The Intel Core i5-8259U was a mobile processor with 4 cores, launched in April 2018, at an MSRP of $320. It is part of the Core i5 lineup, using the Coffee Lake-U architecture with BGA 1526. Thanks to Intel Hyper-Threading the core-count is effectively doubled, to 8 threads. Core i5-8259U has 6 MB of L3 cache and operates at 2.3 GHz by default, but can boost up to 3.8 GHz, depending on the workload. Intel is making the Core i5-8259U on a 14 nm production node, the transistor count is unknown. The multiplier is locked on Core i5-8259U, which limits its overclocking potential.
With a TDP of 28 W, the Core i5-8259U consumes only little energy. Intel's processor supports DDR4 memory with a dual-channel interface. The highest officially supported memory speed is 2400 MT/s. For communication with other components in the machine, Core i5-8259U uses a PCI-Express Gen 3 connection. This processor features the Iris Pro Plus 655 integrated graphics solution.
Hardware virtualization is available on the Core i5-8259U, which greatly improves virtual machine performance. Additionally, IOMMU virtualization (PCI passthrough) is supported, so that guest virtual machines may directly use host hardware. Programs using Advanced Vector Extensions (AVX) can run on this processor, boosting performance for calculation-heavy applications. Besides AVX, Intel is including the newer AVX2 standard, too, but not AVX-512.