Intel Core i5-8500 3.0 GHz

[W1zzard]

Intel's $200 Core i5-8500 is part of the second wave of Coffee Lake CPUs, released earlier this year. The processor comes with six cores and six threads and will boost up to 4.1 GHz. Our testing shows that even at higher thread counts, it won't ever go below 3.9 GHz, which will make life difficult for the Ryzen 5 2600 - its main competitor.

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[ps000000]

Wow 9.0 score.

 

[dj-electric]

Wow 9.0 score.

TPU's scoring system seems to go from 6 to 10 out of 10, so a 9 is more like a normal 8/10. Overall it is a great CPU though. I don't see too much wrong with it. Only thing that bothers me is how much more expensive it is from an 8400 (179$)

 

[crow1001]

2600 all day long for me, 12 threads v 6, come on now who is recommending an i5 hex over it....

 

[Fluffmeister]

From the Intel side I still think the i5 8400 is hard to beat.

 

[cucker tarlson]

Those new 6-core i5's are crazy good value for gaming, tells you how much 4c/4t was bottlenecked. They're also equal to 6c/12t Ryzen in utility tasks and have better efficiency. i5 8400 is a huge win, i5 8500 is great too.

 

[FreedomEclipse]

From the Intel side I still think the i5 8400 is hard to beat.

I was gonna say the same myself the moment the review went up... I was thinking '8400+BLCK OC = Profit' but I thought i was mad.

 

[Fluffmeister]

Yeah £150 for the 8400 has had me tempted to pull the trigger for a while, I'm just a gamer and for the money that CPU really shines. And it sips power too!

 

[TheinsanegamerN]

2600 all day long for me, 12 threads v 6, come on now who is recommending an i5 hex over it....

Anyone who wants better per core performance? Who cares if the ryzen 2600 had 24 threads if it still only has 6 cores?

For gaming or per core sensitive tasks, the I5 is a great buy.

 

[toyo]

There's a lot of weirdness going on in CPU testing these days, I'm pretty sure I've seen games that apparently do a bit better on a 7600k or 8400 than on the 8700K which should be mathematically impossible due to the higher boost frequencies. But the scores are so close that I suppose any small variance in testing or whatever the OS decides to do in the background would affect the result.

IMO it's a good sign that we gave a solid generation of CPUs from both AMD and Intel. Happy with it.

PS: never been able to get my 8700K (when at stock clocks, obviously) do an above 200 score in CinebenchR15. More like 196, and that's with real-time prio set and killing some background stuff. This is on a fully patches OS with latest BIOS. Curious how this test turns out for others.

 

[cucker tarlson]

Yeah £150 for the 8400 has had me tempted to pull the trigger for a while, I'm just a gamer and for the money that CPU really shines. And it sips power too!

I'd get that

https://pcpartpicker.com/list/PgG6RJ

 

[kastriot]

Well this is good for end users lower prices expected in near future..

 

[thebluebumblebee]

As always, another great review by w1zzard, but this is a nothingburger.
According to the tests, the $179 i5-8400, the $205 i5-8500 and the $230 i5-8600 (a 28% cost spread) cover at most a 6.6% performance spread on CPU tests, and an imperceivable 1.3% difference when gaming at 1080P. Why Intel? Why have 3 SKU's that just one can cover, which would reduce inventory costs and therefore customer prices? So I'll add, in addition to the $25 saved, save the other $25 and go for the i5-8400 and put the $50 into, well, something else.

 

[cucker tarlson]

Either go 8600k or stay with 8400.

 

[GoldenX]

Solid performance as usual, and now with the cheap boards, these are really solid options specially for gamers. Still prefer the 8400 thou, I don't see the appeal of a single multiplier bump.
Had a crazy idea, wouldn't it be great if next gen the pentiums are 4C/4T, i3 are 4C/8T, i5 are 6C/12T and i7 are 8C/16T?

 

[Casecutter]

This is nice paired with B360 ATX board that can be had for around $75, but I like the others (some here) looking at budget (non-overclock) gaming build the i5 8400 @ $180 is the CPU most gravitate toward as that and H310 mobo come in like around $240. This i5 8500 with a B360 pushes the two component expenditure another $40 and for a 1080p the seat-of-the-pants is inconsequential.

All that said, the build I prescribe and building is from Micro Center bundle; the Ryzen 1700 with the Wraith cooler, and MSI B350 Tomahawk mobo for $220 after rebate. Add the ASUS RX 580 Overclocked 8Gb for $330 -AR.

 

[cucker tarlson]

Solid performance as usual, and now with the cheap boards, these are really solid options specially for gamers. Still prefer the 8400 thou, I don't see the appeal of a single multiplier bump.
Had a crazy idea, wouldn't it be great if next gen the pentiums are 4C/4T, i3 are 4C/8T, i5 are 6C/12T and i7 are 8C/16T?

Don't know what we'll see, but I think Intel is gonna milk those 6 cores for more than we think. 2019 release for 8 core mainstream ? Sure, but not sooner than Q3. They may even drop the z390 earlier if it features support for some new features (new gen optane ?) but hold on to selling 8700K. Maybe do a devil's canyon/kaby lake like refresh with sth like 8800K that boosts to 4.50 on all cores, 200MHz higher than 8700K.

 

[hat]

As others have said, this offers next to nothing over the i5 8400...

 

[angellotomic]

From the Intel side I still think the i5 8400 is hard to beat.

OO yes

 

[Caring1]

I'll wait to see what next Gen Zen throws in to the ring.
Overall this CPU from Intel looks to be decent, but not worth an upgrade if you already have one of the Processors already mentioned prior in this thread (8400).