Core i5 8250U vs Core i7 8550U??

[Roschlynn Dsouza]

I was looking at some Dell laptops for my college. There are two variants actually. One is the core i5 and core i7 both 8th generation laptops. They both have 8gb ram, mx150 graphics with 4GB VRAM, 128gb ssd and a 1tb hdd. I am actually confused between the two variants. Can someone actually help me out here? I will be using programming stuff strictly such as Java, C, C++, HTML5, Phython, Visual Basic, Internet based security programming. Any gaming if in case i want to do can be handled by my desktop which is a AMD ryzen 5 1500X based. Can someone help me out as to which one i should go for?? The core i5 or the core i7? And can you please explain me the difference between the two chips?

[Hip]

If you really not use it for any gaming the i5 is good enough. 

Even if you play fortnite or so the i7 8550u is a must. I wouldn't but any notebook without atleast  i7 8550u for gaming.

[NelizMastr]

The difference between them is mostly negligible. Both are 15W quad cores with high turbo and neither are very good at staying cool. There's no major difference to speak of.

[genexis_x]

Unless your workload benefit from extra 2MB cache and single core performance, there's no reason to go for KBL-R/WHL i7 ULV (eg 8550U, 8650U, 8565U)

[Origami Cactus]

45 minutes ago, Hip said:

If you really not use it for any gaming the i5 is good enough. 

Even if you play fortnite or so the i7 8550u is a must. I wouldn't but any notebook without atleast  i7 8550u for gaming.

They are pretty much the same cpu, 4cores 8 threads, base clock is also very similar, but the i7 has a bit higher boost.

So the i7 isn't a must, the i5 is pretty much the same.

[VinsinityKT]

i7 if you have money to waste. 

[JoostinOnline]

7 hours ago, Hip said:

If you really not use it for any gaming the i5 is good enough. 

Even if you play fortnite or so the i7 8550u is a must. I wouldn't but any notebook without atleast  i7 8550u for gaming.

Well then you're not very good at spending money.

7 hours ago, Roschlynn Dsouza said:

I was looking at some Dell laptops for my college. There are two variants actually. One is the core i5 and core i7 both 8th generation laptops. They both have 8gb ram, mx150 graphics with 4GB VRAM, 128gb ssd and a 1tb hdd. I am actually confused between the two variants. Can someone actually help me out here? I will be using programming stuff strictly such as Java, C, C++, HTML5, Phython, Visual Basic, Internet based security programming. Any gaming if in case i want to do can be handled by my desktop which is a AMD ryzen 5 1500X based. Can someone help me out as to which one i should go for?? The core i5 or the core i7? And can you please explain me the difference between the two chips?

As most people have said, they're quite similar. The extra clock speed might help with long compile times if you do any big projects, but the real question is the price. It's worth maybe an extra $50 USD tops.