Intel 8th-Gen Core i7 VS. 7th Gen Core i7 CPUS

INTEL’S 8TH-GEN CORE i7 COFFEE LAKE H IS A MONSTROUSLY GOOD CPU THAT’S FINALLY WORTH AN UPGRADE.

- Gordon Mah Ung

Oh, Internet. We know you’ve been throwing shade at Intel’s 8th-gen 6-core Core CPUs since they were announced (go.pcworld.com/dbi9). In fact, we bet you’re snidely commenting in YouTube or Reddit right now that the CPU is just another re-badge of the “same old thing.”

Well guess what? While it is essentially a derivative of the previous CPU, there’s a whole lot more to the 8th-gen Core i7 than you think. It’s enough of a difference, in fact, that it’s probably one of the rare times we can say it may be worth upgrading over the previous CPU generation. So yeah, that means it’s a big deal. We’ll explain why—and show you benchmarks to prove it—right here.

WHAT EXACTLY IS 8TH-GEN CORE?

First, we had 8th-gen Core i7 “Coffee Lake S” (go.pcworld.com/ clks) for desktops.

Then we had 8th gen Core i7 “Kaby Lake R” (go.pcworld.com/ klkr) for ultraportable laptops. Why it’s called Kaby Lake R instead of Coffee Lake U we don’t know.

Now, we finally get 8th-gen Core i7 “Coffee Lake H” chips for larger laptops and gaming laptops. And yes, you’d be kinda right if you said that 8th-gen Coffee Lake is largely an improved 6th-gen Skylake CPU, first introduced to laptops in late 2015.

Along the way though, Intel has made many improvements. The 7th-gen Kaby Lake’s video processing engine, for example, was greatly improved, and it generally ran at higher clock speeds than 6th-gen Skylake could. With Coffee Lake, Intel takes the mature 14nm process and tenderizes the hell out of it, enough to deserve the 8th-gen “14++” moniker.

HOW WE TESTED