Intel Core i7-8650U vs Intel Core i7-7820HQ vs Intel Pentium Gold 4417U

Intel Core i7-8650U

The Intel Core i7-8650U 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 predecessor the Core i7-7600U, which were still dual-cores, the i7-8650U is equipped with four cores but at a lower base frequency of 1.9 GHz. The Turbo Boost can go up to 4,2 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

According to Intel, the new quad core models are up to 40% faster than their dual core predecessors. Due to the reduced TDP and the same 14nm+ process, the long term performance and throttling behaviour will be interesting and depending on the laptop design. Therefore, the older 35 Watt quad-core models should be faster in applications that demand longer CPU loads. The performance however is highly depending on the TDP settings and cooling solution of the laptop. Especially, longer loads will show varying results in different laptops.

Graphics

The integrated Intel UHD Graphics 620 (Intel Gen 9.5) is untouched from the 8th Gen Kaby Lake chips. With fast dual-channel memory it can reach the performance of a dedicated GeForce 920M.

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.

Intel Core i7-7820HQ

The Intel Core i7-7820HQ is a fast quad-core processor for notebooks based on the Kaby Lake architecture and was announced in January 2017. It is the second fastest model of the consumer series at the time of the announcement. Only the i7-7920HQ and Xeon E3-1535M v6 are faster. Besides four cores including Hyper-Threading support running at 2.9 - 3.9 GHz (4 cores up to 3.5 GHz, 2 cores up to 3.7 GHz), the processor is also equipped with the HD Graphics 630 GPU as well as a dual-channel memory controller (DDR3L-1600/DDR4-2400). It is manufactured in a 14nm process with FinFET transistors.

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

Due to the higher clock speeds, the performance of the i7-7820HQ is slightly faster than the old Skylake top model Core i7-6920HQ (2.9 - 3.8 GHz). The performance is sufficient even for very demanding tasks and on par with powerful desktop quad-core processors.

Graphics

The integrated Intel HD Graphics 630 has 24 Execution Units (similar to previous HD Graphics 530) running at 350 - 1100 MHz. The performance depends a lot on the memory configuration; it should be comparable to a dedicated Nvidia GeForce 920M in combination with fast DDR4-2133 dual-channel memory.

Contrary to Skylake, Kaby Lake now supports hardware decoding for H.265/HEVC Main 10 with a 10-bit color depth as well as Google's VP9 codec. The dual-core Kaby Lake processors, which were 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 still specifies the TDP with 45 Watts, but it can also be reduced to 35 Watts by the notebook manufacturers (cTDP down). This will obviously affect the performance, because the Turbo Boost cannot be maintained for longer periods.

Intel Pentium Gold 4417U

The Intel Pentium Gold Processor 4417U is a power efficient dual-core SoC for entry level laptops based on the Kaby Lake Refresh generation (not Coffee Lake). It was announced in February 2019 and integrates two "big" cores (similar to the Core i3, i5 and i7 CPUs) clocked at 2.3 GHz (fixed, no Turbo Boost). The integrated graphics card is named Intel HD Graphics 610 and offers 12 EUs clocked at 300 - 950 MHz. The integrated memory controller supports slower memory speeds than the faster i3 and i5 models (DDR4-2133 / LPDDR3-1866 / DDR3L-1600) 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

With a fixed clock speed of 2.3 GHz, the dual core CPU is clearly slower than models with Turbo Boost and high clock speeds for single thread performance. The multi thread performance however is also limited due to the two cores. The faster Core i5-8250U offers four processor cores and  fast Turbo Boost speeds therefore offers a much better performance. Still, the Pentium 4417U offers enough performance for daily tasks and non demanding applications.

Power Consumption

The chip is most likely 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. According to Intel it can be configured to 12.5 Watt at 800 MHz (cTDP-down) with a clearly reduced performance.