Intel just revealed its 8th Generation laptop CPUs, and sitting at the top of the heap is a behemoth. Behold the Core i9-8950HK, a chip the company is calling “the highest-performance laptop processor Intel has ever built.” Equipped with 6 cores/12 threads, this unlocked chip boasts single-core Turbo Boost speeds of up to 4.8 GHz and promises “the ultimate content creation experience.”
Of course, that’s just marketing speak, which is why Intel came to this press release armed with some benchmarks. According to the company, the 8th Generation Core i9-8950HK can edit 4K video up to 59 percent faster than a machine sporting the 7th Generation Core i7 with same discrete graphics (in Adobe Premiere Pro).
It’s also 29 percent faster in general performance, and 41 percent faster for gaming.
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Of course, you don’t have to go all the way up to the Core i9 to get great photo and video editing performance out of your laptop. All of the 8th Gen Intel Core mobile processors revealed today pack some punch, with 6 cores and 12 threads available in both the 2.6GHz Core i7-8750H and 2.2GHz Core i7-8850H. According to Dell, these deliver 68 percent faster photo editing compared to a 3-year-old system.
This 8th Gen Core i9 CPU has already made an appearance in the Dell and MSI laptops revealed this week, and more high-performance and gaming laptops will surely follow suit. To learn more about the new 8th generation mobile chips, check out the full press release below or check out this product overview presentation.
Press Release
Intel Core i9 Processor Comes to Mobile: The Best Gaming and Creation Laptop Processor Intel Has Ever Built
Today at a global event in Beijing, Intel unveiled the first ever Intel® Core™ i9 processor for laptops. Part of the new lineup of high-performance mobile products unveiled, the powerful 8th Gen Intel Core i9 processor is the highest-performance laptop processor Intel has ever built to deliver the best gaming and content creation experience on the go.
Building on the arrival of the new Intel Core i9 processor for mobile, Intel also announced a new Intel Core platform extension that brings together the benefits of 8th Gen Intel Core processors with Intel® Optane™ memory, rounded out its family of high-performance desktop CPUs and chipsets that deliver modern standby and ambient computing capabilities, and shared new details on the 8th Gen Intel® Core™ vPro™ platform.
Delivering the ultimate gaming and content creation experience
The new 8th Gen Intel Core i9, i7 and i5 processors for laptops are based on the Coffee Lake platform and leverage the 14nm++ process technology enabling them to deliver up to 41 percent more frames per second in gameplay1 or edit 4K video up to 59 percent faster than the previous generation with same discrete graphics.2
At the top of the stack, the 8th Gen Intel Core i9-8950HK processor is optimized to push the limits of performance. It is the first mobile Intel processor with six cores and 12 threads. It comes fully unlocked and features the new Intel Thermal Velocity Boost (TVB), which opportunistically and automatically increases clock frequency up to 200 MHz if the processor temperature is low enough and turbo power budget is available. This translates to a turbo frequency of up to 4.8 GHz.
As the PC gaming industry rapidly grows, Intel has seen increasing demand for incredibly fast laptops that can provide desktop-like performance for an immersive and responsive experience, including the ability to stream and record without compromising gameplay while still enabling portability.
But, performance goes beyond gaming. Thanks to the rapid pace of technology innovation, the industry has broadened the access to all types of content and how people create it. It has radically redefined what creativity means, and as content has become richer and more immersive, the level of performance needed to both consume and create that content has also increased. This 8th Gen Intel Core processor family provides a powerful mobile platform for creators. In addition, the new highest-performance 8th Gen Intel Core mobile processors’ single- and multi-threaded performance allows users to enjoy the smoothest and highest-quality mobile VR and new Windows* Mixed Reality Ultra experiences.
The highest-performance 8th Gen Intel Core mobile processor family also adds a new Intel® 300 Series Chipset, which adds integrated Gigabit Wi-Fi for a blazing-fast connection that is capable of being up to 2 times faster than standard 2×2 802.11AC 80 MHz (867 Mbps).3
Intel Optane memory: now on 8th Gen Intel Core mobile and desktop platforms
Intel Optane memory is a smart and adaptable system accelerator for desktop and mobile platforms, increasing the performance and responsiveness of SATA-based storage technology without compromising storage capacity.
Now, Intel Optane memory is available across both 8th Gen Intel Core mobile and desktop platforms. Additionally, Intel has released a new Data Drive Acceleration feature that delivers a boost to a large secondary HDD data drive. This powerful combination provides up to 4.7 times the game loading4 and 1.7 times faster media loading.5 See more on Data Drive Acceleration.
Consumers will also begin to see a new platform extension with Intel Core i5+, i7+ and i9+ badges on select systems, starting with today’s high-performance 8th Gen Intel Core mobile processors and desktop processors. This indicates they are purchasing a device that has the combination of Intel Core performance with the acceleration of Intel Optane memory.
1As measured by Total War: WARHAMMER II Workload comparing 8th Gen Intel® Core™ i9-8950HK vs. 8th Gen Intel® Core™ i7-7820HK
2As measured by Adobe Premiere Pro Video Editing Workload comparing 8th Gen Intel® Core™ i9-8950HK vs. 8thGen Intel® Core™ i7-7820HK
3802.11ac 2×2 160 MHz enables 1733 Mbps maximum theoretical data rates, 2x faster than standard 802.11ac 2×2 80 MHz (867 Mbps) and nearly 12x faster than baseline 1×1 BGN (150 Mbps) Wi-Fi as documented in IEEE 802.11 wireless standard specifications, and requires the use of similarly configured 802.11ac wireless network routers or better. To achieve Gigabit wireless speeds, the network requires a wireless router/access point that supports 160 MHz channels.
4As measured by Game Level Load Workload comparing 8th Gen Intel® Core™ i7+ 8750H (32GB Intel® Optane™ memory module) + 256GB PCIe SSD + 1TB HDD vs. 8th Gen Intel® Core™ i7-8750H + 256GB PCIe SSD + 1TB HDD
Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)