Skylake is now out for the desktop, but that launch is just the tip of a very, very large iceberg. In addition to many more processors targeting less expensive desktop platforms, Intel will also of course introduce a full line of new sixth-generation mobile CPUs. And now we know a bit about them thanks to a leak posted by Fanless Tech.
It appears the initial rollout of Skylake for mobile will include eight processors. These break down into two i7, two i5, one i3, one Pentium, and one Celeron. All of the products will be dual-core processors, and all except the Celeron will have Hyper-Threading, resulting in four logical threads. All eight processors share a 15-watt thermal design power, support DDR3 RAM, and come in a Ball Grid Array (BGA) package, which means they’re soldered to the motherboard.
Though they have many similarities, the chips also have notable differences. The most important and obvious is clock speed. The lowly Celeron 3855U will be clocked at 1.6GHz without Turbo Boost, while the high-end i7-6600U will have a base clock of 2.6GHz and a maximum Turbo Boost speed of 3.4GHz for one core, or 3.2GHz for both. L3 Cache is another notable difference. Entry-level Celerons and Pentiums will have 2MB, the Core i3 and i5 will have 3MB, and the Core i7 will boast 4MB.
All of the chips will be using the new 500 series integrated graphics family. The Celerons and Pentium will use HD 510, while the others will use HD 520. The leaked slides also show slight clock speed differences, even between chips with the same IGP. That’s not uncommon; previous Intel hardware has done the same to differentiate processors.
The slides do not list a specific release date. However, with IDF and IFA right around the corner, I suspect that we’ll see these chips officially announced in September at the latest, with production hardware coming to store shelves throughout the holiday season.
A final leaked slide indicates we won’t see the Intel mobile chips with Iris integrated graphics until the first quarter of next year.
