Published in News

Intel releases entry-level processor

by on13 February 2018


Desperate to steal Ryzen/Vega APU thunder

In what can only be an incredibly half-hearted bid to distract from AMD's Ryzen/Vega APU launches yesterday, Chipzilla released a new entry-level chip.

The new Intel Core i3-8130U is targeted at thin and light laptops and 2-in-1s and promises "a performance jump over the previous generation" to sit comfortably among its 8th Gen Intel Core i7 and i5 siblings.

However, those other chips have four physical cores. The Core i3-8130U sticks with the 2C/4T configuration of its 2.7GHz predecessor. Intel uses the same micro architecture compared to Skylake, so the per-MHz performance does not differ. The manufacturer reworked the Speed Shift technology for faster dynamic adjustments of voltages and clocks, and the improved 14nm process allows higher frequencies combined with better efficiency.

Intel has configured this processor with two cores, and four threads with a base frequency of 2.2GHz. It can boost to 3.4GHz when it is going downhill, and the wind is behind it. It features the Intel UHD Graphics 620. Kaby lake supports H.265/HEVC Main 10 with a 10-bit color depth as well as Google's VP9 codec. The dual-core Kaby Lake processors should also support HDCP 2.2.

The Core i3-8130U runs at 15W and supports up to 32GB of 2400MHz DDR4 RAM and is equipped with 4MB of L3 cache.

The Core i3-8130U is designed to fill a gap in the 8th gen processors for thin and light devices range.

Last modified on 13 February 2018
Rate this item
(0 votes)