anirudh RegidiJun 29, 2021 11:33:17 IST

Intel’s finally lifted the veil off its next-gen, high-performance laptop processors. Dubbed Tiger Lake-H-series, these chips feature a modern architecture (Willow Cove), new manufacturing process (10-nanometer SuperFin process technology), and more importantly, potential double-digit performance gains in gaming as well as productivity workloads.

The 45 in the name indicates the TDP or Thermal Design Power of the processors. It’s a number that indicates the amount of heat that needs to be dissipated when under load for the processor to perform as specified. Generally speaking, mainstream laptops and Ultrabooks will operate in the 7-15 W range, with more powerful workstations and gaming laptops sticking to the 15-25 W range. Anything above that, like Tiger Lake-H-series 35-65 W range, is in the high-end laptop category. The crème de la crème of the laptop world, so to speak.

Interestingly, with processors like those of the more powerful 11th Generation Intel® Core™ H-series, gaming laptops don’t have to be inch-thick behemoths. These processors can be configured to raise or lower performance based on the thermal headroom available to them, giving manufacturers more leeway with their designs. You can have no-holds-barred, power hungry beasts, or you can have svelte designs that you can slip into a tote.

While thicker laptops will indeed be faster when pushed to the limit, Tiger Lake-H-series’ support for 20 PCIe Gen 4 lanes, faster RAM, and a larger cache more than make up for any performance shortfall resulting from slimmer designs.

For gamers, this translates to desktop-class performance from devices as slim as 20 mm or less. And, in a world that’s turned almost universally mobile, there is, quite simply, a greater need for slim, portable devices that don’t compromise on performance.

What’s all the buzz around Tiger-Lake H-series about?
The two biggest updates to Intel’s Tiger Lake-H-series processors are the massive 24 MB of L3 cache, and support for the latest PCIe Gen 4 standard for connectivity with GPUs and peripherals like SSDs and WiFi modules. Additionally, it enables faster, lower latency data bandwidth to dGPU cards and storage.

Higher multi-core clocks, integrated Thunderbolt 4 support that extends I/O leadership to your peripherals including — more screens, faster external storage, fewer cables, and better compatibility.

Stellar Gaming and Productivity Performance

Overall, the changes together promise one of the largest gen-on-gen bumps to gaming and productivity performance we’ve seen in several generations. Intel®, in fact, claims a 19% improvement to multi-threaded performance and that 11^th Gen is the world’s fastest single-threaded mobile processor. If that wasn’t enough, some SKUs can be overclocked.

While today’s games are increasingly optimized for multi-core processors, single-threaded performance is still king, and Tiger Lake’s ability to identify the best cores and boost them individually helps here. Power users can, of course, take advantage of utilities like Intel® XTU (Xtreme Tuning Utility) to further tune performance.

With native support for 20 PCIe Gen 4 lanes, GPUs get nearly double the bandwidth they did previously. Features like resizable BAR — giving processors complete access to a GPUs VRAM cache, greatly benefit from this. The same applies to your PCIe-based SSD storage, where you now get support for devices hitting 5,000 MBps speeds.

Blazing Fast Speed
Features like Intel® Rapid Storage Technology (RST) are fully supported and accelerate boot times, reduce latencies and help improve system responsiveness. If, for some reason, you find the 5,000 MB/s of Gen 4 SSDs inadequate, RST lets you boot off a RAID mode. You’ll also find support for Intel® Optane™ H20 memory.

Unlocked SKUs like the i9-11980HK support per core voltage control, base clock tweaks, and more. Hell, apps like Intel® Speed Optimizer can overclock your system for you and features like Intel® Turbo Boost Max Technology 3.0 identifies the best cores and boosts them automatically.

When it comes to connectivity, the ridiculously high bandwidth of Thunderbolt™ 4 supports external GPUs and daisy-chained RAID arrays, not to mention high-refresh rate 4K monitors. For wireless networks, Intel® Killer™ Wi-Fi 6/6E (Gig+) support offers you up to 75% lower latency — great for multiplayer gaming — and nearly 3x higher speeds owing to support for the less cluttered, higher-bandwidth 6 GHz frequency band.

Whether you’re a gamer or a content creator, Tiger Lake H-series has something for everyone
Games like Warzone and Valorant will not only run faster, but also run more efficiently and with reduced latency when playing competitively online. Content creators also stand to benefit from the faster multi-threaded performance and the increased bandwidth to peripherals.

Tiger Lake isn’t just a faster processor, it’s a new, redesigned processor architecture built on a new, more efficient manufacturing process with support for next-gen connectivity technology and features. It’s not just the processor that’s fast, it’s the platform as a whole that’s benefitting.

By the end of June, Acer and Asus unleash their 11th Gen Intel® Core™ H-series processors in the Indian market. Acer will launch the Predator Helios 300 powered by an 11th Gen Intel® Core™ i7, and the Nitro 5, which is also powered by a Core™ i7 processor. Meanwhile, Asus plans to release a couple of laptops. This includes the Intel® Core™ i9-powered Asus TUF F15 and the Core™ i5 powered Asus TUF F17. Over the next few months, we should see other OEMs like Dell, HP and Lenovo release gaming devices based on the new processor architecture.
For more information on Intel’s Tiger Lake-H-series architecture, click here.

*For details, visit: www.intel.com/PerformanceIndex . Results may vary.

Disclaimer: The article has been created by the Studio18 team on behalf of Intel.