Expected to ship in the second half of this year, Intel's upcoming Whiskey Lake-U processors are slated to replace the market's current Kaby Lake-R processors. Whiskey Lake is the third and last 14nm process refinement before the chipmaker starts ushering in its 10nm Cannon Lake chips in 2019.
Whiskey Lake-U processors are produced under Intel's third generation 14nm+++ process. With a 15W TDP (thermal design power) rating, these ultra-low powered chips should be very popular in Ultrabooks, compact laptops, all-in-one PCs and mini PCs. According to the information HP recently revealed, the Whiskey Lake-U family is comprised of three processors.
The entry-level Intel Core i3-8145U has a 2.1GHz base clock, 3.9GHz boost clock and 4MB of cache. Unfortunately, HP didn't specify the number of cores for the Core i3-8154U. However, we believe the Core i3-8145U is probably a dual-core chip with hyper-threading technology.
Going up the ladder, we can find the Intel Core i5-8265U SKU with 4 cores and 8 threads. The processor operates at 1.6GHz with a boost clock of 4.1GHz and has 6MB of cache.
Lastly, the Intel Core i7-8565U carries the flagship status. The processor features the same amount of cores and threads as its i5 counterpart but comes with higher operating clocks and a more generous amount of onboard cache. The Core i7-8565U features a 1.8GHz base clock, 4.6GHz boost clock and 8MB of cache.
HP's specification table also revealed that Whiskey Lake-U processors will employ Intel's UHD 620 Graphics integrated graphics card, the same one found in current ultra-low voltage Kaby Lake-R parts. The Intel UHD 620 comes with 24 execution units operating at 300MHz with a 1,150MHz boost clock depending on the model of the processor.
Although HP indicated support for up to 12GB of DDR4 memory with speeds topping out at 2,400MHz, Asus' Peru branch listed a higher number for its 15.6-inch ROG Strix Hero gaming laptop. Therefore, it's safe to say that Whiskey Lake-U processors can handle up to 32GB of dual-channel DDR4 2,666MHz memory just fine.
