Coffee Lake with Iris Plus at 28W

Intel recently announced its ‘Intel Core with Radeon RX Vega’ processor line, featuring a H-series processor combined with an AMD graphics chip and a sizeable amount of high-speed HBM2 memory connected via Intel’s proprietary EMIB technology. These parts are designed to service the high-end for integrated graphics, going above and beyond any other integrated graphics solution in the past. That used to be a post held by Intel’s processors that used eDRAM, using the Iris, Iris Pro, and Iris Plus branding. Now the Iris line sits in the middle, acting as Intel’s graphics focused products in the mid-power range.

For the launch today, Intel is lifting the lid on four separate Iris Plus-based processors. These all use the Coffee Lake microarchitecture and are built on Intel’s 14++ process. All four of these processors are in Intel’s ‘GT3e’ graphics configuration, which uses Intel’s Gen 9.5 graphics with 48 execution units (EUs) and 128 MB of eDRAM. This is compared to the GT2 configurations seen on most other processors, that have 24 EUs and zero eDRAM.

AnandTech Cores Base
Freq
Turbo
Freq
L3 vPro DRAM
DDR4
iGPU
EUs
iGPU
Freq
Core i7-8559U $431 4 / 8 2.7 4.5 8 MB No 2400 48 EUs 300 / 1200
Core i5-8269U $320 4 / 8 2.6 4.2 6 MB No 2400 48 EUs 300 / 1100
Core-i5-8259U $320 4 / 8 2.3 3.8 6 MB No 2400 48 EUs 300 / 1050
Core i3-8109U $304 2 / 4 3.0 3.6 4 MB No 2400 47 EUs 300 / 1000

Intel has split these new CPUs up into a single Core i7-8559U, which is a quad-core processor with the most L3 cache, two Core i5 parts that are also quad-core but have reduced L3 cache, and a Core i3-8109U processor that is dual core, but with the same amount of L3 cache per core as the Core i7-8559U.

In Intel’s manufacturing parlance, this means that the Core i7 and Core i5 are all ‘4+3e’ units, meaning four cores and GT3 graphics with eDRAM. By contrast, the Core i3 is a ‘2+3e’ processor, with only two cores but the same GT3e graphics with eDRAM as the i7/i5. Based on the design of these processors, the Core i3 sits as the lower binned part: it is manufactured as a 4+3e design, but due to processor defects is only suitable to run two cores. As with most of the other mobile processors, the higher performance parts often get the highest frequency graphics as well. In this case, the Core i7-8559U sits at the top at 1200 MHz.

For the eDRAM, in previous generations Intel has moved from going all parts at 128 MB to having some move down to 64 MB, but now moves back up to all of them having 128 MB again. For the eDRAM implementation, Intel is still using their second generation eDRAM implementation whereby the eDRAM acts as a L4 buffer for supplying the L3 from DRAM through the System Agent – this is compared to the first generation where the eDRAM was a victim cache. This methodology allows the eDRAM to speed up more use cases than just graphics, and the 50 GBps bidirectional bandwidth is certainly a big leap over main DRAM bandwidth (that some OEMs run in single channel mode anyway). Iris Plus processors can also be equipped with discrete graphics, although this is up to the OEM.

The 28W Iris Plus processors will match the other mobile counterparts on chipset, and support the new features such as integrated Intel 802.11ac Wi-Fi and native USB 3.1 (10 Gbps) support. We do not know to what extent these are supported, and are waiting on more information. The Iris Pro parts will also support Optane-accelerated storage.

High-Performance Mobile: Core i9 and Xeon E at 45W High-Performance Desktop: 65W to 35W Coffee Lake CPUs
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  • close - Wednesday, April 4, 2018 - link

    If Apple does move to ARM (in a few years and only for lower powered models) the Y CPUs are the first to take the hit. There are very few ultraportables so successful to justify Intel's continued research in this. They already go out of mobile for the same reason, it's likely that in the future they will get out of the (ultra?) low power parts (under 10W).
  • Sonic01 - Friday, April 6, 2018 - link

    yeah that's what i was thinking... is there any news on the release date for these? I've just seen rumours of "late 2018", so I can only assume december...
  • HStewart - Wednesday, April 4, 2018 - link

    Actually an year and half since Q3 2016 - but it looks like 8th gen u series can be used in ultra lights
  • Sonic01 - Friday, April 6, 2018 - link

    yeah i realised after i posted but still. i know the U series are being used in ultra lights... but they still arent as ultra light as Y's.... all the U based ultrabooks start at 1.4KG and have cpu fans, my core Y ultrabook is 1KG and has no fans... oh well, will just have to keep waiting...
  • Kakti - Sunday, April 8, 2018 - link

    My Acer Switch Alpha 12 uses an i5-6200u, weighs 1.28 kg and is passively cooled. There's a few ultrabooks/tablets/2 in 1's that use u-series processors and no fans, but yeah they are rare. Personally I'd rather have a U processor for the added unmph...the 4.5w Y's will struggle to do much more than surf the web. Even high resolution video decoding can push past a Y processor's limits.
  • serendip - Tuesday, April 10, 2018 - link

    The Y segment is probably better served by much cheaper Atoms. I've run video transcodes on an Atom Windows tablet and it barely gets warm. I'd rather have decent sustained performance instead of a burst of speed that crashes hard from thermal limits.
  • Alistair - Tuesday, April 3, 2018 - link

    It's not even the products exactly that disappoint. The marketing is so bad....

    Just make it simple like Ryzen. No i5+, i5 means 6 core, 4 core hyper... I build computers all the time and I just feel tired reading that slide deck. Why should I memorize all that. Who cares...
  • satai - Tuesday, April 3, 2018 - link

    AMD Ryzen 7 2700U - 4C/8T
    AMD Ryzen 7 1700(X) - 8C/16T
    AMD Ryzen 7 2700(?) - probably 8C/16T

    (Intel segmenting is a mess when considering features (ECC, management...) but why to bash them for C/T thread count that is pretty reasonable?)
  • Ratman6161 - Tuesday, April 3, 2018 - link

    Also Ryzen 5 even in the desktop line has some 4C and some 6C that are all Ryzen 5
  • Alistair - Tuesday, April 3, 2018 - link

    When you buy Ryzen, you just buy the number of cores you want. Ignore everything else.

    The reason why Ryzen 5 1400 is a "5" is because if they called it a "3", that wouldn't make sense as it is about the same as an i7-7700. I think the Ryzen "5" confusion is a response to Intel's marketing more than anything else.

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