Intel 8th Gen Core CPUs - Buy Now or wait ?
Back on Aug 21, Intel announced their 8th generation Core line of CPUs. The initial offerings are based on the Kaby Lake lithography (14nm) and are in fact what folks are calling the Kaby Lake refresh release. The initial release is limited to two CPUs based on the U configuration for laptops and tablets and in fact are already showing up in OEM devices.
The big change is the additional core and thread capabilities. For example a Core i7-7567U used in the top of the line NUC available today is a 2 Core 4 Thread CPU capable of 4Ghz speed with 4M Cache.
The new Core i7-8550U is a 4 Core, 8 Thread CPU also capable of 4.0Ghz speed and has 8M of Cache. It also used less energy being a 15W TDP vs 28W for the i7-7567U.
Even the new Core i5 now offers 4 cores and 6 threads vs the 2 Cores / 4 Threads of the current 7th gen offerings.
The end result is upwards of a 40% performance improvement claimed by Intel and with double the cores and threads. The new 8th gen also supports 2400Mhz DDR4 RAM - so a slight increase over the 2133Mhz of 7th Gen.
And so while you have a lot more processing power - the initial 8th gen offerings don't offer the Iris HD 650 graphics that the current 7th gen i7s do. The new CPUs use the HD 620 GPU. So while they both support 4K and 3 monitors - you will be missing additional 64MB of eDRAM of the 650.
The GPU impact is really around gaming or high frame rate processing. Now since the initial offerings are really for laptops this shouldn't be an issue for most folks.
So these initial offerings are a nice improvement - but 8th gen actually will span 3 standards. As I mentioned these initial offerings are considered a Kaby Lake Refresh - so based on 14nm+.
In 2018 we start to be offerings based on Coffee Lake which considered a 14nm++ design and then the generation will move to Cannon Lake 10nm architecture. So you'll see more 8th gen releases in Q4, Q1 and even as late as Q3 of 2018.
With the competition from AMD heating up with their Ryzen offering with some processors having 8 Cores and 16 threads - these new releases are obviously a reaction there. The question to me is on the GPU side. Anyone who has been around the computer industry knows that AMD make an excellent GPU in the Radeon line. The challenge however is that it is NOT integrated into the CPU - like the Intel HD/Iris line and so while OEMs have some potential of offering flexibility with dedicated GPUS - it also adds cost. The Intel HD line is actually a pretty good GPU and with the 640 & 650 Intel added the additional eDRAM to support high frame rate games, video, etc.
The OEMs are moving quickly with the initial 8th Gen offerings. Here we are in Sept 21, 30 days after release and I've already seen laptops offerings using the new chip. The fact that it is based on the same FC-BGA1356 socket helps.
Bottom line - Intel's latest 8th Gen Core CPUs are out - but in a limited offering. If you are in the market now for a new laptop - I would definitely make sure I was buying an 8th Gen unit. You'll see nice performance improvements and not pay dramatically more. You can buy a 2:1 Laptop today with 8th Gen, 8GB of RAM a 256GB NVMe SSD and 1920x1080 Touch, Pen Screen for less than $1100. To me that is a pretty good value.
The big change is the additional core and thread capabilities. For example a Core i7-7567U used in the top of the line NUC available today is a 2 Core 4 Thread CPU capable of 4Ghz speed with 4M Cache.
The new Core i7-8550U is a 4 Core, 8 Thread CPU also capable of 4.0Ghz speed and has 8M of Cache. It also used less energy being a 15W TDP vs 28W for the i7-7567U.
Even the new Core i5 now offers 4 cores and 6 threads vs the 2 Cores / 4 Threads of the current 7th gen offerings.
The end result is upwards of a 40% performance improvement claimed by Intel and with double the cores and threads. The new 8th gen also supports 2400Mhz DDR4 RAM - so a slight increase over the 2133Mhz of 7th Gen.
The GPU impact is really around gaming or high frame rate processing. Now since the initial offerings are really for laptops this shouldn't be an issue for most folks.
So these initial offerings are a nice improvement - but 8th gen actually will span 3 standards. As I mentioned these initial offerings are considered a Kaby Lake Refresh - so based on 14nm+.
In 2018 we start to be offerings based on Coffee Lake which considered a 14nm++ design and then the generation will move to Cannon Lake 10nm architecture. So you'll see more 8th gen releases in Q4, Q1 and even as late as Q3 of 2018.
With the competition from AMD heating up with their Ryzen offering with some processors having 8 Cores and 16 threads - these new releases are obviously a reaction there. The question to me is on the GPU side. Anyone who has been around the computer industry knows that AMD make an excellent GPU in the Radeon line. The challenge however is that it is NOT integrated into the CPU - like the Intel HD/Iris line and so while OEMs have some potential of offering flexibility with dedicated GPUS - it also adds cost. The Intel HD line is actually a pretty good GPU and with the 640 & 650 Intel added the additional eDRAM to support high frame rate games, video, etc.
The OEMs are moving quickly with the initial 8th Gen offerings. Here we are in Sept 21, 30 days after release and I've already seen laptops offerings using the new chip. The fact that it is based on the same FC-BGA1356 socket helps.
Bottom line - Intel's latest 8th Gen Core CPUs are out - but in a limited offering. If you are in the market now for a new laptop - I would definitely make sure I was buying an 8th Gen unit. You'll see nice performance improvements and not pay dramatically more. You can buy a 2:1 Laptop today with 8th Gen, 8GB of RAM a 256GB NVMe SSD and 1920x1080 Touch, Pen Screen for less than $1100. To me that is a pretty good value.
Comments
Post a Comment