The Intel Core i7-8559U is a quad-core SoC for notebooks based on the Coffee Lake architecture and was announced in April 2018. Compared to its predecessor Core i7-7567U, the CPU is now a quad-core with Hyperthreading support for the execution of up to 8 threads simultaneously. The base frequency is 2.7 GHz, but the Turbo goes all the way up to 4.5 GHz. It is also equipped with an Intel Iris Plus Graphics 655 GPU with 128 MB eDRAM, a dual-channel memory controller (DDR4) as well as VP9 and H.265 video decoding as well as encoding. The chip is still manufactured in a 14nm process with FinFET transistors.
Compared to faster Core i5 models with eDRAM and 28 Watts, the i5-8559U features 8 MB smart cache and the fastest clock of the Iris Plus GPU.
Architecture
Intel basically uses the same micro architecture compared to Kaby Lake, so the per-MHz performance does not differ. The manufacturer only reworked the Speed Shift technology for faster dynamic adjustments of voltages and clocks, and the improved 14nm process allows much higher frequencies combined with better efficiency than before.
Performance
Clocked at up to 4.5 GHz, the Core i7-8559U is currently the fastest quad core ULV from Intel. Whether these speeds can be maintained in practice depends on the cooling capabilities of the laptop, but the performance should be above the Core i7-8650U due to the increased TDPConsidering the clocks of the Core i7-8559U, its performance should be between the 15W models Core i5-8350U and Core i7-8550U. The i5-8259U should still be faster than the i7-8550U in practice thanks to the increased TDP, especially during sustained workloads.
Graphics
The integrated Intel Iris Plus 655 Graphics is the GT3e model of the Coffee Lake GPU (Intel Gen. 9.5). It has 48 Execution Units running at 300-1200 MHz and the performance is comparable to a GeForce 930M or 940MX thanks to fast eDRAM cache. However, there aren't any significant improvements compared to the old Iris Plus 650, so modern games can often not be played smoothly or only at the lowest or medium settings, respectively.
Contrary to Skylake, Kaby lake now also supports H.265/HEVC Main 10 with a 10-bit color depth as well as Google's VP9 codec. The dual-core Kaby Lake processors announced in January should also support HDCP 2.2.
Power Consumption
The chip is manufactured in an improved 14nm++ process with FinFET transistors, which improves the efficiency even further. Intel specifies the TDP with 28 Watts, which can be reduced to 23 Watts (cTDP Down) depending on the usage scenario. The TDP is pretty high compared to the common 15-Watt TDP for quad-core processors, but allows a better utilization of CPU and GPU Turbo.
The AMD Ryzen 7 3750H is a mobile SoC that was announced in January 2019. It combines four Zen+ cores (8 threads) clocked at 2.3 - 4 GHz with a Radeon RX Vega 10 graphics card with 10 CUs (640 Shaders) clocked at up to 1400 MHz. Compared to the similar Ryzen 7 3700U, the 3750H offers a 20 Watt higher TDP and therefore a better performance under long periods of load. The integrated dual-channel memory controller supports up to DDR4-2400 memory. As the features of the Picasso APUs are the same compared to the Raven Ridge predecessors, we point to our Raven Ridge launch article.
Picasso SoCs use the Zen+ microarchitecture with slight improvements that should lead to a 3% IPS (performance per clock) improvements.
Performance
The average 3750H in our database is in the same league as the Core i7-10610U, as far as multi-thread benchmark scores are concerned. This is a fairly good result, as of early 2022.
The ROG Zephyrus G15 GA502DU is among the fastest laptops built around the 3750H that we know of. It can be about 20% faster in CPU-bound workloads than the slowest system featuring the same chip in our database, as of August 2023.
Power consumption
This Ryzen 7 has a default TDP of 35 W (also known as the long-term power limit). Laptop manufacturers are free to change that value to anything between 12 W and 35 W with clock speeds and performance changing accordingly. These values are comparatively high, making an active cooling solution pretty much a necessity.
Last but not the least, this AMD APU is built with a rather old, as of late 2022, 12 nm process for lower-than-average energy efficiency.
- Range of benchmark values for this graphics card - Average benchmark values for this graphics card * Smaller numbers mean a higher performance 1 This benchmark is not used for the average calculation
v1.26
log 05. 02:39:42
#0 checking url part for id 10072 +0s ... 0s
#1 checking url part for id 11131 +0s ... 0s
#2 not redirecting to Ajax server +0s ... 0s
#3 did not recreate cache, as it is less than 5 days old! Created at Sat, 04 May 2024 05:40:37 +0200 +0.001s ... 0.001s
#4 composed specs +0.02s ... 0.021s
#5 did output specs +0s ... 0.021s
#6 getting avg benchmarks for device 10072 +0.019s ... 0.04s
#7 got single benchmarks 10072 +0.012s ... 0.052s
#8 getting avg benchmarks for device 11131 +0.018s ... 0.07s
#9 got single benchmarks 11131 +0.057s ... 0.126s
#10 got avg benchmarks for devices +0s ... 0.126s
#11 min, max, avg, median took s +0.391s ... 0.518s