Processors/Comparison
15 specifications
Intel Core i5-7300U vs Intel Core i5-8250U
On paper, the Intel Core i5-8250U has more cores (4 against 2), the Intel Core i5-7300U boosts higher, and the Intel Core i5-8250U carries more L3 cache. Specifications describe what each chip is designed to do; how much of that either one holds under continuous load is a separate question.
Intel Core i5-7300U
Intel · Core 7th generation · Laptop
Intel Core i5-8250U
Intel · Core 8th generation · Laptop
Cores and clocks
Cache and power
Platform
A check marks the higher figure only on rows where higher is unambiguously better. Rows without one are not ties; they are specifications where “better” has no meaning.
Reading the table
What the difference means.
Cores and threads
The Core i5-8250U has 4 cores and 8 threads against 2 and 4. More threads help with work that can be split into many pieces at once: rendering, compiling, video export, running several heavy programs together. They do little for work that runs on a few threads, which includes most games and most everyday software, where the speed of one core decides the result.
Boost clock
The Core i5-7300U boosts to 3.5 GHz against 3.4 GHz, 3 percent higher. Across generations it is not a guide to speed on its own, for the reason above. Boost is also a peak: it is held for seconds to minutes, on one or two cores, while the cooling and the power limit allow. What either chip settles at under a long load is lower, and it depends on the cooler and the motherboard as much as the chip.
Cache
The Core i5-8250U carries 6 MB of L3 cache against 3 MB. Cache is fast memory on the chip, and a larger one means the cores wait on main memory less often. Games, large spreadsheets and compiling respond to it; rendering and video export, which stream through data in order, respond much less.
Power and cooling
Both are rated at 25 W, so they ask the same of a cooler and a power supply. The rating is the heat to be moved for the chip to hold its speed; both draw above it in short bursts, and either one slows down rather than fails when the cooling falls short.
Platform
Laptop processors are soldered to the board, so this is a choice between machines, not between chips you can swap. What differs between two laptops with these parts is mostly the power limit and the cooling the maker gave each one.
Which to pick, on paper
- Rendering, compiling, video export
- Core i5-8250U
- 8 threads against 4. Work that uses every thread scales with how many there are.
What no table says
How much of its speed a processor keeps after the first minute depends on the cooling and the power limit of the machine it is in. If you own one of these, measure it: the test is free and runs in this browser.
Questions
- Is the Core i5-7300U better than the Core i5-8250U?
- By need, on the specifications: rendering, compiling, video export: the Core i5-8250U. No specification says how much speed either one keeps under a long load; that depends on the cooling and the power limit of the machine it is in, and it is what a sustained test measures.
- Do the Core i5-7300U and the Core i5-8250U use the same socket?
- Laptop processors are soldered in place, so neither can be swapped for the other.
- Does the Core i5-7300U or the Core i5-8250U have integrated graphics?
- Both do: Intel HD Graphics 620 on the Core i5-7300U and Intel UHD Graphics 620 on the Core i5-8250U.
More comparisons
- Intel Core i5-7300U vs AMD Ryzen 3 3300U
- Intel Core i5-7300U vs Apple M6
- Intel Core i5-7300U vs Intel Core i5-1135G7
- Intel Core i5-7300U vs Intel Core i5-1145G7
- Intel Core i5-7300U vs Intel Core i7-1165G7
- Intel Core i5-8250U vs AMD Ryzen 3 3300U
- Intel Core i5-8250U vs Apple M6
- Intel Core i5-8250U vs Intel Core i5-1135G7
- Intel Core i5-8250U vs Intel Core i5-1145G7
- Intel Core i5-8250U vs Intel Core i7-1165G7
Every figure on this table is a design target. None of it is a measurement.
Nothing above describes how a processor behaves twenty minutes into a sustained workload, which is where two chips with nearly identical specifications routinely diverge. A boost clock is a ceiling the vendor permits, not a rate the chip sustains, and whether it holds depends on the cooling, the case, the power profile and the room. None of those appear on a specification sheet.
We deliberately do not reduce these figures to a single score. A composite invented from specifications would look authoritative and measure nothing, and choosing the weights would be choosing the winner.