Intel 9th-gen vs 8th-gen Core mobile CPU: Which you should buy
Update: We originally wrote this analysis before we had actual hardware in hand. Since then, we’ve put several 9th gen laptops to the test. If you want to see hard evidence of what we forecast here, read our story “Should you buy a laptop with Intel’s 8th-gen or 9th-gen CPU? We run the benchmarks.”
Now that Intel’s latest 9th-gen Core mobile chips are on their way, it’s time to figure out whether it’ll be worth it to pay top dollar for the new chip; buy or keep a laptop with an 8th-gen CPU (plenty of current models remain available), or upgrade from your 6th-gen or 7th-gen model.
The issues differ from generation to generation. In many cases, we’ve said you can wait a few years before upgrading. The 8th-generation jump was an exception: It represented one of the biggest laptop CPU improvements in a long time, worthy of upgrading even from a 7th-gen chip.
Mentioned in this article
Alienware 17 R5
With the 9th gen, however, we’re mostly back to the incremental clock speed upgrades we’ve seen from Intel for years. That’s not to say it’s all underwhelming—because you can get that fancy new 802.11ax/Wi-Fi 6, too. But for those interested in speed boosts, the sparse improvements in core counts mean you can largely ignore this series except for the Core i9 lineup.
The handy chart below breaks down the differences between 9th-gen, 8th-gen, and 7th-gen chips,. As you can see, core/thread counts haven’t moved as much as clock speeds.
IDG
Here are the dirty details of Intel’s last three generation of “H-class” CPUs used in most 15-inch and larger laptops.
9th-gen Core i7 vs. 8th-gen Core i7: Mild uptick
After diving into the specs of Intel’s 9th-gen Core i5 and Core i7, the short answer is: small clock bumps at best.
For example: the 9th-gen Core i7-9850H shares the same base clock (the clock speed the CPU drops to in a worst-case scenario) of 2.6GHz with its ancestor, the Core i7-8850H. But the 9th gen sees a 7-percent increase in Turbo Boost clocks (the best-case scenario for the CPU.
)
It’s a bit better for the Core i7-9750H, which gets a 400MHz increase in both base clock and Turbo Boost over the Core i7-8750H it replaces. That works out to about a 15-percent bump in base clock and 9 percent in Turbo Boost. While the actual laptop cooling design greatly influences the performance you see, we’ve already seen one 9th-gen Core i7 and it agrees with the numbers above.
9th-gen Core i5 vs 8th-gen Core i5: Not much
While Core i7 buyers get a mild uptick, those who buy moderately priced laptops in the Core i5 section get even less.
The 9th-gen Core i5-9400H pushes almost exactly the same clocks as the 8th-gen Core i5-9400H. The far more popular 8th-gen Core i5-8300H can look up enviously at the whole 100MHz in base and Turbo Boost clocks in the new 9th-gen Core i5-9300H. That works out to a 4-percent and 2-percent clock bump, respectively. And yes, when we looked up the definition of “meh,” it literally said: “Intel’s 9th-gen Core i5 laptop chips.
”
IDG
It’s pretty hard to live up to the huge performance boost the 8th-gen chips gave us over the 7th-gen chips, but at least the 9th-gen Core i9 gives it a good try.
9th-gen Core i9 vs. 8th-gen Core i9: The chip you’ve been waiting for
The good news for those who can afford it is the new 9th-gen Core i9. It should (mostly) offer a serious performance shot in the arm with its 8 cores vs. the 6 cores of the 8th-gen Core i9 chip.
The 9th-gen Core i9 also gets separation from the now-pedestrian Core i7 by being the only CPUs to feature 8 cores. The 8th-gen Core i9 disappointed many because it featured the same 6 cores as the 8th-gen Core i7 parts.
That meant the only difference between a Core i9-8950HK and a Core i9-8850H was clock speed. Even worse for the 8th-gen Core i9, it could only hit those high clock speeds in laptops with decent cooling, like the spacious Alienware 17 R5. When you stuffed the Core i9-8950HK into, say, a 4-pound MacBook Pro 15, disappointment happened.
Here’s how fast the 9th-gen Core i9 will probably be
What we should see from the 9th-gen Core i9 CPUs is a very decent performance upgrade for multi-threaded applications. Even single-threaded and lightly threaded loads should see a bump.
If you’re worried about those scary base-clock speed decreases in the chart above when comparing an 8-core 9th-gen Core i9-9980HK versus a 6-core 8th-gen Core i9-8950HK, we don’t think it’s going to be a big deal. Based on our experience with Intel’s 8th-gen chips, they rarely hit their base clock speeds. If the laptop maker does its job and the chip is properly cooled and powered, it’ll stay far north of base.
In situations where the CPU is indeed pushed heavily using 8 cores and 16 threads, it is likely to run at lower clock speeds than a similar 6-core 8th-gen chip. But because it’s using more cores, it’ll probably still finish the chore in less time.
With its higher Turbo Boost clock, the new 9th-gen Core i9 chips will likely also run at higher speeds than the 8th-gen Core i9 under single-threaded and lightly threaded tasks.
At least, that’s our forecast, assuming the laptop maker cools and powers the laptop properly. We can tell you that not all will. An 8-core Core i9 in a 7-pound gaming laptop is going to behave far differently than an 8-core Core i9 in a 3.9-pound laptop.
Gordon Mah Ung
We predict the performance of Intel’s new 9th-gen Core i9-9980HK will be far north of a Core i9-8950HK’s, but lower than that of the the 9th-gen desktop Core i-9900K in the Alienware Area-51m,.
Intel Core i5 8400 vs i5 12600K: performance comparison
VS
Intel Core i5 8400
Intel Core i5 12600K
We compared two desktop CPUs: the 2.8 GHz Intel Core i5 8400 with 6-cores against the 3.7 GHz i5 12600K with 10-cores. On this page, you’ll find out which processor has better performance in benchmarks, games and other useful information.
- Review
- Differences
- Performance
- Specs
- Comments
Review
General overview and comparison of the processors
Single-Core Performance
Performance in single-threaded apps and benchmarks
Core i5 8400
47
Core i5 12600K
86
Multi-Core Performance
Measure performance when all cores are involved
Core i5 8400
20
Core i5 12600K
55
Power Efficiency
The efficiency score of electricity consumption
Core i5 8400
45
Core i5 12600K
68
NanoReview Final Score
Generic CPU rating
Core i5 8400
36
Core i5 12600K
69
Key Differences
What are the key differences between 12600K and 8400
Advantages of Intel Core i5 12600K
- Newer — released 4-years and 1-month later
- Has 11264 KB larger L3 cache size
- Unlocked multiplier
- 85% faster in a single-core Geekbench v5 test — 1915 vs 1034 points
- Around 35.
2 GB/s (85%) higher theoretical memory bandwidth - Has 4 more physical cores
- Newer PCI Express version – 5.0
- More modern manufacturing process – 10 versus 14 nanometers
- 23% higher Turbo Boost frequency (4.9 GHz vs 4 GHz)
Benchmarks
Comparing the performance of CPUs in benchmarks
Cinebench R23 (Single-Core)
Core i5 8400
1020
Core i5 12600K
+84%
1877
Cinebench R23 (Multi-Core)
Core i5 8400
5808
Core i5 12600K
+197%
17229
Passmark CPU (Single-Core)
Core i5 8400
2392
Core i5 12600K
+66%
3974
Passmark CPU (Multi-Core)
Core i5 8400
9216
Core i5 12600K
+200%
27689
Geekbench 5 (Single-Core)
Core i5 8400
1026
Core i5 12600K
+86%
1906
Geekbench 5 (Multi-Core)
Core i5 8400
4582
Core i5 12600K
+152%
11565
Submit your Cinebench R23 result
Specifications
Full technical specification of Intel Core i5 8400 and i5 12600K
General
| Vendor | Intel | Intel |
| Released | October 5, 2017 | October 27, 2021 |
| Type | Desktop | Desktop |
| instruction set | x86-64 | x86-64 |
| Codename | Coffee Lake | Alder Lake |
| Model number | i5-8400 | i5-12600K |
| Integrated GPU | UHD Graphics 630 | UHD Graphics 770 |
| P-Cores | 6 | 6 |
| P-Threads | 6 | 12 |
| Base Frequency (P) | 2. 8 GHz |
3.7 GHz |
| Turbo Boost Frequency (P) | 4 GHz | 4.9 GHz |
| E-Cores | — | 4 |
| E-Threads | — | 4 |
| Base Frequency (E) | — | 2.8 GHz |
| Turbo Boost Frequency (E) | — | 3.6 GHz |
| Total Cores | 6 | 10 |
| Total Threads | 6 | 16 |
| Bus Frequency | 100 MHz | 100 MHz |
| Multiplier | 28x | 37x |
| Bus Bandwidth | 8 GT/s | — |
| L1 Cache | 64K (per core) | 80K (per core) |
| L2 Cache | 256K (per core) | 9728K (shared) |
| L3 Cache | 9MB (shared) | 20MB (shared) |
| Unlocked Multiplier | No | Yes |
Package
| Fabrication process | 14 nm | 10 nm |
| TDP (PL1) | 65 W | 125 W |
Max. Boost TDP (PL2) |
— | 150 W |
| Socket | LGA-1151 | LGA-1700 |
| Peak temperature | 100°C | 100°C |
| Integrated Graphics | Intel UHD Graphics 630 | Intel UHD Graphics 770 |
| GPU Base Clock | 350 MHz | 300 MHz |
| GPU Boost Clock | 1050 MHz | 1450 MHz |
| Shading Units | 192 | 256 |
| TMUs | 24 | 16 |
| ROPs | 3 | 8 |
| Execution Units | 24 | 32 |
| TGP | 15 W | 15 W |
| Max. Resolution | 4096×2304 — 60 Hz | — |
iGPU FLOPS
Core i5 8400
0.
38 TFLOPS
Core i5 12600K
0.78 TFLOPS
Memory Support
| Memory types | — DDR4-2666 | — DDR5-4800 — DDR4-3200 |
| Memory Size | 128 GB | 128 GB |
| Max. Memory Channels | 2 | 2 |
| Max. Memory Bandwidth | 41.6 GB/s | 76.8 GB/s |
| ECC Support | No | Yes |
| Official site | Intel Core i5 8400 official page | Intel Core i5 12600K official page |
| PCI Express Version | 3.0 | 5.0 |
| PCI Express Lanes | 16 | 20 |
| Extended instructions | SSE4.1, SSE4.2, AVX-2 | — |
Cast your vote
Choose between two processors
Core i5 8400
7 (26.
9%)
Core i5 12600K
19 (73.1%)
Total votes: 26
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Compare other CPUs (540+)
So which CPU will you choose: Intel Core i5 12600K or i5 8400?
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8th Gen Intel Core i5-8500 LGA 1151 (6 cores, 9MB cache, 14 nm, up to 4.
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