While Broadwell uses the same socket as Haswell processors, you still need to have a motherboard that supports the newer chipset. Skylake, however, will require everyone to buy a new motherboard if they want to upgrade, since Intel is moving to the LGA 1151 socket. Along with that upgrade comes support for more PCIe lanes, and increased processing bandwidth.
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Once the Skylake motherboards are on the market, it won’t be long before the Skylake chips start to show up too. A September release for the first run of new chips is a reasonable timeline, and the first processors to roll off the factory line will be the Intel 100 Series chips, the first of which is the Z170. Manufacturers are likely to start shipping computers with standard Skylake processors starting in September as well.
The initial selection of motherboards from both MSI and Biostar will support this chip specifically, but should be capable of an upgrade to a newer Skylake chip as they start to find their way into stores. ASRock also says that their 100 Series motherboards will be available in August, with processors in the same time-frame, but that a change in release date from Intel might affect the motherboard release as well.
Whether those dates are optimistic or not remains to be seen, but with only a couple of Broadwell chips arriving late in the game, Intel is likely anxious to get a full release of chips to the market as soon as possible. An August release would also line up with Intel’s Developer Forum, which is scheduled to begin on August the 18th.
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