Event Coverage

Skylake overload! 48 new Intel 6th gen Core processors for desktop and mobile

By Vijay Anand - 2 Sep 2015

Intel launches 6th Generation Core processor family for desktop and mobile


It's raining Skylake

In the company’s biggest and most ambitious rollout of a new generation processor, Intel launches no less than 48 new 6th gen Core processors that span the desktop, notebook, 2-in-1 convertibles and tablet segment.

With a focus on re-architecting the 14nm Broadwell processor to bring about an improved leap in performance and power efficiency, Intel’s engineers have delved deep to tweak the microarchitecture to deliver Skylake. Optimized for Windows 10, together with supporting hardware like a new sensor hub, Intel’s RealSense 3D technology and more, Skylake based systems will be the first in a new breed of systems that will deliver new experiences like voice activated commands, face/iris recognition based authentication and more.

All 48 Skylake CPUs are broadly segmented in 4 processor series with Y, U and H-series reserved for mobility products and S-series for desktops. Note that there are several TDP variants for each class as this following slide summarizes:-

 

Skylake desktop processors

We start off by listing the 20 new desktop S-series Skylake processors, two of which (K-SKU variants) have been launched a few weeks earlier:-

Processor Number Cores/Threads Base Freq (GHz) Graphics Price L3 Cache TDP
Core i7-6700K 4/8 4.0 Intel HD Graphics 530 US$360 8MB 91W
Core i5-6600K 4/4 3.5 Intel HD Graphics 530 US$243 6MB 91W
Core i7-6700 4/8 3.4 Intel HD Graphics 530 US$312 8MB 65W
Core i5-6600 4/4 3.3 Intel HD Graphics 530 US$224 6MB 65W
Core i5-6500 4/4 3.2 Intel HD Graphics 530 US$202 6MB 65W
Core i5-6400 4/4 2.7 Intel HD Graphics 530 US$187 6MB 65W
Core i3-6320 2/4 3.9 Intel HD Graphics 530 US$157 4MB 47W
Core i3-6300 2/4 3.8 Intel HD Graphics 530 US$147 4MB 47W
Core i3-6100 2/4 3.7 Intel HD Graphics 530 US$117 3MB 47W
Pentium G4520 2/2 3.6 Intel HD Graphics 530 US$93 3MB 47W
Pentium G4500 2/2 3.5 Intel HD Graphics 530 US$82 3MB 47W
Pentium G4400 2/2 3.4 Intel HD Graphics 530 US$64 3MB 47W
Core i7-6700T 4/8 2.8 Intel HD Graphics 530 US$303 8MB 35W
Core i5-6600T 4/4 2.7 Intel HD Graphics 530 US$213 6MB 35W
Core i5-6500T 4/4 2.5 Intel HD Graphics 530 US$192 6MB 35W
Core i5-6400T 4/4 2.2 Intel HD Graphics 530 US$182 6MB 35W
Core i3-6300T 2/4 3.3 Intel HD Graphics 530 US$138 4MB 35W
Core i3-6100T 2/4 3.2 Intel HD Graphics 530 US$117 3MB 35W
Pentium G4500T 2/2 3.0 Intel HD Graphics 530 US$75 3MB 35W
Pentium G4400T 2/2 2.9 Intel HD Graphics 510 US$64 3MB 35W

We managed to get a very brief test run of Intel's Core i5-6400, Core i5-6600T and Core i5-6700K on identically configured systems using an ASUS Z170M-Plus motherboard with 16GB of DDR4-2133 memory. Here then are the compiled results:-


 

Mobile Skylake processors

Moving on, we'll cover each of the three series of mobile processors. This slide above sums up the key differences among the Skylake mobile processors.

The high performance H-series of processors is where Intel raked up the most number of firsts such as the first unlocked mobile K- SKU processor, first quad-core Core i5 mobile processor and last but not least, mobile Xeon processors.

Here then are the nine H-series 45W Skylake processors:- 

Processor Number Cores/Threads Base Freq (GHz) Graphics Price L3 Cache TDP
Xeon E3-1535M v5 4/8 2.9 Intel HD Graphics P530 US$623 8MB 45W
Xeon E3-1505M v5 4/8 2.8 Intel HD Graphics P530 US$434 8MB 45W
Core i7-6920HQ 4/8 2.9 Intel HD Graphics 530 US$568 8MB 45W
Core i7-6820HQ 4/8 2.7 Intel HD Graphics 530 US$378 8MB 45W
Core i7-6820HK 4/8 2.7 Intel HD Graphics 530 US$378 6MB 45W
Core i7-6700HQ 4/8 2.6 Intel HD Graphics 530 US$378 6MB 45W
Core i5-6440HQ 4/4 2.6 Intel HD Graphics 530 US$250 6MB 45W
Core i5-6300HQ 4/4 2.3 Intel HD Graphics 530 US$250 6MB 45W
Core i3-6100H 2/4 2.7 Intel HD Graphics 530 US$225 4MB 35W

Next is the workhorse of the notebook platform that will service most ultrabooks and the likes, the U-series. Available in 28W and 15W editions, there are 14 mobile processors in this group. Take note that the processors with Iris Graphics will debut at a later undisclosed date.

Processor Number Cores/Threads Base Freq (GHz) Graphics Price L3 Cache TDP
Core i7-6567U 2/4 3.3 Intel Iris Graphics 550 TBD 4MB 28W
Core i5-6287U 2/4 3.1 Intel Iris Graphics 550 TBD 4MB 28W
Core i5-6267U 2/4 2.9 Intel Iris Graphics 550 TBD 4MB 28W
Core i3-6167U 2/4 2.7 Intel Iris Graphics 550 TBD 3MB 28W
Core i7-6650U 2/4 2.2 Intel Iris Graphics 540 TBD 4MB 15W
Core i7-6600U 2/4 2.6 Intel HD Graphics 520 US$393 4MB 15W
Core i7-6560U 2/4 2.2 Intel Iris Graphics 540 TBD 4MB 15W
Core i7-6500U 2/4 2.5 Intel HD Graphics 520 US$393 4MB 15W
Core i5-6360U 2/4 2.0 Intel Iris Graphics 540 TBD 4MB 15W
Core i5-6300U 2/4 2.4 Intel HD Graphics 520 US$281 3MB 15W
Core i5-6260U 2/4 1.8 Intel Iris Graphics 540 TBD 4MB 15W
Core i5-6200U 2/4 2.3 Intel HD Graphics 520 US$281 3MB 15W
Core i3-6100U 2/4 2.3 Intel HD Graphics 520 US$281 3MB 15W
Pentium 4405U 2/4 2.1 Intel HD Graphics 510 TBD 2MB 15W

The last segment of mobile Skylake processors are the 4.5W Y-Series of Core M processors. This time round, Intel has sub-divided them into m7, m5 and m3 branding, just like the Core-i series to help consumers figure out what class of Core M processors are they buying into. Given the Characteristics of Core M processors, they are targeted at seriously thin and light machines, 2-in-1 convertibles and tablets where fanless designs are getting common.

Processor Number Cores/Threads Base Freq (GHz) Graphics Price L3 Cache TDP
Core m7-6Y75 2/4 1.2 Intel HD Graphics 515 US$393 4MB 4.5W
Core m5-6Y57 2/4 1.1 Intel HD Graphics 515 US$281 4MB 4.5W
Core m5-6Y54 2/4 1.1 Intel HD Graphics 515 US$281 4MB 4.5W
Core m3-6Y30 2/4 0.9 Intel HD Graphics 515 US$281 4MB 4.5W
Pentium 4405Y 2/4 2.5 Intel HD Graphics 515 TBD 2MB 6W

Left: Broadwell Core M package, Right: Skylake Core M package.

Expect even more Skylake processors to be released later in the year and next year for commercial systems, servers and a larger variety of Iris graphics based processors.

Meanwhile, you can read a lot more about Skylake in the following articles:-

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