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With a plethora of options out there thanks to renewed competition between Intel and AMD across various silicon-based frontiers of late, end-users have become the ultimate beneficiaries of innovations across the board. This is also true when it comes to laptop CPUs ranging from ultra-low powered CPU options to high-end CPUs with as many as 24 cores with boost clock speeds above 5 GHz in models that aim to replace desktops altogether in 2024.
To pick a suitable laptop CPU, one needs to define their requirements, budget on offer, and portability requirements among other things. At the same time, users should, to a certain degree, avoid drawing comparisons between generations among laptops in particular. This is because they are some of the biggest beneficiaries of efficiency and cooling breakthroughs which can make a low-tier current generation CPU easily dwarf a top-tier variant from a few years ago.
All of this is contingent on defining one’s needs and expectations from the CPU they need, which can be tricky to do but can be broken down into simpler steps by answering some simple questions below:
Picking The Best Laptop CPUs In 2024
What CPU Works Better For Laptops: AMD Or Intel?
With an increasing amount of competition across multiple fronts between Team Red and Team Blue when it comes to CPUs, the battle lines are already drawn between the two, both of which come with their requisite fanboys in tow. There are some subtle differences between the two players, even as performance edges ever-closer across a series of laptop-centric products.
Users go with Intel’s CPUs to get excellent single-core and decent multi-core performance across multiple price points. Thanks to Intel’s core-heavy approach fueled by its BIG.little approach to chip design from the 12th generation onwards, it offers excellent, unfettered performance, especially at higher clocks or higher power draw versus the competition.
Razer Blade 18 (2024)
The Razer Blade 18 2024 edition brings the latest flagship Core i9 mobile CPU to deliver unparalleled performance in CPU-intensive operations, while also maintaining its hold on gaming through the RTX 4090 GPU. From its configuration to its display, every feature ventures into overkill territory, making sure no stone is left unturned.
Users going AMD get more efficient CPUs that make a significant difference when dealing with power-restricted situations such as being on battery or dealing with smaller, thermally-restricted chassis designs that can often make all the difference when it comes to low-wattage solutions. This makes it a great, value-centric choice that also offers better performance per watt even as it keeps up with the competition in most productivity and gaming benchmarks with ease.
ASUS ROG Scar 17 X3D
The ROG Scar 17 X3D from Asus is a gaming and productivity laptop that features the first AMD mobile processor with 3D V-Cache, the Ryzen 9 7495HX3D. The laptop is also powered by an RTX 4090 mobile GPU that has a TGP of 175W. It comes with 32GB of DDR5-4800 RAM, 2TB PCIe 4.0 NVMe M.2 SSD. It packs a 17.3-inch WQHD (2560 x 1440) IPS display with 240 Hz refresh rate and 3ms response time. The ROG Scar 17 X3D sports a 90WHr battery, and it supports 100W charging via USB Type-C, along with charging through its massive 330W AC adapter.
Some exceptions do exist, such as AMD’s X3D-based CPUs on some laptops that tend to have CPUs that are tweaked specifically to offer better gaming performance, such as AMD’s Ryzen 9 7945X3D in the ASUS Scar 17 X3D laptop as seen above.
Why Do Laptop CPU Generations Matter?
Not all laptop CPUs are created equal and newer generations tend to offer higher instructions per cycle (IPC) counts and much better efficiency in tow thanks to better, more optimized architecture in play, in addition to newer process nodes that make for better performance per watt.
This, in essence, means that lower-tier but newer laptop CPUs often tend to not only take an efficiency but often a performance lead compared to some of their higher-end alternatives from previous generations. All in all, checking performance benchmarks and/or power consumption relative to current-gen CPUs tends to help users make a more informed decision when it comes to older laptops, especially when a higher discount may not reflect real-world use-case performance gains versus newer laptop models.
Desktop CPUs have, since the advent of AMD’s Ryzen CPUs in 2017, made octa-core the new normal when it came to performance moved higher in terms of CPU core and thread counts, aiming to offer better efficiency and performance for multi-threaded applications. Much of this carries for laptops but with a notable difference: Laptops are notably smaller and have far less ambitious power limits and thermal headroom in general.
This means that laptops with higher CPU core and thread counts can theoretically outperform their counterparts in most benchmarks, but their power limits and thermal restrictions might make it a moot point, especially on battery. This is where higher core and thread counts can also help as it allows for better multi-threaded performance and in most parallel processing workloads, more efficiency on offer.
ASUS ROG Strix G16 (2024)
The ASUS ROG Strix G16 is a beast of a gaming laptop that has been updated with the latest Intel Core 14900HX processor and still carries the powerful RTX 40 series GPUs. This model comes with an RTX 4070 GPU with a maximum TDP of 140W. The 16-inch (2560x1600) display is capable of a 240Hz refresh rate and has a 3ms response time.
Much like their ARM-based counterparts, x86 laptops based on Intel’s CPUs are already leveraging this by using a BIG.little approach by pairing more cores in architectures that leverage larger cores with 2 threads on offer and smaller, lower-clocked cores with a single thread to cater to a wider variety of applications.
On AMD’s end, most of its laptop core counts are limited to its slightly faster and much more efficient Zen 4-based cores in a more 1-size-fits-all approach, but one that continues to pay off as it offers equivalent performance to the competition and a marked improvement in efficiency in tow.
What Memory Does The CPU Support?
While memory support is technically a mix of motherboard chipset and CPU functionality, RAM compatibility is also platform-specific. This means that users can reason that a certain CPU lineup allows for compatibility with a certain set of memory.
Newer Intel and AMD Laptop CPUs work with DDR5/LPDDR5 memory while older models are compatible with DDR4 SODIMMs instead. Newer RAM modules are more power efficient and offer higher data rates leading to better performance in memory-intensive applications in particular.
How Good Are the On-board Graphics On The Laptop CPU?
Not all Laptops ship with discrete GPUs with plenty of work/productivity-centric and low-powered variants aiming to both keep costs and power consumption low by leveraging integrated graphics made available by both Intel and AMD.
Intel currently pushes its UHD graphics, Iris XE, and ARC iGPU offerings as solutions for consumers looking to score a value-centric CPU with enough 3D acceleration to perform most basic tasks. AMD also offers similar Radeon-enabled graphics products on-chip but does take things a considerable step further with iGPUs like the Radeon 780M holding their own against most entry-level discrete solutions, making for a significant lead in this department.
Having a good iGPU on offer can even be used in some fringe cases when a discrete GPU is present. Users running multi-monitor setups or simply needing extra power under the hood for their browser might find the iGPU more power-efficient than any discrete GPU and solutions such as Nvidia’s Optimus make it easy to leverage such options to their fullest.
ASUS ROG Zephyrus G14 2024 (RTX 4060)
The 2024 model of the ASUS ROG Zephyrus G14 comes with an AI-infused 8-Core AMD Ryzen 9 CPU in addition to Nvidia’s mid-range RTX 4060 GPU. With 16GB of LPDDR5X memory on offer and a large 1TB PCI-E 4.0 SSD.It offers a high PPI 14-inch 3K OLED display with a 120 Hz refresh rate and a backlit chiclet keyboard while clocking in at just under 1.5 kg.
An excellent example is the ASUS G14 laptop that comes with both, a discrete RTX 4060 GPU, excellent integrated graphics (Radeon 780M), and the ability to switch between the two seamlessly depending on the task at hand while throwing in a dedicated MUX switch to keep it more performant with the discrete solution.
What Are You Planning To Use the CPU For?
Users need to define their requirements accurately so that they can pick a laptop with a CPU that matches their needs while offering better value than its peers. If one’s use case is browsing and casual office-based work, one should consider a low-powered CPU that offers better battery life and performance that can keep up with their needs.
For users using more productivity-centric applications, it makes sense to get at least a mid-range CPU with a higher TDP on offer along with decent cooling on the laptop in question to keep things humming without resulting in significant bottlenecks or performance restrictions for the rest of their hardware.
Likewise for enthusiasts or gamers where performance can scale one’s experience more linearly, going for a higher-end, high-clocked, high-TDP CPU with plenty of cores on offer does make more sense as it directly impacts one’s games, applications, and performance on laptops that are often used more like desktop replacements than their other counterparts.
Power Consumption and Cooling: Why Does It Matter In 2024 and Beyond?
Laptops are, at the end of the day, portable machines and do make compromises to stay that way, with even the beefiest of them limited in terms of power draw when running on battery. This essentially means that the power consumption of the sum of all of its components including the CPU is considerably more restricted when on battery.
This makes a CPU’s power efficiency a key metric for users planning to use one on the go, especially for users wanting better battery life and a laptop that can outlast their working day at the very least. Laptops with lower power consumption when running on battery therefore do have a sizeable market and one that continues to grow even as modern mobile CPUs get increasingly power efficient.
LG Gram 16-inch Lightweight Laptop
LG Gram 16 is probably one of the lightest laptops out there despite featuring a 16-inch display. It uses the latest Core Ultra 7 processor based on the Meteor Lake architecture to bring plenty of cores and threads without consuming much power. With 16GB of RAM and 512GB of storage space, it’s an ideal machine for students and office workers.
Likewise, cooling is another understated metric when it comes to a laptop but one that directly influences performance with plenty of laptop options often pairing powerful CPUs (and GPUs in some cases) in a chassis that is unable to cool them adequately. This results in something called “thermal throttling” where the CPU slows down its clocks (and therefore power draw) to protect itself, but does cost itself a significant amount of performance.
Finding a laptop that has cooling in play that allows it to exact the performance its CPU is capable of is quite important. Housing a CPU with as many as 24 cores in a chassis that can not keep its thermals in check could be counterproductive for users in terms of performance and value for money and doing one’s research to pick a model that performs a balancing act might be a tricky thing to do, but one that is absolutely necessary to get the performance users are paying for.
FAQ
Q: How Important Is A CPU’s Clock Speed For Its Performance?
A CPU’s clock speed dictates how many instructions it can directly handle per unit of time. This however is not the only metric for a CPU’s performance, with newer cores offering higher IPC (instructions per cycle) and more cores offering better multi-threaded performance, making it an important, but not the only factor when considering a CPU’s performance.
Q: Can newer laptop processors work on an older machine?
No. Since newer processors come with different power and socket requirements and power needs, they are generally not compatible with older laptops, many of which are hard-coded to support only certain CPUs based on their underlying chipsets.
