Core i7-6820HQ: CPU benchmarks and laptop guide

The Intel Core i7-6820HQ is the faster of the two workhorse Skylake quad-cores — a 45 W H-class chip from 2015 that anchored business laptops and mobile workstations for years. The catalog matches it to 11 models, and it meets the recommended CPU requirement in 17 of the 69 tracked games. This guide covers where the chip sits among laptop CPUs, what it brings to a portable, and which laptops carry it.

Where the Core i7-6820HQ sits in 2026

A catalog score of 47.8 places the chip 275th of 672 scored laptop CPUs — just above the middle of a table that spans two decades of silicon. The neighborhood mixes eras: the Core Ultra 5 332 (49.3) and Core Ultra 5 322 (49.2) above, and fittingly the Core i7-7700HQ (49.1) — its own Kaby Lake successor — directly ahead. Alongside sits the Core i5-8305G (47.8), with the Core i7-1355U (47.7) and Core i5-1335U (47.7) just below. Ranking level with 13th-gen low-power parts a decade on is an honest mid-table result: dependable, not distinguished.

What the chip brings

Skylake-H is a 4-core, 8-thread design on a 14 nm process, rated at 45 W in its HQ configuration: a 2.7 GHz base clock and up to 3.6 GHz boost. The integrated HD Graphics 530 handles display duties when no discrete GPU is present. In public benchmarks the chip posts 1,117 single-core and 3,462 multi-core in Geekbench, with a PassMark overall score of 6,742 — a small step over the standard 6700-class quad of the same year. Memory support and cache details were not captured for this chip, so the table above sticks to what the catalog verifiably holds.

Games: CPU-side readiness

Measured purely as a processor, the chip meets the recommended CPU tier for 17 of 69 cataloged games — God of War, Horizon Zero Dawn, Hitman 3, The Division 2, Forza Horizon 4, Control and Civilization 6 among them. Another 37 clear the minimum tier, including Cyberpunk 2077, Red Dead Redemption 2, The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt and Doom Eternal. Fifteen games ask for more processor: Starfield, Helldivers 2, Baldur's Gate 3, Elden Ring, Fortnite and Counter-Strike 2 sit below the minimum. These verdicts are CPU-only — whether a game actually plays well depends on the laptop's GPU and RAM, and workstation GPUs of this era were built for viewport work, not frame rates.

Laptops that carry it

The 11-model roster is an all-business affair spanning 2015 to 2017, with used-market listings from $167 to $390. Workstations dominate: Dell Precision 3520 at $246, 7510 at $251, 7520 at $288, 5510 at $297, 5520 at $321, 7710 at $333 and 7720 at $390, plus HP's ZBook 17 G3 at $321 and ZBook Studio G3 at $355. The Latitude E5570 ($194) and E5470 ($167) cover plain office duty. Roster medians describe the fleet honestly: office comfort at 75, a gaming index of 31 and mobility at 20 — big, sober machines whose 2026 value is the chassis and keyboard.

Bottom line

The Core i7-6820HQ is the entry ticket to the used mobile-workstation tier: a proven quad-core that still clears the minimum CPU bar for most of the tracked catalog, inside Precisions and ZBooks that now cost under $400. It suits buyers who want a durable keyboard-and-screen work tool or a cheap project machine, not a gaming rig — the era's workstation GPUs decide that. Lighter, older titles at modest settings are its ceiling; anything from 2023 onward wants a higher spot on the table.