Intel is expanding its 8th-gen line of Core mobile processors, bringing more power to its laptop-class chips.
In addition to launching a set of 45 watt Coffee Lake-H processors with support for up to 6 cores and 12 threads, Intel is also updating is lower-power U-series chips by adding 4 Coffee Lake-U models with Intel Iris Plus integrated graphics.
One of them will also be the first 8th-gen Core i3 U-series processor.
The new chips are all 28 watt processors with a new Mobile Intel 300 series chipset with upgraded I/O, integrated 802.11ac WiFi (for up to twice the throughput), and integrated USB 3.1 Gen2 support for data transfer speeds up to 10 Gb/s.
All told, these chips should be more energy-efficient than their 45 watt Coffee Lake-H or Kaby Lake-G cousins, which makes them more suitable for thin-and-light laptops and 2-in-1 tablets. But they should offer significantly better graphics performance than Intel’s 15 watt Kaby Lake Refresh chips when it comes to gaming, multimedia, photo and video editing, and other tasks that leverage a GPU.
Here’s a run-down of the first 8th-gen Core Mobile chips with Iris Plus graphics:
- Core i7-8559U: 4 cores/8 threads, 2.7 GHz base/4.5 GHz boost frequency, 8MB cache
- Core i5-8269U: 4 cores/8 threads, 2.6 GHz base/4.2 GHz boost frequency, 6MB cache
- Core i5-8259U: 4 cores/8 threads, 2.3 GHz base/3.8 GHz boost frequency, 6MB cache
- Core i3-8109U: 2 cores/4 threads, 3 GHz base/3.6 GHz boost frequency, 4MB cache
All of the new chips support dual-channel DDR4-2400 RAM and Intel Optane memory.
Interesting… very interesting that there are no 15W options to found. The i7 Surface Pro uses a 15W U-class Core chip with Iris graphics and relies on it for passable battery life. We already know how well >15W CPUs fare in such a form factor–see the first generation Surface Pro’s for a taste of wall hugging. If Intel decided to not offer 15W Iris graphics option, could it be that Microsoft may end up switching to AMD this round for the next Surface Pro since APU’s Raven Ridge does offer a 15W option with superior graphics to boot? AMD has always had superior quality hardware video decoding–better than even NVIDIA–so I would welcome the switch.