How much of a performance difference is a 4th generation i5 and a 8th generation i5 intel processor?

Question

I'm somewhat on a tight budget in buying a new university laptop. My university has provided minimum laptop specifications (256GB SSD, 8GB RAM, i5 processor).

The i5 processor is quite a broad term, as I'm just now learning. I'm wondering how much of a difference would an 8th generation i5 be compared to a 4th generation i5.

I've compared two processors on the intel website and frankly, I'm a bit confused by the GHz, Cores, Threads, or TDP.

The laptop is for a computer science course, so programming and emulation would be a big thing (and I assume machine learning).

Solution

It's not possible to say without knowing the specific processors. I'd suggest, an 8th gen i5 may be twice as powerful as a 4th gen, but it really varies hugely based on variant. I can point to 4th gen i5s which are way more powerful than 8th gen ones (e.g., a laptop low-power 8th gen vs. a gaming system 4th gen i5)

A good rough guide is to search both CPUs in passmark.com site and use their scores as a relative indication of power.

Be aware that i5 is little more than branding - plenty of i3's outperform i5 CPUs where they are models with faster clock speeds.

TDP has to do with heat dissipation - lower values mean more energy efficient (and less powerful). Clock speed, very loosely, gives an indication of the performance for a task that can't be broken up, but is less of a valid comparison between generations. Threads/Cores represent the number of tasks that can be processed simultaneously.

Comments

[Moab]

I use this site to compare cpu performance, i bit hard to use at first......cpubenchmark.net

[KuroGane]

Thanks for the informative reply David! I was not aware of the subtle nuances between these processors. I'll check out passmark to make a better judgement.

[davidgo]

Another relevant thought - battery life decrease even if a device.is unused, si a 4th gen system (built circa 2014) will have a lot less battey life then when it was created. That said, I have a small 4th gen i5 for travel and the main battery is still OK - just.