i5-8250U Vs. i7-8550U, a $100 differance?

[cjmcm]

Ok, so I'm going to be purchasing acer nitro 5 spin soon. The two models are identical except for the CPUs. There are a i5-8250U and an i7-8550U version. My question is, is the better CPU worth the $100 more? I've tried doing my own research into this but I can't find very much information on these two CPUs. (I think it because they're the eighth generation) Anyway, I'm going to be doing some gaming and light editing on this computer if that helps. Thanks for any advice!

[Guest]

I'm willing to guess that yes it will be worth it. But seeing as how there is little to no information on 8th generation chips (let alone the laptop version) it is hard to say.

[Skiiwee29]

Yes, the higher level cache with the i7 makes a ton of difference in laptops. The i7 also has a higher frequency clock as well. 

[Mira Yurizaki]

The i5 has a base frequency of 1.6GHz and a maximum turbo of 3.4GHz. The i7 has a base frequency of 1.8GHz and a max turbo of 4.0GHz.

 

So assuming everything's good on the cooling side, you're looking at about a 17.65% increase in performance if you're hitting turbo just from that.

[m0k]

i mean, going off just clock speeds - then yes higher is better

turbo boost upto 4ghz will really help in a lot of single threaded apps

i would say get the i7 - its the same TDP and will perform better

[ARikozuM]

They're both quad-cores with HT and aside from cache and boost frequency differences, there isn't much else. If the $100 is only a 10-20% increase in price, I'd go for it.

[pyrojoe34]

I was under the impression that both chips with be 4c/8t CPUs with the i7 having 8MB of cache and clocks of 1.8-4Ghz (base-boost) and the i5 having 6m of cache with clocks of 1.6-3.4Ghz. So it's hard to tell without benchmarks if the cache actually will make a big difference for most people but the clocks are a pretty big improvement and since you can't OC them might be worth the increase. Then again we may find that it's barely an improvement and unless you need the higher IPC it's not worth it. Either way they are both huge improvements over the 2c/4t previous generations so that's a huge plus.

 

The GPU in both is basically the same (HD 620) with only a 50Mhz boost in the i7 version.

[Guest]

The core i7 has a higher base/turbo frecuencies. The i7 also has 8MB of cache over the 6MB of cache on the i5. The higher clockspeeds on the core i7 will give you an increase in performance assuming that the cooling solution is good. They both have the same TDP and 4c/8t.

 

6 minutes ago, Syn Messer said:

I'm willing to guess that yes it will be worth it. But seeing as how there is little to no information on 8th generation chips (let alone the laptop version) it is hard to say.

https://ark.intel.com/products/124967/Intel-Core-i5-8250U-Processor-6M-Cache-up-to-3_40-GHz

https://ark.intel.com/products/122589/Intel-Core-i7-8550U-Processor-8M-Cache-up-to-4_00-GHz

There is information about these processors on intels website.

[JoostinOnline]

12 minutes ago, TheBeastPC said:

The core i7 has a higher base/turbo frecuencies. The i7 also has 8MB of cache over the 6MB of cache on the i5. The higher clockspeeds on the core i7 will give you an increase in performance assuming that the cooling solution is good. They both have the same TDP and 4c/8t.

 

https://ark.intel.com/products/124967/Intel-Core-i5-8250U-Processor-6M-Cache-up-to-3_40-GHz

https://ark.intel.com/products/122589/Intel-Core-i7-8550U-Processor-8M-Cache-up-to-4_00-GHz

There is information about these processors on intels website.

Having the same TDP doesn't mean anything.   Intel just gives everything the same TDP lol.

[SeanAngelo]

29 minutes ago, cjmcm said:

Ok, so I'm going to be purchasing acer nitro 5 spin soon. The two models are identical except for the CPUs. There are a i5-8250U and an i7-8550U version. My question is, is the better CPU worth the $100 more? I've tried doing my own research into this but I can't find very much information on these two CPUs. (I think it because they're the eighth generation) Anyway, I'm going to be doing some gaming and light editing on this computer if that helps. Thanks for any advice!

just get the i7 so you get the fastest speeds possible.

 

meanwhile, im waiting for the 8th gen dell xps 13 reviews to come out