Building a slide deck, pitch, or presentation? Here are the big takeaways:

  • Intel has announced the release of its eighth-generation i9, i7, and i5 processors for laptop computers. Eighth-generation chips can reportedly outperform Intel’s previous chips by up to 88%.
  • Also announced was the addition of eighth-generation chips to the business-centered vPro platform, which provides enhanced security and performance to Intel chips designed to fulfill enterprise-level needs.

Chip manufacturer Intel has announced that its eighth-generation Core i9 processors are coming to laptops.

Intel calls the eighth generation Core i9 “the highest-performance laptop processor Intel has ever built,” emphasizing both the gaming and content creation capabilities of the new chip.

Along with announcing the arrival of the Core i9 to laptops, Intel also announced the addition of eighth-generation Intel chips to its business-focused vPro platform.

Mobile Core i9 chips pack a punch

It isn’t only i9 chips that are coming to laptops–Intel’s entire eighth-generation lineup, including i7 and i5s, are making the leap to laptops. Core i9 chips are by far the most powerful, led by the eighth-en Intel Core i9-8950HK.

As a whole, the eighth-generation laptop chips are built on the new Coffee Lake platform and have 14nm++ technology that can deliver 41% more frames per second in games and 59% faster 4K video editing.

The i9-8950HK is even more impressive. It has six cores and 12 threads and can automatically overclock itself based on temperature of the processor. That feature is called Thermal Velocity Boost and can increase the processor frequency up to 200 MHz, which translates to a turbo frequency of 4.8 GHz.

Intel said that users of three-year-old computers could expect 88% better performance, and those who have an i7 from last year would see a 29% increase.

Why eighth-gen vPro chips matter

With Intel still recovering from the Spectre and Meltdown disasters that affected nearly all the chips it has ever manufactured, it’s understandable that security is a huge concern for Intel users, and part of vPro’s mission is to assuage those doubts.

SEE: IT hardware procurement policy (Tech Pro Research)

Intel’s vPro platform is designed to help businesses work faster and be more secure. Intel said that the addition of eighth-generation processors to vPro will enhance those capabilities in the following ways:

  • Eighth-gen vPro chips can analyze data up to 40% faster and can find patterns in data (an essential part of machine learning) up to 2.1 times faster.
  • Eighth-gen vPro systems with Optane memory can run up to 78% faster than previous generations.
  • Xeon E chips, which have also been added to vPro, can deliver up to a 20% increase in 3D modeling speed.
  • New vPro chips are hardware-secured using Intel Authenticate, which verifies identities in hardware for enhanced security.
  • The new chips also include Intel Runtime BIOS Resilience, which Intel said is “a hardware enhancement that minimizes the risks of malicious code injection” by locking the BIOS whenever software of any kind is running.

Intel hasn’t said specifically when its eighth-generation laptop chips will be available, but it did say new computers featuring the chips will have badges indicating such, so you’ll have to keep an eye out.

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