NY 10036. At 4 pounds and 0.6 inches, the MacBook Pro is much more portable than just about every other laptop on this list. Iris Plus promises significantly better 3D graphics performance than the base-level Intel HD 620 GPU. It’s not hard to see why. Overclocking is easier than it has ever been, but it is still a process for the patient at heart. Some high-end CPUs may come with "Iris Plus" graphics which are significantly faster but still no much for discrete graphics chips from Nvidia and AMD. That might sound odd, but the trend is for people to use laptops as desktop replacements -- they are almost always plugged in and are mobile rarely. That changes with the new-for-2020 10th Generation. Let's de-perplex it! Part laptop, part all-in-one, this unique hybrid device offers shockingly fast performance, thanks to its Intel Core i9-9980HK GPU and Nvidia GeForce RTX 2080 GPU. You'll want to check at time of purchase what comes in the box. (The heat output you'll need to dissipate will be greater than the chip's rating.). Assuming you are staying on a given motherboard, your CPU choices will by definition be limited. For example, in our tests, a Dell XPS 13 9360 with Core i7-8550U processor completed a giant Excel macro in just 1 minute and 8 seconds, compared to an identical XPS 13 with Core i7-7500U CPU that finished in 2:30. These boards and chips are just hitting the market in late May 2020. Requires new motherboard socket, but compatible with existing mainstream Intel coolers, AMD's 12-core Ryzen 3900X is a formidable foil, especially at current prices, Z490 platform doesn't bring much new to the table, and high TDP mandates liquid cooling, A few platform teething issues in early going. Don't expect great battery life or low prices. Tagged with a "G" (for "graphics") at the end of their chip names, these CPUs (the first of which debuted in 2018) are excellent values for budget systems emphasizing light gaming and productivity work. Right now you’ll find laptops on sale with 8th gen, 9th gen and 10th gen processors. Liquid cooling has an exotic cachet for many users, but today's all-in-one (AIO) liquid coolers from Cooler Master, Corsair, Deepcool, NZXT, and others have made water-cooling your PC as safe and easy as installing a case fan. The exceptions are the unlocked Core enthusiast CPUs, which come without any; the assumption there is that you will bring your own, enhanced cooler to the chip-tweaking party. Even on single-threaded tasks, we saw a noticeable 10 to 11 percent improvement. Let’s start with the latest 10th gen chips, crucial information for laptop buyers. But then there is Apple's incredibly sleek MacBook Pro, which offers class-leading performance when equipped with an Intel Core i9-9980HK CPU and 32GB of RAM. However, if the laptop you want is available with Ryzen Mobile at the same price or less than the Intel version, you should definitely consider the AMD-powered model. It is designed to handle the CPU it is boxed with. Should you go with air cooling, or liquid cooling? All other Intel CPUs use a version of the UHD graphics chipset, which provide a significantly poorer gaming performance and will unlikely be able to cope with AAA titles. Building a laptop from scratch, buying a new laptop, or even upgrading an existing processor requires a colossal amount of resources.