Intel 15 Watt Whiskey Lake CPU Specs Disclosed Early: i7-8565U, i5-8265U, & i3-8145U
by Anton Shilov on August 9, 2018 1:00 PM EST
As the formal launch of Intel’s new codenamed Whiskey Lake-U processors approaches, it is seemingly inevitable that their model numbers and specifications will get published by OEMs ahead of time. This week HP has done just that, inadvertently publishing the frequencies of some of the upcoming processors, all the while ASUS and Synnex have confirmed their model numbers as well as some other specs. As it appears, Intel has managed to increase Turbo clocks of the new chips rather significantly when compared to their predecessors.
Intel first announced its Whiskey Lake-U processors for mobile PCs back in April and then shed some light on these chips at Computex. According to Intel, the CPUs will belong to its 8th Generation Core family, will be made using a 14 nm process technology, and will offer a double-digit performance gains when compared to the Kaby Lake Refresh parts. It is unclear whether the Whiskey Lake-U processors have any microarchitectural improvements over their ancestors, but this week we learned that they will at least have higher Turbo frequencies.
HP on Wednesday accidentally published specs of its upcoming Pavilion x360 convertible based on the Whiskey Lake-U SoC and disclosed specs of the chips it plans to use. In the meantime, ASUS and Synnex (1, 2) confirmed existence of CPUs with such model numbers.
As it turns out, HP will offer three Whiskey Lake-U processors with its Pavilion x360 notebooks: the quad-core Core i7-8565U, the quad-core Core i5-8265U, as well as the dual-core Core i3-8145U. HP’s disclosure indicates that all of these SoCs feature Intel’s UHD 620 iGPU with 24 EUs, so at least on the graphics front Whiskey Lake-U will offer similar features as their predecessors. In the meantime, specs published by ASUS indicate that the new CPUs will support DDR4-2667 memory, thus offering an upgrade.
If we compare alleged specs of the upcoming Whiskey Lake-U processors with comparable Kaby Lake Refresh chips, we will notice that the new SoCs do not have any advantages in terms of base frequencies, but feature massively higher turbo clocks, on the order of 500 to 700 MHz. The latter will have an impact on responsiveness of future laptops, but under prolonged heavy loads such PCs may not perform much differently than systems featuring KBL-R CPUs.
| General Specifications of Intel's 2017/2018 Mainstream Notebook CPUs | |||||||||||||
| Whiskey Lake-U | Kaby Lake Refresh | ||||||||||||
| Cores | Freq. Base |
Freq. Turbo |
L3 | TDP | Cores | Freq. Base |
Freq. Turbo |
L3 | TDP | ||||
| Core i7-8565U | 4 | 1.8 GHz | 4.6 GHz | 8 MB | 15 W | Core i7-8550U | 4 | 1.8 GHz | 4 GHz |
8 MB | 15 W | ||
| Core i5-8265U | 1.6 GHz | 4.1 GHz | 6 MB | Core i5-8250U | 1.6 GHz | 3.4 GHz | 6 MB | ||||||
| Core i3-8145U | 2 | 2.1 GHz | 3.9 GHz | 4 MB | Core i3-8130U | 2 | 2.2 GHz | 3.4 GHz | 4 MB | ||||
Intel traditionally does not comment on unreleased products and therefore it is impossible to verify accuracy of the specs published by HP.
Related Reading:
- Intel Discuss Whiskey Lake-U, Amber Lake-Y, and ‘Cascade Lake-X’
- Intel 10nm Production Update: Systems on Shelves For Holiday 2019
- Intel Delays Mass Production of 10 nm CPUs to 2019
- Intel’s Crimson Canyon NUCs with Cannon Lake CPU & Radeon dGPU Available for Pre-Order
Sources: Tom’s Hardware, Notebookcheck.net
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boozed - Thursday, August 9, 2018 - link
I wouldn't mind a lake of whiskyGreenReaper - Thursday, August 9, 2018 - link
Would it be enough to quench a meltdown, I wonder?boozed - Friday, August 10, 2018 - link
If nothing else at least it'll stop you worrying about itFritzkier - Thursday, August 9, 2018 - link
I think this is just a marketing move from Intel...Without a new architecture or smaller node, is it really possible to reach max boost clock speed without throttling?
Well, I guess we need to wait until Whiskey Lake U officially released.
eddman - Friday, August 10, 2018 - link
Kaby lake refresh is 14nm+ and whiskey lake is expected to be 14nm++.abufrejoval - Friday, August 10, 2018 - link
They don't need to change anything on the silicon, really, to hit 4,8GHz on a single core. As all these 14nm i7-****K will prove, they are even good for 5 GHz, if you can afford the juice and have a well binned chip.Done the same with my i7-7700K, allowing it to go 4.8 on one core, stepping down to 4.4 on all four, I think. With that it stays well within the 85 Watt TDP at all times (and practically silent with Noctua), never asks for extra voltage and I no longer feel stupid about one of these new notebooks CPUs getting higher marks on Geekbench single.
So I guess they take more juice, take it for a shorter time to compensate the unavoidable heat build-up and battery drain and off they go to new marketing heights.
If all you need it burst performance, that's quite allright, just don't like the prices they charge for these 15 Watt i7. And most of the time I don't really feel badly constrained at 3GHz either.
lightningz71 - Friday, August 10, 2018 - link
So, essentially, they are taking advantage of minor platform improvements in efficiency to allow the CPU to run a bit faster for quick bursts. I really can't say that I'm impressed. Oh, I'm sure that, in short benchmarks, they will show modest gains in single threaded applications, but sustained multi-threaded applications would be lucky to see more than a precious few percentage points in improvement. Granted, that's not a typical use case for laptops, but, as we've seen with the recent MacBook Pro fiasco, there will be some that find those limits.wow&wow - Friday, August 10, 2018 - link
More Intel "Bug Inside" chips uniquely requiring OS kernel relocation, such a JOKE (INTENDED according to the Intel ex-CEO) in the processor industry, the 1st and only!Intel is allowed to keep selling the faulty chip with the design bug inside, unbelievable!
Stupid mass keep buying the "Bug Inside" products, amazing! What a wonderful world that is so forgiving!
HStewart - Friday, August 10, 2018 - link
It has been proven that both AMD and ARM both have Spectra issues..Most people don't care about this stuff - just go into your local BestBuy and you can see what people are buying Laptop mostly with Intel.
ibnmadhi - Saturday, August 11, 2018 - link
Throttle Lake... How can you possibly raise frequency by 600-700MHz and keep all else equal at the same TDP on the same node? Of course the TDP is a lie when their documents say it's only valid at the baseclock the CPU never runs at; Intel's 8th gen mobile CPUs already throttle to hell when not given adequate cooling (i.e., cooling that greatly exceeds the fake TDP rating). Perhaps this way of measuring TDP worked with the older turbo models, but not with the "every CPU has a baseclock more than an entire GHz below what it will ever actually run at in the real world and then a single-core turbo another 2GHz above that" model. It may increase performance somewhat (I expect the all-core turbo increase to be much more moderate) but introduces numerous questions and variables that OEMs have to consider. Intel should be ashamed of themselves for refusing to rate their CPUs' thermal profile accurately.