The 9980HK features a base speed of 2.4 GHz, with boost performance up to 5GHz. As you'd expect, it also has 16 threads of performance, thanks to Intel's Hyperthreading technology (two threads per core). For people who don't need to overclock, there's also the new 9880H, which is almost as fast. Intel's new laptop chips go all the way down to the quad-core i5-9300H, which can still reach upwards for 4GHz in boost speeds.

So how fast are these chips? According to Intel, the i9-9980HK offers 18 percent higher framerates than last year's 8th-generation 8950HK in Hitman 2 and 28 percent faster for 4K video editing. And while gaming, streaming and recording in Black Ops 4, it delivers 2.1x faster framerates. That's a significant leap from just a year ago. Compared to three-year old systems running the i7-6700HQ, the new chips offer 56 percent faster FPS in Total War 2, 54 percent speedier 4K video editing, and an overall performance bump of 33 percent.