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posted by takyon on Monday August 21 2017, @03:20PM   Printer-friendly
from the kaby-fake dept.

The first "8th generation" Intel Core processors roll out today: a quartet of 15W U-series mobile processors. Prior generation U-series parts have had two cores, four threads; these new chips double that to four cores and eight threads. They also bump up the maximum clock speed to as much as 4.2GHz, though the base clock speed is sharply down at 1.9GHz for the top end part (compared to the 7th generation's 2.8GHz). But beyond those changes, there's little to say about the new chips, because in a lot of ways, the new chips aren't really new.

Although Intel is calling these parts "8th generation," their architecture, both for their CPU and their integrated GPU, is the same as "7th generation" Kaby Lake. In fact, Intel calls the architecture of these chips "Kaby Lake refresh." Kaby Lake was itself a minor update on Skylake, adding an improved GPU (with, for example, hardware-accelerated support for 4K H.265 video) and a clock speed bump. The new chips continue to be built on Intel's "14nm+" manufacturing process, albeit a somewhat refined one.

Source: Ars Technica

takyon: Also at AnandTech. Where's 14nm++ Coffee Lake?

In the past we are used to a new numbered generation to come with a new core microarchitecture design. But this time Intel is improving a core design, calling it a refresh, and only releasing a few processors for the mobile family. We expect that Intel's 8th Generation will eventually contain three core designs of product on three different process design nodes: the launch today is Kaby Lake Refresh on 14+, and in the future we will see Coffee Lake on 14++ become part of the 8th Gen, as well as Cannon Lake on 10nm.

[...] So when is Coffee Lake on 14++ (or Cannon Lake) coming? Intel only stated that other members of the 8th Generation family (which contains Kaby Lake Refresh, Coffee Lake and Cannon Lake) are coming later this year. Desktop will come in the autumn, and additional products for enterprise, workstation and enthusiast notebooks will also happen. As for today's 8th Generation U-series announcement, Intel tells us that we should start seeing laptops using the new CPUs hit the market in September.


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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 21 2017, @05:15PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 21 2017, @05:15PM (#557112)

    No reason not to just buy Intel this generation either. me_cleaner can excise some of the worst features on the Intel side, but the GPUs are FUBAR'd on both sides now.

    Since the hardware is going to spy on you either way, and unless you're running unlocked (non-TrustZone or unsigned TrustZone capability) ARM chips there aren't any alternatives in the notebook or desktop realms at consumer reasonable prices other than Intel/AMD.