Due to the threat produced by AMD’s Ryzen processors, it looks like Intel is taking notice of the competition. Hence, the company released a counterattack with the new Intel 8th generation processors.
I hate to break it to you, but this isn’t the Coffee Lake and Cannon Lake yet — both are expected to come at a later date. These initial U-series Intel 8th generation processors for laptops are what the company is calling “Kaby Lake refresh”. They share the same CPU and GPU architecture with its predecessor.
But despite having an identical build, the new processors have 40% increase in performance. As per Intel, this is due to the extra cores and threads that the new processors have. The whole line is also designed to play well with 4K videos, VR, and other new technologies.
Like I said, these “Kaby Lake refresh” are part of the U-series of laptop chipsets. It consists of two i7 and another two i5 processors. Specifications will be as follows:
| I5-8250U | I5-8350U | I7-8550U | I7-8650U | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Base Clock | 1.6GHz | 1.7GHz | 1.8GHz | 1.9GHz |
| Cores | 4 | 4 | 4 | 4 |
| Threads | 8 | 8 | 8 | 8 |
| Cache Size | 6MB | 6MB | 8MB | 8MB |
| Max. 1-Core Clock | 3.4GHz | 3.6GHz | 4.0GHz | 4.2GHz |
| Max. 4-Core Clock | 3.4GHz | 3.6GHz | 3.7GHz | 3.9GHz |
The first squad of 8th-Gen equipped laptops is expected to be available starting September from their manufacturer partners.
Source: Intel