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日本Intel Core i7-8565U vs Intel Core i5-8265U – benchmarks and performance comparison
From day one, the most puzzling question when buying a laptop was, should I get the Core i5 or the Core i7 version. It was only recently when Intel has drawn a major line between the two with their Coffee Lake-H CPUs – there former is a quad-core, while the latter is a hexa-core. However, in the ULV territories, the difference is decreasing with every single generation… or is it?
Visit our Top Laptop CPU Ranking to check these two and many more CPUs.
Specs overview
Let’s take a quick run through their specifications. Both of them are using 15W of power from the grid and both of them support 32GB of DDR4 and LPDDR3 memory. Additionally, they are both build upon a 14nm manufacturing process (as their predecessors) and share the same socket – FCBGA1528. Not only that but they are utilizing the same iGPU – the Intel UHD Graphics 620.
However, what is distinctive for each of them is their clock speeds. Intel Core i7-8565U has a Base frequency of 1.80 GHz and is able to reach 4.60 GHz in Turbo, while the Core i5-8265U has to settle with a Base clock speed of 1.60 GHz and a maximum Turbo boost of 3.90 GHz. Moreover, the Core i7 has more Cache than its opponent – 8MB vs 6MB.
You can check out the full specs of the Intel Core i7-8565U and the Intel Core i5-8265U.
Benchmarks
At first, both devices seemed to be very similar in performance – the Core i7-8565U beats its opponent by a good amount in Photoshop, however in longer tasks, like 3D rendering, the margin is negligible. However, as of recently, we tested the ASUS ZenBook 15 UX533, which seems to take good use of the Core i7-8565U’s full capacity by completely blowing the competition away in Cinebench (mostly thanks to overpowering its CPU and having enough cooling capacity). However, it is an isolated case in which the Core i5-8265U would perform similarly better as well.
Results are from the Cinebench 20 CPU test (the higher the score, the better)
Results are from our Photoshop benchmark test (the lower the score, the better)
Conclusion
When we ignore the aforesaid isolated case, the margin between these two CPUs is so little that you’ll only notice it when heavily using applications like Photoshop. However, in very short tasks, like day to day usage and respectively in very long tasks as 3D rendering, the line separating these CPUs becomes thinner than a spider web. In our opinion, it’s better to save a hundred bucks if possible, if you are not in a desperate need of a tiny performance improvement.
All laptops equipped with the Intel Core i7-8565U
All laptops equipped with the Intel Core i5-8265U
Thing is though that the i7 may be thrown in with other upgrades, such as a bigger SSD or more RAM. When I bought my Ideapad 720S, I looked at the i5 version. It came with 8 GB and a 256 GB SSD. For $100 more, I got the i7, 16 GB and 512 GB SSD. The $100 was cheaper than doing any of the upgrades myself at the time (both RAM and SSD would have needed to be replaced as there was only 1 slot for each). I didn’t buy it for the i7, but it was a nice… Read more »
Hey, Superguy, thank you for your comment. We are more than happy that you got such a deal on your Ideapad 720S. It is true that sometimes it happens that some manufacturers offer a significantly better machine at a very slight price bump. However, most of the time things don’t sit this way. Take the successor to your laptop – the Ideapad 730S. By the time of writing this reply, it is sold in Lenovo’s US store with Core i5-8265U, 8GB of RAM and 128GB SSD for $899, while the superior version, featuring Core i7-8565U, 16GB of RAM and 512GB… Read more »
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Soiq0tPJsog
i5 is practically just as good as an i7 in ULV for laptops; except for the rare heavy users.
i7 > i5 for the gaming H-series CPUs though.