Tuesday, February 13th 2018
Intel Intros Core i3-8130U Dual-core Low-power Processor
Intel today introduced the Core i3-8130U dual-core (2-core/4-thread) ultra low-power processor for thin and light notebooks, and 2-in-1 convertibles. Based on the 14 nm "Kaby Lake-U" silicon, the chip features a TDP of just 15W, making it ideal for all-day power devices. It is clocked at 2.40 GHz, with 3.40 GHz Turbo Boost frequency, and packs 4 MB of L3 cache. In its TDP-down mode, the CPU idles at 800 MHz, lowering the TDP to 10W. Its dual-channel DDR4 memory controller supports up to 32 GB of DDR4-2400 or LPDDR3-2133 memory. On the display side of things are the UHD Graphics 620 iGPU with clock speed ranging between 300 MHz and 1.00 GHz, 24 execution units, and hardware-acceleration for H.265/HEVC with 10bpc color.
27 Comments on Intel Intros Core i3-8130U Dual-core Low-power Processor
The fact is, for low power(15w power envelope) Windows laptop applications like where these processors will be used, 2c/4t is actually better than 4c/4t. Because at that point, you have to limit the 4c/4t processor to such a low clock speed, that it's single threaded performance really suffers. However, a 2c/4t can be clocked higher. And most tasks that will run on these machines perform much better with a higher single threaded performance. So they run much better with a high clocked dual-core than with a low clocked quad-core.
And, I know, you can say the i5-8250U is 4c/4t, has the same clock speeds, and is 15w too. And you'd be right. However, I've used that processor and in practical use, is only briefly ever hits the maximum turbo frequency of 3.4GHz. In reality, to stay under the 15w power limit, it runs at sub-3GHz after 5ish seconds of load on a single core. I'm willing to bet that the i3-8130u will stay at 3.4GHz in situations where the i5-8250U wouldn't.