How much better is the i5 8250u over the i5 7200u

GlitterFart

Estimable
Nov 29, 2014
3
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4,510
I bought the Dell XPS 13 back in May 2017 with the i5 7200u inside and now, only a year later, the current XPS 13 has the i5 8250u and it just seems much better than the last generation one, so I feel a bit ripped off, especially when I see laptops for like £500 that supposedly have far superior performance.

So essentially, I want to know that my purchase was not a total rip off and that the i5 7200u will be good enough for the next 3 years (for Uni) Thanks guys!
 

volkgren

Prominent
Aug 13, 2017
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610
Welcome to the club. I bought my i7-7700K in July '17 for $340. Less than 6 months later Intel released their i7-8700K for the same price and made it where it wasn't compatible with my current chipset motherboard. Intel ripped everyone off with their 7th-gen Kaby Lake CPU lineup.
 

TJ Hooker

Honorable
Apr 15, 2014
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10,710
New, better hardware comes out every year offering better performance per dollar. Doesn't retroactively make older purchases "rip offs".

The 8250u should be a little better in lightly threaded tasks (3.4 vs 3.1 GHz max turbo), significantly better in multi threaded tasks (double the cores/threads).

If you're just doing stuff like MS office, taking notes, internet browsing etc. then yes your current CPU should be more than capable for years to come.
 

GlitterFart

Estimable
Nov 29, 2014
3
0
4,510


It does feel like a rip off when you see that the jump from the i5 6200u to the 7200u was barely anything, but the jump from 7200u to 8250u is more than twice the performance (mainly due it being a quad core cpu)

 
Dec 13, 2018
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I think the comparison is a bit deceiving. Yes the i5 8250u has 4 cores vs 2 for the 7200u. BUT, the base frequency of the former is 1.6mhz vs 2.5mhz for the latter. As we've learned in real world applications, depending on who you are and what you're using your computer for.....the 2.5mhz base frequency might be preferable. I have a few laptops and for what I do, they rarely throttle up to the top speed and mostly stay at their base speed of 1.4mhz on one of them. On paper their is no comparison the 8250 wins. In real life .....maybe not.... Something to think about. Also they have the same gpu, so not a factor.........