Enlarge / Back in February, Intel said only “greater than 15 percent” boost from 7th generation (Kaby Lake) to 8th generation (Coffee Lake) on its incrementally improved 14nm process. Now the company is saying “30 percent” improvement. (credit: Intel)
While Intel’s big news today is the announcement of its 18 core, 36 thread, high-end desktop X-series processors, the company has revealed one detail for the 8th generation mainstream processors that are due to be released later this year: the new chips will, at least in some particular circumstances, be 30 percent faster than 7th generation Kaby Lake parts.
That’s a huge generational improvement, but of course, there are footnotes to consider. The 30 percent boost came in one benchmark—SYSmark 2014 version 1.5—and applies to 15W U-series mobile processors. The comparison pits an i7-7500U (2.7GHz base, 3.5GHz turbo) with two cores and four threads against an unnamed next generation chip. The new chip has an unspecified base clockspeed, a 4GHz turbo, and doubles the number of cores and threads to four and eight. The 8th generation chip is built on a refined iteration of Intel’s 14nm process.
Any further details on the new architecture, codenamed Coffee Lake, are not forthcoming. The chips are still scheduled for release some time in the second half of the year.
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