Intel Tiger Lake-H teaser shows incredible gaming laptop performance

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Intel shows Hitman 3 running at 220 fps

Hitman 3
(Image credit: Sony)

Intel is trying to create a lot buzz around its upcoming Tiger Lake laptop chips, and its latest video should do just that. 

The chipmaker tweeted a short video with a clip of Hitman 3 running on an Intel Core H-series laptop and hitting frame rates in excess of 200 fps. “Built to hit framerates like no other,” the caption reads. “#11thGen Intel Core H-series processors coming soon…” 

The clip is all of ten seconds long, which most people would agree is a touch short for a truly representative benchmark, and captures a brief bit of footage from Hitman 3’s ‘On Top of the World’ mission set in Dubai. In that short time, the frame rate counter jumps between 214 fps and 238 fps, averaging around the 220 fps mark for the most part. 

While most console games manage between 30 and 60 fps, the higher the frame rate the better the experience, and suffice it to say figures in this range are extremely impressive. But there are a couple of possible caveats that mean we should be wary of exactly what this teaser purports to show.

Known unknowns 

While previous leaked Intel Tiger Lake benchmarks have shown that the chips should be extremely powerful, you should still treat the performance demonstrated here with a pinch of salt for a number of reasons.

It should be obvious that teaser trailers like this are designed to demonstrate best case scenarios, and this particular clip isn’t hugely subtle about it. The scene is mostly sky without a great deal of detail to render which is always good for a frame rate boost. Or as one commenter put it: “Experienced gamers know that looking up at the sky boosts framerate. Come on, guys.” In short, if Intel had chosen a more challenging section, the frame rate would suffer.

But the bigger problem is that we don’t know what the other specifications powering this very brief tech demo are. Presumably this is the most powerful octa-core Core i9 model, but even then it’s not clear if this is the work of the integrated graphics or a discrete mobile GPU. Suffice it to say, as impressive as these frame rates are, it says a lot less for the processor if it’s an Nvidia GeForce RTX 3090 doing the heavy lifting.  

Still, even with these caveats taken into account, the frame rate displayed remains seriously impressive on laptop hardware, and we’re excited to see how the processors perform in the real world. We’re just keen to use our own benchmarks and settings, rather than those cherry picked for a promotional teaser.

We shouldn’t have to wait too long before we can do just that. The Tiger Lake chips are due to arrive later this year, and if Intel’s benchmarks are representative, we can expect to see them powering the best gaming laptops heading into 2022. 

Alan Martin
Alan Martin

Freelance contributor Alan has been writing about tech for over a decade, covering phones, drones and everything in between. Previously Deputy Editor of tech site Alphr, his words are found all over the web and in the occasional magazine too. When not weighing up the pros and cons of the latest smartwatch, you'll probably find him tackling his ever-growing games backlog. He also handles all the Wordle coverage on Tom's Guide and has been playing the addictive NYT game for the last several years in an effort to keep his streak forever intact.