Core i7-10870H: CPU benchmarks and laptop guide

The Intel Core i7-10870H is a 2020 Comet Lake-H octa-core that served as the muscle inside a generation of serious gaming laptops, and 12 matched models in the catalog carry it. As a processor it meets the recommended CPU tier in 52 of the 69 games the site tracks. This guide covers where the chip sits among laptop CPUs in 2026, what it brings, and which machines still feature it.

Where the Core i7-10870H sits in 2026

A catalog score of 65 places it 125th of 741 scored laptop CPUs — the top sixth of the table, and remarkably durable company. Just above sit the Core i7-13850HX (65.1), Core i9-9980HK (65.1) and Core i5-1235U (65); just below, the Ryzen 5 PRO 5650U (64.9), Ryzen 5 5625U (64.8) and Core Ultra 9 386H (64.8). Scoring level with a 13th-gen HX flagship on this table's blended measure is the headline: five years on, eight Comet Lake cores still deliver.

What the chip brings

Comet Lake-H here is a full 8-core, 16-thread design on the 14 nm process, rated at 45 W in its H-class configuration: a 2.2 GHz base with Turbo Boost up to 4.8 GHz, with Intel UHD Graphics integrated for display duties. Public benchmarks put it at a Geekbench single-core score of 1,459 with 6,164 multi-core, and a PassMark overall score of 13,960 — strong multithreaded numbers that explain its long shadow over mid-tier rankings.

Games: CPU-side readiness

Measured purely as a processor, the chip clears the recommended CPU tier for 52 of 69 cataloged games — Battlefield 5, Alan Wake 2, Counter-Strike 2, Metro Exodus, PUBG, Black Myth Wukong, Ghost of Tsushima and The Last of Us Part 1 among them. Another 15 sit at the minimum tier, including Cyberpunk 2077, Baldur's Gate 3, Elden Ring, Fortnite and Call of Duty: Warzone. Only Starfield and Helldivers 2 ask for more processor than this. These verdicts are CPU-only: actual playability depends on the laptop's GPU and RAM, and this roster pairs the chip with serious discrete graphics.

Laptops that carry it

The 12-model roster is wall-to-wall 2020–2021 gaming hardware: MSI's GE66 and GE76 Raider, GP66 and GP76 Leopard, Acer's Predator Helios 300, Dell's G5 15 5510 and G15 5510, Alienware's m15 R4 and M17 R4, HP's Omen 15, Lenovo's Legion 5 15IMH05H, plus the dual-screen ASUS ZenBook Pro Duo 15 OLED. Most cluster at $590, with the Legion at $750, G15 at $712, ZenBook at $739 and the Alienware M17 R4 topping out at $1,135. Laptops built around it typically show a median gaming index of 77, performance index of 77.1, photo-design index of 94.5 and a median discrete-GPU rating of about 83 — with portability at 26.4 as the expected trade-off.

Bottom line

The i7-10870H is one of the best-value performance chips on the used market: 52 of 69 games at recommended CPU tier, a roster of well-cooled gaming machines mostly around $590, and a top-sixth ranking that still embarrasses newer mid-range parts. Only the two most demanding CPU titles exceed it, and the paired GPUs do the rest. Buyers after battery life or thin chassis should look elsewhere — this is silicon for thick, powerful laptops, and it has aged into a genuine bargain.