Intel launches powerful Core i9 processor for laptops

Last year, Intel added some significant heft to the top-end of its desktop processor lineup with the Core i9, and now it's bringing that power to laptops. The company announced today that its eighth-generation Core i9 is now available as the "highest-performance laptop processor" it has ever built, targeted directly at gamers and content creators on the go.

The top-end Core i9-8950HK, Intel says, features six cores and 12 threads, along with a turbo frequency of up to 4.8 GHz. Intel is also touting its new Thermal Velocity Boost, which it says can increase the clock frequency of the Core i9-8950K by up to 200 MHz if the processor temperature is low enough. In total, Intel claims that the Core i9 can achieve a 29 percent performance boost when compared to a seventh-generation Core i7-based PC. What's more, Intel claims a 41 percent boost to FPS for gamers and a 59 percent boost in speed for 4K video editing.

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In addition to the Core i9 for laptops, Intel also took the wraps off of new Core i5 and i7 chips based on its Coffee Lake platform and leveraging the company's 14nm++ process. Each features improved performance and, along with the Core i9 chip, are part of Intel's H series of processors.

Each of these new Coffee Lake chips also supports Intel's new Optane memory, which it says can increase the performance of SATA-based storage without impacting capacity. Intel is rolling out new Core i5+, i7+ and i9+ badges that indicate a device combines the latest Core processors with Optane memory.