Intel Core i3-8100
Proof that processors are still advancing at an impressive rate.
There were lots of reasons to get excited about Intel’s eighth-generation (Coffee Lake) Core processors, but for this reviewer, it was the promise of this particular chip that produced the excitement. The reason is straightforward enough — it potentially offers the best bang for your buck of any of the new chips. The good news (if slightly premature in terms of this review), is that it delivers on that potential and, in fact, for many system builders, now becomes the go-to chip for most budgets, and even mainstream plans.
We’ll get to the reason for this glowing preamble shortly, but before we do, it’s worth going over what your $169 gets you. The Core i3-8100 lacks HyperThreading and a Turbo boost, but it does pack four cores into its LGA 1151 package, thrumming along at a perfectly serviceable 3.6GHz. Unlike the Core i3-8350K we looked at a couple of issues ago, this is a simple chip that isn’t designed with overclocking in mind, which has an upside in that it operates with a TDP of 65W, so the standard Intel cooler that it ships with handles your needs well enough.
If you’re looking to build a budget system around this chip, you’re still limited to a single chipset at this point, which starts at around $180 for a reasonable Z370 motherboard. It’s the current cost of memory that is the most frustrating, though, which means that the core components of CPU, motherboard, and RAM start at around $450. You do get Intel’s UHD 630 integrated graphics in the Core i3-8100, though, which may not be relevant for modern gaming, but it’s a solid enough solution for normal desktop use, and — thanks to QuickSync — can handle video encoding while it’s at it.
So why all the love for this budget chip? Because this chip is essentially what sold as a mainstream offering two generations ago — in fact, its performance is as close to the stock performance of the Core i5-6600K as you can get. That’s a chip that will still set you back $350 or more. Of course, that chip that can be overclocked and turbos up to 3.9GHz, but for the most part, there really isn’t much to separate the two, apart from halving the price tag on the new processor.
When it comes to the benchmarks, you’ll find two comparisons for this chip — the aforementioned Core i5-6600K and the closest new chip from AMD, the $169 Ryzen 3 1300X. It’s worth noting that the AMD offering doesn’t have integrated graphics, which may be a factor if you’re not interested in games (this is where AMD’s recently released APUs come in, see opposite). The results from benchmarking are clear, with Intel’s budget offering giving AMD’s chip a sound thrashing, with the exception of power draw under load.
If we have reservations, it’s that $169 is still a hefty chunk of cash for those on an extremely tight budget. There is a lot of power on offer here, though, and all those cores should keep this chip relevant for years to come. We do wish that the budget motherboard chipsets would launch, so we can see how low we can get that core component price tag, but that doesn’t detract from the fact that this is a great buy right now.
It’s arguably the most important Coffee Lake chip so far.