Tonight at the consumer electronics trade show IFA in Berlin, Intel announced their latest processors aimed at thin-and-light notebooks and 2-in-1 devices. Continuing the ever elongated 8th generation processor family from Intel, these new mobile CPUs are comprised of both 5W (Amber Lake-Y) and 15W (Whiskey Lake-U) parts.

Whiskey Lake-U

  Core i7-8565U Core i7-8550U Core i5-8265U Core i5-8250U Core i3-8145U
Architecture Whiskey Lake Kaby Lake Refresh Whiskey Lake Kaby Lake Refresh Whiskey Lake
Process Tech 14nm+ 14nm+ 14nm+ 14nm+ 14nm+
Cores/Threads 4/8 4/8 4/8 4/8 2/4
Base Clock 1.8 GHz 1.8 GHz 1.6 GHz 1.6 GHz 2.1 GHz
Max Turbo Clock 4.6 GHz 4.0 GHz 3.9 GHz 3.6 GHz 3.9 GHz
Memory Support DDR4/LPDDR3 DDR4/LPDDR3 DDR4/LPDDR3 DDR4/LPDDR3 DDR4/LPDDR3
Memory Speeds 2400/2133 2400/2133 2400/2133 2400/2133 2400/2133
Cache 8MB 8MB 6MB 6MB 4MB
TDP 15W 15W 15W 15W 15W

Just as we saw with the Kaby Lake Refresh CPUs last year, these 15W parts maintain the same quad-core, eight-thread configurations. 

On the highest end part, the i7-8565U, we see an increase of 600MHz on the max turbo clock, while the base clock remains the same. The i5-8265U sees a smaller uptick of 300MHz boost while also keeping the same base clock of 1.6GHz as the previous generation.

Amber Lake-Y

  Core i7-8500Y Core i7-7Y75 Core i5-8200Y Core i5-7Y75 Core m3-8100Y Core m3-7Y32
Architecture Amber Lake Kaby Lake  Amber Lake Kaby Lake Amber Lake Kaby Lake
Process Tech 14nm+ 14nm+ 14nm+ 14nm+ 14nm+ 14nm+
Cores/Threads 2/4 2/4 2/4 2/4 2/4 2/4
Base Clock 1.5 GHz 1.3 GHz 1.4 GHz 1.2 GHz 2.1 GHz 1.1 GHz
Max Turbo Clock 4.2 GHz 3.6 GHz 3.9 GHz 3.3 GHz 3.9 GHz 3.0GHz
Memory Support LPDDR3 LPDDR3 LPDDR3 LPDDR3 LPDDR3 LPDDR3
Memory Speeds 1866 1866 1866 1866 1866 1866
Cache 4MB 4MB 4MB 4MB 4MB 4MB
TDP 5W 4.5W 5W 4.5W 5W 4.5W

As we can see, the Amber Lake CPUs provide a significant frequency advantage over the previous Kaby Lake-Y processors, especially with the turbo frequencies ranging from 600-900MHz improvements.

These higher frequencies give these low power processors a substantial performance uptick from the previous generation, as long as the thermal solutions in the end product notebooks are up to the task of actually achieving these high turbo boost frequencies.

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Across the board, Intel is marketing these CPU platforms as having increased connectivity options, with built-in 802.11AC 160MHz dual-band Wi-Fi support (which Intel is referring to as Gigabit WiFi). Additionally, both the Amber Lake and Whiskey Lake families have options to be paired with Intel LTE modems for cellular connectivity.

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Also on the connectivity side, we see support for native USB 3.1 Gen 2 (10 Gbps) ports through the chipset on Whiskey Lake-U.

Intel is also touting battery life improvements with "16 hours on a single charge with power-optimized systems targeted to achieve about 19 hours" on the Whiskey Lake-U platform. However, as always, take these specifications with a grain of salt until we see real products with these processors integrated into them and benchmarked.