Intel Skylake : What you need to know…

Have you ever heard of of skylake in the past? Well, you may or may not have because google searching for the word gets us only the new Intel chipset architecture called skylake. So, let’s get on with this post!

So running down the details, we are looking at Broadwell in Q2 2015 which is this quarter and happening now since as mentioned earlier, Broadwell is being shipped and listed by manufacturers. There are a total of 10 Skylake chips ( known as S chips) which are listed below:

• Intel Core i7-6700K
• Intel Core i5-6600K
• Intel Core i7-6700
• Intel Core i5-6600
• Intel Core i5-6500
• Intel Core i5-6400
• Intel Core i7-6700T
• Intel Core i5-6600T
• Intel Core i5-6500T
• Intel Core i5-6400T
• Intel 95W “Enthusiast” Skylake-S Processors (Core i7-6700K / Core i5-6600K)

The first two processors that include the Core i7-6700K and Core i5-6600K were leaked a few days ago and are labeled as “Enthusiast” 95W processors. Starting off with the flagship Core i7-6700K CPU, we are looking at a quad core design with eight threads which shows a multi-threaded design. The chip features 8 MB of L3 cache and has clock speeds maintained at 4.0 GHz base and 4.2 GHz turbo boost. The chip can support DDR4 2133 MHz memory and DDR3 1600 MHz memory.

Similarly, the Core i5-6600K is the more cost conservative enthusiast offering and being a quad core, it stays away from a multi-threaded path. The clock speeds are maintained at 3.5 GHz base and 3.9 GHz boost and has a total of 6 MB of L3 cache with similar DDR4/DDR3L memory support as the top offering.
These Skylake processors will have several features that include increase IA and graphics performance at much lower power than their predecessors. While the TDP remains 95W, Intel has further improved the efficiency of these new chips hence delivering much better performance. The Skylake processors will support both DDR3L and DDR4 memory types. The DDR3L memory will be available on the mini-PC designs such as All-in-ones and NUCs while traditional PCs which will get Z170 and H170 series motherboards will have native support for DDR4 DIMMs. The unlocked processors options which are also the Enthusiast CPUs as detailed above will allow enhanced full range BCLK overclocking. Hopefully, Intel will use better TIM or Soldering to prevent any heating issues on the dense 14nm chips. Other features includes Turbo Boost 2.0, Hyper Threading, DMI 3.0, 3 digital displays capability (including embedded Display Ports), HEVC, VP8, VVP9, AMCs and support for the latest APIs such as DirectX 12, OpenGL 4.3/4.4 and OpenCL 2.0. We have already seen Z170 motherboards from Colorful with the LGA 1151 socket in full details.

Intel 65W “Mainstream” Skylake-S Processors (Core i7 / Core i5)

Coming to the mainstream lineup, there are 4 chips which include the Core i7-6700 that features same specifications as the Core i7-6700K but doesn’t come in an unlocked package. Similarly, the Core i5-6600 also has the same specifications as seen on the unlocked model but without the K-Series design that allows over-clocking support. Clocks for the Core i7-6700 are maintained at 3.4 GHz base and 4.0 GHz boost while the Core i5-6600 is clocked at 3.3 GHz base and 3.9 GHz boost. The Core i5-6500 is a quad core clocked at 3.2 GHz base and 3.6 GHz boost while the Core i5-6400 is a quad core clocked at 2.7 GHz base and 3.3 GHz boost. All of these chips feature a 65W TDP and the Core i5 models pack 6 MB of L3 cache while the Core i7 model gets 8 MB L3 cache.

Intel 35W “Low TDP” Skylake-S Processors (Core i7 / Core i5)

Over at the more power efficient side, Intel will launch 4 T-Series chips which stand for low-power. All chips feature just 35W TDP and include Core i7-6700T as a multi-threaded quad core with 2.8 GHz base and 3.6 GHz boost clock. It packs 8 MB of L3 cache. The Core i5 models range from the Core i5-6600T, Core i5-6500T and Core i5-6400T featuring 6 MB of L3 cache, quad core (non-multithreaded designs) and boost speeds ranging from 2.8 to 3.6 GHz.

So that’s pretty much all I could get from this incredibly big place called The Internet (which started of as a thing called ARPAnet, in case you didn’t know)…..

So anyway,

 Thanks for Reading!