With 8th gen Core chips, Intel promises 40% more performance over its predecessors

For its eight generation of its Core chips, Intel is sticking to the Kaby Lake architecture but as far as its performance goes, the internal testing looks quite promising. The company says the chips are capable of a 40-percent increase over their predecessors - and even more notable for those finally ready to upgrade an old system: about double the performance of a five year old device.

The performance boost comes as laptop makers are expected to increasingly push the envelope with their systems. Now that the mobile has been completely out of Intel’s radar thanks to companies like Qualcomm, Intel is clearly looking to maintain its foothold in the laptop market. And while the company invests much of its R&D into forward looking technologies like drones, self-driving cars and automation, it needs to assert itself on its home turf.

4K is already pretty prevalent on machines, and with companies like Apple and Microsoft pushing VR and MR/AR, respectively, things have amped up significantly in recent years. That’s a lot to ask while still expecting a system to be slim enough to port around in a backpack. The new i5 and i7 chips are designed to accommodate those needs, while maintaining laptop battery life expectations, at around 10 hours of 4K video playback according to the aforementioned in-house video testing.

A big part of that is certainly future-proofing systems for whatever the media world might throw their way, and as such, the Facebook event will involve demoing the chips on a virtual reality experience that offers peek at today’s extremely rare total solar eclipse. Because wearing a pair of silly goggles is a lot safer than staring directly at the sun.

Tags: intel 8th gen Core chips, Intel, intel i7 8th generation, kaby lake architecture, apple, microsoft, intel i5, intel i3, intel i7