Limits in processor manufacturing are becoming increasingly evident, and even the number one player cannot escape that. Intel decided to focus the development of Broadwell on mobile platforms, which translates into a very light presence of the architecture for desktop systems. However, things are expected to change with the arrival of Skylake, whose debut took place during the Gamescom conference, and which brings two new chips under its wings.
Gamescom began yesterday in Germany and will extend until next Sunday, so we expect all kinds of news. New trailers, expansions, titles in development, and live demos set the pace, though we must also mention hardware news, and where there is hardware, Intel is likely to be found. The feeling is that the company is not going through its best moment. PC sales remain cold, wearables are not taking off, the troubles in chip miniaturization have virtually pulverized the tick-tock, and the competition revealed interesting future plans. Obviously, the privileged position that Intel holds in the market is impossible to assault, and it will remain so for a long time, but hardware enthusiasts want to see new things. Intel's answer is Skylake.
Recapping, Skylake is a new architecture based on the 14-nanometer manufacturing process that Broadwell adopted. The difference between the two generations is broader than it seems, since Broadwell chips never attempted to tempt gamers, who still remain in the ranks of Haswell, Ivy, and Sandy Bridge. Fortunately, the arrival of Skylake is not a simple announcement, but rather marks the launch of two new processors: the Core i7-6700K and the Core i5-6600K. The i7-6700K offers four cores with eight processing threads, a base frequency of 4 GHz, and 8 MB of L3 cache, while the Core i5-6600K brings four cores and four threads at 3.5 GHz, and 6 MB of L3 cache. In both cases, the integrated video belongs to the HD Graphics 530 series, and the estimated TDP is 91 watts. As expected, the arrival of Skylake begins to close the cycle of the LGA 1150 socket, and gives way to the new LGA 1151, which with the appropriate chipset (from the Sunrise Point family) offers support for DDR4 memory. Early motherboards will exclusively use this type of memory, but Skylake is compatible with DDR3L, which should make the transition process smoother.
Now, how well do the new chips perform? In the best case, 6 percent extra performance compared to their Haswell equivalents. In the worst case, we see Skylake processors caught in a technical tie. Emphasis on graphics cards is increasingly strong for gaming (thus becoming a more reasonable upgrade), and with new technologies like 4K, this will deepen. With its 14-nanometer design, access to DDR4, and its ever-present overclocking potential, Skylake chips should rank higher, but so far they have nothing that forces a Haswell user to replace their entire platform. Official prices are $350 and $243 respectively, and the rest of the models will hit shelves closer to the end of the year.
