The Intel Core i7-8550U is part of the new 8th Generation Kaby Lake Refresh and it’s a direct successor to the Intel Core i7-7500U from the Kaby Lake generation and the Intel Core i7-6500U from the 6th Skylake generation. With the latest alteration to the ULV (ultra-low voltage) processors, Intel doubles the core count from 2 to 4 and retaining the so-called Hyper-Threading technology, keeping the same 14nm manufacturing process and feature the same 15W TDP.
However, due to the core count change, the base frequency of the Core i7-8550U is lowered to only 1.8 GHz while Turbo Boost frequencies remain pretty high – somewhere between 3.7 – 4.0 GHz. This ensures considerably higher multi-core and single-core performance during short workloads before going back to more bearable frequencies considering the 15W TDP but most of the other specs and features remain the same.
The chip also incorporates a newer Intel Gen 9.5 integrated graphics called Intel UHD Graphics 620. The support for Google’s VP9 codec and H.265/HEVC Main 10 is still the most notable feature of the iGPU. Intel claims that the new UHD 620 chips improve the overall power consumption compared to the previous one.
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Laptops with Intel Core i7-8550U
See all Intel Core i7-8550U configurations
Intel Core i7-8550U - benchmark tests
Intel Core i7-8550U vs competitors:
| # | CPU | Cinebench 20 (M) | Performance Difference |
In laptops starting at... | Price Difference |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 92. | Intel Core i7-8650U | 1289 |  7% |
$700.00 |  312% |
| 93. | Intel Core i3-1115G4 | 1312 | 7% |
$169.99 |  34% |
| 94. | Intel Core i7-8550U | 1130 |  4% |
$259.00 | 45% |
| 95. | Intel Core i5-8250U | 1085 |  8% |
$467.40 |  4% |
| 96. | AMD Ryzen 3 PRO 2300U | 1008 | 0% | $489.00 | 27% |
| 97. | AMD Ryzen 3 2300U | 1008 | - | $669.00 | - |
We’ve tested Intel Core i7-8550U on…
| # | Laptop series | Cinebench R23 | Cinebench R20 | Adobe Photoshop | Price |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. | Dell Inspiron 5379 | - | - | 11.63 | $999.00 |
| 2. | Lenovo V330 (15") | - | - | 9.58 | N/A |
| 3. | HP ZBook 15u G5 | - | - | 9.80 | N/A |
| 4. | HP ProBook 450 G5 | - | - | 10.59 | N/A |
| 5. | Acer Aspire 5 (A515-51) | - | - | 10.95 | N/A |