Is the new I5-8250U worth the extra cash?

[Freezanator]

I'm in the market for a cheap entry level gaming laptop and I've stumbled across Acer's new Aspire 5 laptop. The thing is, this laptop originally came with an Nvidia MX150 GPU and an i5-7200U. Now, they have released the exact same laptop with only 1 change - the i5-8250U. So, the one with the 8250U costs 157 MYR (38 USD) more than the one with the 7200U. In USD, it doesn't seem a lot but in my currency it's quite a sum of money. So, I'm not willing to fork out the extra cash if the benefits aren't very great. Is the new I5-8250U with 2 extra cores and 2 MB of extra cache worth the price increase? Thanks! 

[VinsinityKT]

38 Dollars isn't much to me but I don't know how you feel in your money sense. From my stand point, I would go for it. It's double the cores and threads. 

[Sakkura]

Twice as many cores and higher turbo clocks, that's a BIG upgrade. Now, it probably won't affect gaming performance much since you're held back by a slow graphics card anyway, but for non-gaming workloads or streaming, it's going to help a lot. So if you do any of that, it's well worth it.

[RadiatingLight]

definitely worth it.

almost double the power, for barely any monetary increase.

[ErrystioT]

I'd say go for it, $38 is worth the increase considering you're going from 2 cores and 4 threads to 4 cores and 8 threads, while having the same rated TDP. Also worth noting that the cache in i5-7200U is 4MB while in i5-8250U has 6MB, which should help boost CPU-related tasks.

[Riesling]

I'm in M'sia too,and I'd definitely recommend getting the refresh with Kaby Lake R processors; it's quite a significant upgrade for not a lot of money. Would you consider looking at the Asus Vivobook S410UN? It just released at IFA, but it has similar specs, and a much smaller footprint. Dunno about the price, but it should be within the same range as the Aspire 5. I think it's probably worth a look if weight and size mean anything to you.

[OmJo93]

6 hours ago, Riesling said:

I'm in M'sia too,and I'd definitely recommend getting the refresh with Kaby Lake R processors; it's quite a significant upgrade for not a lot of money. Would you consider looking at the Asus Vivobook S410UN? It just released at IFA, but it has similar specs, and a much smaller footprint. Dunno about the price, but it should be within the same range as the Aspire 5. I think it's probably worth a look if weight and size mean anything to you.

Good luck finding it.

 

I was waiting a few months for them to release the Zenbook UX430UN, announced in March, and eventually just gave up and ordered an XPS 15 a few days ago. I wish they had better communication about their products.

 

As for the OP's question, I'd definitely go for the i5-8250u over the i5-7200u for all the reasons mentioned in the posts above. 

[Riesling]

On 14/10/2017 at 10:25 PM, OmJo93 said:

Good luck finding it.

 

I was waiting a few months for them to release the Zenbook UX430UN, announced in March, and eventually just gave up and ordered an XPS 15 a few days ago. I wish they had better communication about their products.

 

As for the OP's question, I'd definitely go for the i5-8250u over the i5-7200u for all the reasons mentioned in the posts above. 

Wow. Guess I'd better not wait for that then. My current laptop is driving me mad, I've literally just repasted it, but it still tries to imitate a jet engine every time I try to do anything more than edit a document.