8th generation of intel processors. New desktop and mobile chipsets

The beginning of April was marked by the mass release of new Intel products: eighth generation processors (Coffee Lake) and chipsets for them. New season trends: 6-core mobile processors, new Thermal Velocity Boost (TVB) functionality, lower power consumption for high-performance processors, and a plus sign for Optane-compatible models. We won’t talk about the latter (we’ll get by with a picture), but we’ll go through the rest in more detail.

New desktop and mobile chipsets

In addition to the previously lone Z370 chipset, Intel has released a complete set of models for all applications: workstations, home PCs and budget options. The line building logic is the same as before: Z370 - advanced home, H370 - home / office, Q370 - corporate. The latter differs from all support vPro.

The main feature of the 2018 chipsets was the support for the 802.11ac (2Tx2R) standard, which provides data transfer rates up to 1.7 Gbps. Wi-Fi is implemented using CNVi technology, the meaning of which is to transfer all complex and expensive interface components (logic, memory) to the chipset, leaving only the M.2 radio module “outside”. However, it should be noted that the available functionality does not mean at all that motherboard manufacturers will use it, since the implementation costs money (in this case, about $15). Keep this in mind, especially when choosing a budget option.

The second interesting feature is the introduction of USB 3.1 Gen 2 support into the chipset (speed up to 10 Gb / s). The table shows the maximum possible number of ports, in reality there will be as many as the configuration of the HSIO lines will allow (say, unlisted 10G Ethernet on-board ports also use this resource, and not only them).

The line of mobile chipsets also looks familiar: HM370 (home), QM370 (work), QMS380 (budget work). Functionality with minor nuances repeats desktop counterparts, the latter lacks USB 3.1 G2, vPro is present in corporate models.

Mobile processors: the six-core flagship and the long-awaited Xeon E

From now on, top wearable devices can have up to 6 cores and 12 threads - because now we have the Core i9-8950HK, the first i9 in the mobile segment and so far the only one. The plate compares the new flagship with the previous one.

Draws attention to several points. First, the flagship is still open to overclocking. Secondly, the maximum frequency is really maximum, even compared to desktop models. Thirdly, here we see support for Thermal Velocity Boost (TVB) technology.

TVB is a further development of Turbo Boost technology. If the processor temperature remains below a certain level (in this case 53°C), one of its cores can increase its frequency by several hundred MHz more than the maximum of the others (here 200), which makes it possible to work out sharp, explosive loads more smoothly. However, again, whether a CPU will be capable of TVB depends both on the quality of a particular processor instance, and on the cooling efficiency in a given device model. In advance, without tests, it is problematic to say.

Next news: the Xeon E-series processors are finally released, the junior "mobile server" models announced at the launch of the Xeon Scalable. So far there are only 2 of them, Xeon E-2186M and Xeon E-2176M.

Xeon E differs from the productive mobile processors Core i5 / i7 of the new generation with an increased cache, higher maximum frequencies and support for ECC memory. But their power consumption is no different - both there and there TDP 45 W, which, of course, is more honorable for Xeon.

As for processors for ultra- and other beeches, the most honorable place among them is now occupied by models with Radeon Vega graphics, however, their cost and TDP under 100 W may seem excessive to someone, and here models with a built-in Iris Plus graphics of the latest generation Intel Core i3-8109U, i5-8259U, i5-8269U, i7-8559U.

GT3e graphics use up to 128 MB eDRAM, have a maximum frequency of 1.2 GHz and 48 execution units (previous generation graphics had a maximum of 24 execution units and did not use eDRAM). At the same time, the heat dissipation of these processors is only 28 watts. It is these models that will become the basis for most models of mid-range laptops.

Desktop processors: energy efficiency and diversity

The desktop line of Coffee Lake processors has almost three dozen models and stretches the entire length from Core i7 to Celeron. The table shows the most interesting models of the top of the line.

Each index is represented by two or three models: basic, with an unlocked multiplier and reduced power consumption. The latter will undoubtedly attract attention: the Core i7 with a TDP of 35 W sounds attractive. You just need to keep in mind that the heat pack is calculated for the base frequency, and for processors with the T index it is very different from the maximum.

The younger models of the family, Intel Pentium Gold/Celeron, occupy a budget niche with all the ensuing circumstances. In many cases, their performance is quite enough.

Most of the models shown here will be available for purchase very soon.

New desktop and mobile chipsets

Mobile processors: the six-core flagship and the long-awaited Xeon E

Desktop processors: energy efficiency and diversity

The desktop line of Coffee Lake processors has almost three dozen models and stretches the entire length from Core i7 to Celeron. The table shows the most interesting models of the top of the line.

The younger models of the family, Intel Pentium Gold/Celeron, occupy a budget niche with all the ensuing circumstances. In many cases, their performance is quite enough.

Most of the models shown here will be available for purchase very soon.

Numerous inhabitants of technology forums all over the Internet are not easy to surprise. When Intel released its 8th generation 6-core Core processors not so long ago, many weren't impressed. In their opinion, Intel offers slightly revised old products in a new cover.

Perhaps the new processors have become derivatives of the previous ones, but this does not detract from their merits. There are enough differences, as a result of which many reviewers call them worthy of the transition from the chips of the past generation. This has rarely happened in recent years. In support of this point of view, test results will be presented below.

What is the 8th Generation Intel Core?

As usual, understanding Intel products is not easy at all. First came the 8th Gen Core i7 Coffee Lake S for desktops. Then came the 8th generation Core i7 Kaby Lake R for ultraportable laptops. Why they weren't called Coffee Lake U is unknown.

Now we are talking about the 8th generation Core i7 Coffee Lake H for larger and gaming laptops. They can be considered an improved version of the 6th generation Skylake processors, which appeared in laptops back in 2015.

Since then, engineers have made many improvements. For example, the video processing engine in Kaby Lake has been greatly improved. Clock speeds have also increased compared to Skylake. The 14 nm process technology was finally brought to mind, earning the title of 14 ++.

MSI GS65 Stealth Thin RE

How the testing was done

In desktop computers, you can control cooling, power consumption, memory and disk space. There is no such freedom in laptops, which significantly affects performance. Some laptops may be aimed at maximum speed, others at maximum silence. The cooling system plays a role, and the size of the case depends on it.

This case compares the 6-core MSI GS65 Stealth Thin laptop with the 17-inch Lenovo Legion Y920. The latter is powered by a 4-core Core i7-7820HK and is an unlocked overclockable chip.

The previous generation introduces the Asus ROG Zephyrus GX501. This is a 17-inch laptop, very thin and powered by a 4-core Core i7-7700HQ processor.

6-core Core i7-8750H in MSI GS65 Stealth Thin

Performance

All three laptops use different GPUs. Lenovo Legion Y920 has GeForce GTX 1070, Asus ROG Zephyrus GX501 has GeForce GTX 1080 Max-Q, MSI GS65 Stealth Thin has GeForce GTX 1060.

Due to this disparity, little attention is paid to graphics performance. In this case, the emphasis is on the central processors.

This benchmark is based on the Maxon Cinema4D engine and prefers more cores. As a result, the transition from 4 cores to 6 provides a fairly large performance boost. Similar results can be expected in all applications using 6 cores or 12 threads of the Core i7-8750H.

Overclocked Core i7-7820HK lags behind Core i7-8750H

True, not all applications support multithreading. Of these, few are effective enough to show the results shown in the graph above. Without 3D graphics, video editing and other demanding tasks, it is better to look at the single-threaded performance of laptop processors.

This is exactly what was done, the reviewers tested Cinebench R15 using a single command stream. The results have evened out, but the new processor is still in the lead. Even against an overclocked Core i7-7820HK, it has a 7% advantage. Compared to the Core i7-7700HQ, the Asus ROG Zephyrus GX501 has a 13% difference.

Leadership due to higher frequency

Benchmark based on the Corona Photorealistic renderer for Autodesk 3ds Max. Like Cinebench and most rendering applications, it likes a lot of cores. As a result, 6 cores are again better than 4.

The final rendering benchmark measures the rendering time for a single frame. Here the difference is not so significant. Perhaps it's the duration of the tests. Cinebench and Corona last a couple of minutes, Blender about 10 minutes.

When the processor in a laptop heats up, the clock speed starts to drop. Core i7-8750H has an advantage in the number of cores and clock speed. With continued use, this advantage begins to diminish. For the same reason, the nominal frequencies on the Core i7-7820HK are not impressive, while in overclocking the processor is much closer to the Core i7-8750H.

Encoding speed

Used 30GB 1080p MKV file, HandBrake 9.9 and Android Tablet profile. Here the process took about 45 minutes on a 4-core laptop, because of this, the frequency difference is minimized. Under sustained load, you can see the value of the extra cores: the new processor finished encoding in about 33 minutes versus 46 minutes on the Core i7-7700HQ.

Compression speed

The internal WinRAR benchmark is used. Early results are single-threaded, so the higher clock speed of the Core i7-8750H gave it an edge. True, the advantage is small.

Single Threaded Performance

The Core i7-7700HQ in the Asus ROG Zephyrus GX501 performed poorly despite several tries. Since its performance in the rest of the tests was at the expected level, memory may be to blame. Asus uses 16 GB in one slot and 8 GB in the other, so dual-channel mode may not always be enabled. In WinRAR, memory bandwidth plays an important role.

Multithreaded performance

The multi-threaded mode showed the expected results. The advantage of the new processor immediately became overwhelming, and the Core i7-7700HQ showed normal results.

Performance analysis

So the Core i7-8750H has more cores and a higher clock speed. Retested Cinebench R15 with 1 to 12 threads on Core i7-8750H and 1 to 8 on Core i7-7700HQ.

The results don't really match the actual performance difference. The chart below shows this difference more clearly. As you can see, the more threads, the higher the difference, which eventually reaches 50%.

Coffee Lake H has the same architecture as Kaby Lake H, so the only difference is higher clock speeds. For a more detailed analysis, Cinebench R15 was launched again and the number of threads was increased. The clock frequency has been analyzed for some time.

The Core i7-8750H runs at higher frequencies under light workloads compared to the Core i7-7700HQ. The further to the right, the more processors heat up, the difference is minimized.

Conclusion

In recent years, there has been no reason to change processors and laptops. For example, with a 5th generation Core i7, there was no point in switching to the 6th generation. The performance difference was only 6%-7%. Now it's not.

When moving from a laptop to a 7th Gen Core i7 to an 8th Gen for video editing, graphics processing, and other heavy tasks, the performance jump is more solid. This can be seen even at low load, but is especially noticeable at high.

Of course, for many users, what they have is enough. You don't need much for Word and the browser, so you need to understand whether you need increased performance or not.

A month after the announcement of the eighth generation Core processors for laptops, Intel officially introduced a new chip formation for desktop computers, codenamed Coffee Lake. They are manufactured using an improved 14nm process technology and, as in the case of the mobile Kaby Lake Refresh, contain more cores than their predecessors. If we do not take into account the decisions of the HEDT class, then this is the first increase in the number of cores in the "desktop" Intel CPUs since 2006, when the Core 2 Extreme QX6700 was released.

The Core i7 and i5 have six cores, while the Core i3 has four. At the same time, the i7 series models implement HyperThreading technology, thanks to which they execute 12 threads simultaneously. All six new products, which are listed on the slide below, are equipped with an integrated Intel HD Graphics 630 GPU and can work with Intel Optane drives. Support for DDR4-2666 is also announced, with the exception of Core i3 compatible with DDR4-2400.

The nominal clock speed of the most powerful member of the family - Core i7-8700K - is 3.7 GHz, which is 500 MHz less than last year's Core i7-7700K. At the same time, under load, the chip develops 200 MHz more - 4.7 GHz. The difference between the “passport” frequency and the turbo mode reaches almost 27%, but the dynamic acceleration of Turbo Boost Max 3.0 is not used here, we are talking only about the usual Turbo Boost 2.0. Obviously, Intel resorted to a new frequency formula in order to achieve a performance increase without a serious increase in heat dissipation requirements: the Core i7-8700K TDP is 95 W, which is only 4 W more than the i7-7700K.

In terms of performance, the new processors promise 25% faster frame rates in modern games, 65% faster speeds in content creation applications like Adobe Photoshop, and 32% faster 4K video processing. Along with processing power, prices have also increased: for example, the cost of the i7-8700K in batches of 1,000 units is $359, which is 18% more expensive than the 7700K model. The retail sale of new items will arrive on October 5 this year, deliveries to computer manufacturers will begin in the fourth quarter.

Simultaneously with the Coffee Lake CPU, Intel announced the Z370 system logic set that supports them. The press release states that motherboards based on the chipset meet the increased power requirements of eighth-generation six-core Core processors and allow the installation of DDR4-2666 RAM. The first solutions based on the Z370 will also be announced on October 5, but some of them are already online before the deadline.

At the end of this summer, the market saw the release of new U-series processors based on the Kaby Lake Refresh architecture. The novelties are designed for laptops and other mobile devices and are built on the 14 nm + process technology, having received two cores each. The American manufacturer did not say anything about the timing of the appearance of desktop models of the new series, indicating that new items would be available soon. Today, September 25, almost a month later, Intel held a presentation of the eighth generation Core desktop processors for PCs and at the same time announced the release date. The line is already known to us as Coffee Lake.

Traditionally, the new line is represented by three main models: manufacturers are offered Core i3, Core i5 and the flagship Core i7. All processors shown have moved to the updated 14nm++ process technology and increased core count compared to Kaby Lake Refresh: Core i3 is now quad-core (for the first time in history), while Core i5 and Core i7 are six-core. In addition to the classic series, Intel will also sell unlocked versions of the "K" suffix chips. These processors support up to 40 PCIe 3.0 lanes per socket, 4K HDR, and Thunderbolt 3.0. The motherboard uses a new Intel Z370 chip (DDR4-2666 dynamic memory, built-in USB 3.1 with data transfer rates up to 5 Gb / s).

Specifications for the new 8th Gen Intel Core processors for PCs:

Core i7-8700K: 6 cores / 12 threads, 3.8 GHz (base) to 4.7 GHz (Turbo Boost), 12 MB L3 cache, 95 W TDP.
Core i7-8700: 6 cores / 12 threads, 3.2 GHz (base) to 4.6 GHz (Turbo Boost), 12 MB L3 cache, 65 W TDP.
Core i5-8600K: 6 cores / 6 threads, 3.6 GHz (base) to 4.3 GHz (Turbo Boost), 9 MB L3 cache, 95 W TDP.
Core i5-8400: 6 cores / 6 threads, 2.8 GHz (base) to 4.0 GHz (Turbo Boost), 9 MB L3 cache, 65 W TDP.
Core i3-8350K: 4 cores / 4 threads, 4.0 GHz base clock, 6 MB L3 cache, 91 W TDP.
Core i3-8100: 4 cores / 4 threads, 3.6GHz base clock, 6MB L3 cache, 65W TDP.

The new 8th Gen Intel Core desktop processors will be available starting October 5th. The official prices for new items are as follows:

Core i7-8700K - $359
Core i7-8700 - $303
Core i5-8600K - $257
Core i5-8400 - $182
Core i3-8350K - $168
Core i3-8100 - $117.