Intel Core i5-8250U vs Intel Core i5-8500

Core i5-8250U vs Core i5-8500 specs and performance

In our benchmarks, the Core i5-8500 beats the Core i5-8250U in overall performance. Furthermore, our gaming benchmark shows that it also outperforms the Core i5-8250U in all gaming tests too.

When comparing core counts for these CPUs, we notice that the Core i5-8500 has significantly more cores with 6 cores compared to the Core i5-8250U that has 4 cores. Despite this, the Core i5-8250U has more threads than the Core i5-8500. These CPUs have different clock speeds. Indeed, the Core i5-8500 has a significantly higher clock speed compared to the Core i5-8250U. Also, the Core i5-8500 has a slightly higher turbo speed. A Core i5-8250U CPU outputs less heat than a Core i5-8500 CPU because of its significantly lower TDP. This measures the amount of heat they output and can be used to estimate power consumption. In terms of cache, the Core i5-8500 has significantly more L2 cache when compared to the Core i5-8250U. The Core i5-8500 also has significantly more L3 cache.

Most CPUs have more threads than cores. This technology, colloquially called hyperthreading, improves performance by splitting a core into multiple virtual ones. This provides more efficient utilisation of a core. Indeed, the Core i5-8250U has more threads than cores. Each physical core is split into multiple threads.