Intel launches 8th-gen CPUs for laptops, but no ‘Coffee Lake’ in sight
CHIPMAKER Intel has unveiled its 8th-gen Core processor lineup, which confusingly isn’t based on the firm’s much-touted ‘Coffee Lake’ architecture.
Instead, Intel’s new 15W Core i3, i5 and i7 CPUs arrive as a « Kaby Lake refresh », according to the firm, with Coffee Lake processors – which will take aim at workstation and enthusiast devices – set to launch later this year.
The firm’s new 8th-gen chips the first quad-core ‘U-Series’ processors, which take aim at notebook and ultrabook devices. The lineup comprises of the of the I7-8650U with a base clock frequency of 1.9GHz with a boost clock of 4.2GHz, the i7-8550U (1.8GHz to (4GHz) , the i5 8450U (1.7GHz to 3.6GHz) and the i5-8250U (1.6GHz to 3.4GHz) .
Although they remain on the firm’s Kaby Lake architecture, Intel is claiming that its 14nm+ architecture offers a 40 per cent performance improvement compared to its previous-gen Kaby Lake chips, adding that those upgrading from a five-year-old PC will see « double the performance. »
Karen Regis, director of Intel’s mobile platform marketing, boasted: « This is a huge leap, and arguably a once in a decade kind of leap, » and took aim at AMD’s Ryzen lineup with the claim that the new chips will « eclipse everything else in the industry. »
According to Regis, users of its new chips will see a 30 per cent performance speed improvement when editing images, 40 per cent when multitasking and a 48 per cent speed improvement when creating a slideshow in PowerPoint. Yippee!
Battery life remains « uncompromised » despite Intel’s aforementioned performance gains, and the firm claims that devices powered by its 8th-gen CPUs will offer up to 10 hours of battery life when watching local 4K video, and up to 11 hours if streaming 4K content on YouTube.
Elsewhere, the new ‘Kaby Lake refresh’ offers support for Windows Mixed Reality, Windows Hello authentication and fingerprint touch-to-pay, along with Thunderbolt 3 support.
The integrated HD 620 graphics built into the last generation of U-Series processors is also getting as UHD 620 graphics. The GPUs of Core i5 models run at 1.1Ghz while those of the Core i7 models run at 1.15GHz.
Intel is promising that more than 145 OEM devices will be launching starting in September, with 80 of those to be available in time for Christmas. µ
