Intel Core i7-8550U vs Intel Core i5-9400F

Core i7-8550U vs Core i5-9400F benchmarks

In our benchmarks, the Core i5-9400F beats the Core i7-8550U in overall performance. Furthermore, our gaming benchmark shows that it also outperforms the Core i7-8550U in all gaming tests too.

When comparing core counts for these CPUs, we notice that the Core i5-9400F has significantly more cores with 6 cores compared to the Core i7-8550U that has 4 cores. Despite this, the Core i7-8550U has more threads than the Core i5-9400F. These CPUs have different clock speeds. Indeed, the Core i5-9400F has a significantly higher clock speed compared to the Core i7-8550U. Also, the Core i5-9400F has a slightly higher turbo speed. A Core i7-8550U CPU outputs less heat than a Core i5-9400F 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 i5-9400F has significantly more L2 cache when compared to the Core i7-8550U. The Core i5-9400F also has slightly 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 i7-8550U has more threads than cores. Each physical core is split into multiple threads.