Core i7-9850H vs Core i5-11320H

The Core i7-9850H packs 6 cores / 12 threads, while the Core i5-11320H offers 4 cores / 8 threads — the Core i7-9850H has 2 more cores. Boost clocks reach 4.6 GHz on the Core i7-9850H versus 4.5 GHz on the Core i5-11320H — a 2.2% clock advantage for the Core i7-9850H (base: 2.6 GHz vs 2.5 GHz). The Core i7-9850H uses the Coffee Lake-HR (2019) architecture (14 nm), while the Core i5-11320H uses Tiger Lake-H35 (2021) (10 nm SuperFin). In PassMark, the Core i7-9850H scores 10,862 against the Core i5-11320H's 10,879 — a 0.2% lead for the Core i5-11320H. Geekbench 6 single-core — the metric most relevant to gaming — records 1,250 vs 1,447, a 14.6% lead for the Core i5-11320H that directly translates to higher frame rates. Multi-core Geekbench: 5,000 vs 5,633 (11.9% advantage for the Core i5-11320H). L3 cache: 12 MB (total) on the Core i7-9850H vs 8 MB (total) on the Core i5-11320H.

The Core i7-9850H uses the BGA1440 socket (PCIe 3.0), while the Core i5-11320H uses FCBGA1449 (PCIe 4.0) — making them incompatible on the same motherboard. Both support up to DDR4-2666 memory speed. The Core i7-9850H supports up to 128 GB of RAM compared to 64 GB — 66.7% more capacity for professional workloads. Both feature 2-channel memory with ECC support. PCIe lanes: 16 (Core i7-9850H) vs 20 (Core i5-11320H) — the Core i5-11320H offers 4 more lanes for additional GPUs or NVMe drives. Chipset compatibility: HM370,CM246 (Core i7-9850H) and HM570,QM580,WM590 (Core i5-11320H).

Neither processor supports overclocking. Only the Core i5-11320H supports AVX-512 instructions — important for machine learning and scientific applications. Virtualization support: VT-x, VT-d (Core i7-9850H) vs VT-x, VT-d, EPT (Core i5-11320H). Both include integrated graphics — Intel UHD Graphics 630 (Core i7-9850H) and Iris Xe Graphics (96 EU) (Core i5-11320H) — useful as a fallback for troubleshooting or display output without a dedicated GPU. Primary use case: Core i7-9850H targets High Performance Laptop, Core i5-11320H targets Productivity. Direct competitor: Core i5-11320H rivals Ryzen 5 5600H.