Core i7-4700MQ: CPU benchmarks and laptop guide

The Intel Core i7-4700MQ was the quad-core workhorse of the 2013 Haswell generation, and it still anchors six laptops in the catalog — all of them 2013-era machines now trading at used-market prices. Measured purely as a processor, it meets the recommended CPU requirement in 15 of the 69 games the catalog tracks. This guide covers where the chip sits among laptop CPUs, what it brings, and which laptops carry it.

Where the Core i7-4700MQ sits in 2026

A catalog score of 43.3 places the chip 302nd of 741 scored laptop CPUs — solidly mid-table in a ranking that spans two decades of silicon. The neighborhood is telling: the Core i7-4710HQ (43.3) and Core i7-4700HQ (43.3) are its own Haswell siblings ranked alongside, while the Core i7-10510U (43.7) and Core i5-7300HQ (43.5) sit just above and the Ryzen 5 4500U (42.9) and Core i3-8109U (42.7) just below. In other words, a 2013 quad-core still ranks neck-and-neck with processors released four to seven years later — that longevity is the Haswell quad-core story.

What the chip brings

Haswell brings four cores and eight threads on a 22 nm process, rated at 47 W in its H-class mobile configuration: 2.4 GHz base and up to 3.4 GHz on all four cores. The integrated HD Graphics 4600 handles basic display duties but was never meant for real gaming — every serious machine of this era paired the chip with discrete graphics. Public benchmark numbers back up the ranking: a Geekbench single-core score of 1,020, multi-core of 3,109, and a PassMark rating of 5,361.

Games: CPU-side readiness

Measured as a processor alone, the chip clears the recommended CPU tier for 15 of 69 cataloged games — older or lighter titles like God of War, Grand Theft Auto V, Overwatch, Shadow of the Tomb Raider, Horizon Zero Dawn and Civilization 6. A much larger group sits at the minimum tier: Cyberpunk 2077, Red Dead Redemption 2, The Witcher 3, Alan Wake 2 and Dota 2 list the chip above their minimum but below their recommended CPU requirement. Modern demanding games — Starfield, Helldivers 2, Baldur's Gate 3, Elden Ring, Fortnite, Hogwarts Legacy — ask for more processor than this. These verdicts are CPU-only: actual playability depends on the laptop's GPU and RAM, and the 2013 machines carrying this chip typically pair it with long-obsolete discrete graphics.

Laptops that carry it

The six-model roster is entirely 2013: HP's ZBook 15 and ZBook 15 G1 workstations at $203 and $172, Lenovo's ThinkPad T540p and T440p business machines at $147 and $145, the ThinkPad W540 workstation at $264, and the IdeaPad Z710 consumer laptop at $207. The laptops built around it typically show a median best CPU score of 46.9 with a gaming index of just 15 and a best GPU score of 4.8 — these were office and workstation platforms, not gaming rigs. Median office comfort sits at 50 and energy efficiency at 43, with mobility at 12.5, which reflects the chunky 15-inch chassis of the era.

Bottom line

In 2026 the Core i7-4700MQ is a budget-tier processor for light used-laptop duty: word processing, browsing, media playback and older games are within reach, and eight threads still handle everyday multitasking reasonably. It is honest value at the $145–$264 prices these machines trade for, but nobody should buy one expecting modern gaming or all-day battery life. Buyers wanting more gaming headroom at the same rank should look at the sibling 4700HQ/4710HQ machines — and note that the same score buys a Ryzen 5 4500U with far better efficiency in a newer chassis.