The Intel Core i7-8550U is a power efficient quad-core SoC for notebooks and Ultrabooks based on the Kaby Lake Refresh generation and was announced in August 2017. Contrary to its direct predecessors Core i7-7500U and i5-7260U, respectively, which were still dual-cores, the i7-8550U is equipped with four cores but at a lower base frequency of 1.8 GHz. The Turbo Boost is not specified yet, but should be at least 3.7 - 4 GHz and therefore also offer good short term single core speeds. The GPU is now named Intel UHD Graphics 620 but otherwise identical to the Intel HD Graphics 620. The integrated memory controller supports DDR4-2400 / LPDDR3-2133 and dual channel memory.
Architecture
Intel basically uses the same micro architecture compared to Skylake, 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
The performance of the i7-8550U depends on the cooling solution of the laptop and the defined TDP limits for short and long term performance. This leads to big differences in our benchmark scores ranging from the 15 Watt reference by Intel up to the 23% higher score of the Inspiron 17-7773 in the Cinebench R15 Multi benchmark. Especially when taxing the CPU for longer periods, these differences can be even higher.
In our usual benchmarks, the average i7-8550U is as fast as the 35 Watt rated Core i5-7440HQ. For single thread performance, the high Turbo Boost frequency helps achieving one of the highest scores for mobile CPUs.
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 (14nm+), the same as the 7th Gen Kaby Lake processors. Intel still specifies the TDP with 15 Watts, which is typical for ULV chips. Depending on the usage scenario, the TDP can vary between 7.5 (cTDP Down) and 25 Watts.
The Intel Core i5-8500T is a desktop processor of the Coffee Lake generation. It offers 6 cores clocked at 2.1 - 3.5 GHz and is manufactured in the again improved 14nm process (14nm++). As a "T" model, te i5-8500T is rated with a low 35 Watt TDP and therefore sometimes even used in laptops.
Thanks to the additional 2 cores, the Coffee Lake 6-core CPUs can offer a performance uplift of up to 50% in multithreaded workloads compared to the Kaby Lake predecessors.
The Intel Core i5-8500 is a mid-range 6-core CPU. The processor belongs to the Coffee Lake generation and was presented in April 2018. It does not support Hyper-Threading, which means it can run six threads simultaneously. The base clock rate is 3 GHz and the CPU can speed up to 4.1 GHz under high load. Despite belonging to the new generation of CPUs, the Core i5-8500 is manufactured in an improved 14nm process.
Performance
The processor offers a strong performance increase compared to the Core i5-7500 due to its two additional cores. Single-core performance has not improved significantly compared to its Kaby Lake predecessor. As a mid-range model, the Core i5-8500 should be suitable for demanding games and programs.
Graphics
The integrated Intel UHD Graphics 630 iGPU is supposed to offer higher performance as its clock rate has been increased by 50-100 MHz. The build is identical to that of the Intel HD Graphics 630. We do expect a performance improvement, but as a low-end solution it will probably only display current games smoothly at reduced details - if at all.
Power Consumption
Intel specifies the TDP with 65 watts. Therefore, well-dimensioned cooling systems should easily manage to deal with the created heat. We expect increased efficiency due to the higher performance.
- 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
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