Intel Core i5 8279U's Advantages
Better graphics card performance
Higher base frequency (2.4GHz vs 2.1GHz)
Lower TDP (28W vs 45W)
Intel Core i7 12850HX's Advantages
Released 3 years late
Higher specification of memory (DDR5-4800 vs DDR4-2400)
Larger memory bandwidth (76.8GB/s vs 37.5GB/s)
Newer PCIe version (5.0 vs 3.0)
Larger L3 cache size (25MB vs 6MB)
More modern manufacturing process (10nm vs 14nm)