Are newer i5's as fast as older i7's?

[Michael Lovett]

I have a Surface 5 with the the older i7 chip (i7-7660U) and I need to replace it with a newer Surface Pro 7 machine. My question is whether I will need the new i7 or if the new i5 is at least as fast as my older i7?

It seems hard to find this comparison on the internet: Older Surface Pro with i7 vs Newer Surface Pro with i5.

Any insights out there??

 

[jnjroach]

I have a Surface 5 with the the older i7 chip (i7-7660U) and I need to replace it with a newer Surface Pro 7 machine. My question is whether I will need the new i7 or if the new i5 is at least as fast as my older i7?

It seems hard to find this comparison on the internet: Older Surface Pro with i7 vs Newer Surface Pro with i5.

Any insights out there??

Since the Pro 7 i5 out-performs the Pro 6 i7 I would say yes

Is the Surface Pro 6 relevant in the face of the refreshed Pro 7?

 

[GreyFox7]

The SP7 CPU is 30% faster.
UserBenchmark: Intel Core i5-1035G4 vs i7-7660U

It's harder to find graphics benchmarks for the i5-1035G4 in direct comparison with the i7-7660U iris plus 640
But Notbookcheck lists both on a 3DMark 11 benchmark:
1280x720 Combined
i5-1035G4 - 2739 +35%
i7-7660U - 2184
1280x720 GPU
i5-1035G4 - 3228 +34%
i7-7660U - 2493

 

[jnjroach]

Relevant info from my link -

 

[GreyFox7]

Relevant info from my link -

View attachment 9301

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Interestingly the UHD 620 graphics in the Pro 6 was worse than the Iris Pro 640 graphics in the 2017 Pro

 

[wpcoe]

Since the Pro 7 i5 out-performs the Pro 6 i7 I would say yes

Is the Surface Pro 6 relevant in the face of the refreshed Pro 7?

Great article! Too bad I didn't see it back when you wrote it, or I probably would have upgraded my SP6 for an SP7. I hope you get the opportunity to test a SP8 and we can compare SP6 vs SP7 vs SP8. I'm 99.99% sure I'm going to get an SP8 but it's always good to get some left-brain substantiating data. Not sure if I'll wait until SP8 is released in Mexico (where I live) or make a trip up north when it's physically in US stores.

 

[jnjroach]

Great article! Too bad I didn't see it back when you wrote it, or I probably would have upgraded my SP6 for an SP7. I hope you get the opportunity to test a SP8 and we can compare SP6 vs SP7 vs SP8. I'm 99.99% sure I'm going to get an SP8 but it's always good to get some left-brain substantiating data. Not sure if I'll wait until SP8 is released in Mexico (where I live) or make a trip up north when it's physically in US stores.

I have a SP8 on pre-order - i7/16/256

 

[GreyFox7]

I ordered an SP8 i5/16/256

 

[GreyFox7]

Geekbench 5 CPU:
Surface Pro 8 i5-1135G7: 1204 single core, 3591 multicore
From above:
Dell XPS 13 i7-1065G7: 1209 single core, 3571 multicore
Surface Pro 6 i7-8650U: 1113 single core, 3519 multicore

The 11th Gen i5 is within the margin of error of the 10th gen i7.

Geekbench 5 GPU/Open CL compute:
Surface Pro 8 i5-1135G7: 14414

 

[GreyFox7]

 

[GreyFox7]

So I didn't have the slider set to Best Performance when I ran Time Spy to get the above result.
With it set to Best Performance I got 1566. Using a fan on the back didn't make any difference on the Time Spy score.