Following the same naming convention they’ve used for the last few generations of Intel Core chips, the Skylake processors have a few different variations. The first is the T line, like the Intel Core i5-6600T, which is designed for ultra-low power consumption, the kind you might find in a home theater PC. These are rated for a thermal design power of 35 watts.
The standard run of chips don’t have a letter at the end, and are mostly standard desktop chips that target a 65 watt TDP. For enthusiasts looking for a bit more punch Intel offers the K series, which is unlocked out of the box, so you can overclock them from the BIOS easily. These have a TDP of 95 watts.
Back in 2007, Intel decided to follow what they called a new “tick-tock” business model. In this release plan, each “tick” steps down the size of a chip to a smaller die size, sometimes adding new processing power, but mostly focusing on shrinking the processor’s physical size. Each “tock” changes the micro-architecture of the chip, usually bringing new features and faster speeds, without changing the size from the previous model.
While the Broadwell chips brought down the size of Haswell-era processors, Skylake chips will be based off an updated design. That should mean markedly increased performance, and new functionality, including support for DDR4 and RAM in a wide variety of systems. What else the new Skylake architecture will bring remains to be seen, but according to Benchlife, the chips will be officially announced at the Intel Developer Forum in August of this year, so we don’t have long to wait to find out.
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