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The wait for Skylake is almost over, first desktop chips likely to hit August 5

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For those of you anticipating the launch of Intel’s upcoming Skylake-S architecture prior to building a new PC, the wait is nearly over, or at least we suspect it is. While no release date has been officially confirmed, reports at Maximum PC suggest that Intel will reveal the Skylake-S at Gamescom come August 5, 2015.

Chinese tech site Benchlife has come across detailed information concerning the Skylake launch, comprised of both the Core i7-6700K and Core-i5-6600K processors earlier today, both of which are allegedly planned for release on August 5th. Additionally, the Z170-chipset motherboards will be announced that same day, according to WCCFTech.

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Both processors scheduled to release at the beginning of next month are classified as “Enthusiast” level chips, donning 95W TPDs and support for DDR4-2133 and DDR3L-1600 memory. The Core i7-6700K will ship with 8MB of L3 cache, a base clockspeed of 4GHz, and a boost clockspeed of 4.2GHz.

The Core i5-6600K, while also quad-core in parity with its flagship correspondent, does not feature support for hyper-threading. Its base clockspeed is recorded at 3.5GHz while its boost clockspeed has been documented at 3.9GHz, accompanied by 6MB of L3 cache.

If rumors are to be believed, these processors will ship naked, without the inclusion of a heatsink or fan solution. With the “Enthusiast” demographic typically preferring to select their own components anyway, maybe this isn’t such a bad thing.

Rumors surrounding Intel Skylake-based chips have been circulating the web since September of last year when Intel initially unveiled the architecture at the Intel Developer Forum 2014 before its predecessor, Broadwell, was even released. At the same conference, Intel expressed that the CPUs found in Skylake would allow for true wireless computing.

Gabe Carey
A freelancer for Digital Trends, Gabe Carey has been covering the intersection of video games and technology since he was 16…
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