Core i3-8145U: CPU benchmarks and laptop guide

The Intel Core i3-8145U is a Whiskey Lake dual-core from 2018 — the budget rung of Intel's 8th generation, carried by 16 laptop models in the catalog. As a gaming processor it barely registers: the CPU meets the recommended tier in just 1 of the 69 games the catalog tracks. This guide covers where the chip sits among laptop CPUs, what it brings, and what the laptops around it offer in 2026.

Where the Core i3-8145U sits in 2026

A catalog score of 36.2 places the chip 348th of 741 scored laptop CPUs — just below the table's midpoint. The neighborhood is mid-2010s mainstream: the Core i7-6560U (36.6), Core i5-8265U (36.4) and Core i5-8365U (36.3) just above, the Core i5-5287U (35.9), Core i5-8250U (35.9) and Ryzen 5 2500U (35.7) just below. Notably it holds its own against quad-core i5s of its own generation on catalog scoring — high clocks offsetting the two-core deficit — but the whole group now sits firmly in budget-used territory.

What the chip brings

Whiskey Lake gives the i3-8145U 2 cores and 4 threads on a 14 nm process, at 2.1 GHz base and up to 3.9 GHz boost inside a 15 W envelope. Public benchmark results read 1,120 single-core and 1,905 multi-core on the GeekBench scale. The single-thread figure is respectable for its era; the multi-thread figure is the honest limit of a dual-core in any sustained workload.

Games: CPU-side readiness

Measured purely as a processor, the chip clears the recommended CPU tier for only 1 of 69 cataloged games — Civilization 6. The minimum tier is broad, though: Cyberpunk 2077, The Witcher 3, Red Dead Redemption 2, Minecraft, Valorant, Dota 2, League of Legends, Sims 4, Returnal, Doom Eternal and Grand Theft Auto V all list the chip above their minimum CPU requirement. Fortnite, Counter-Strike 2 and everything heavier ask for more. These verdicts are CPU-only — the laptop's GPU and RAM decide actual playability, and machines in this class carry entry-level graphics at best.

Laptops that carry it

The 16-model roster is 2017–2019 office stock: ThinkPad X390, L390, L490, L590, E490 and E590, Dell's Latitude 3310, 3500 and 7200 2-in-1, the IdeaPad S145-15IWL and V15-IWL, and the Inspiron 3583 — with prices from $177 to $361. The laptops built around it typically show a median office comfort score of 75, portability of 61.7, energy efficiency of 70.7 — and a gaming index of just 20, the profile of a document machine rather than a play machine.

Bottom line

The Core i3-8145U is honest budget-tier silicon in 2026: one game at recommended CPU settings, a long minimum-tier list, and host laptops that were built for office duty at $177 to $361. It remains serviceable for browsing, documents and study on a cheap used ThinkPad or Latitude. For gaming or anything sustained and multi-threaded, the quad-core i5s ranked beside it — like the i5-8250U and i5-8265U — are the smarter buy from the same era.