14 DAY TRIAL // High-performance laptops have been around for ages. Laptop gamers have always enjoyed powerful "Haswells" and "Sandy Bridges," but none of them have been the powerful, unlocked "K" model from Intel.
However, this week at Gamescom, Intel decided to change its previous policy regarding notebooks and gaming laptops, and after announcing that enterprise-edition Xeons would arrive on notebooks and laptops as well, it revealed that the "K" models would also join this trend.
This is nothing but a very welcoming addition to what has previously been a place for very limited offers from Intel, as the mobile gaming market, including laptops and notebooks, is seen by the IT giant as a perfect place for investment and growth. To put it simply, the PC market is dwindling while the mobile and portables market is still growing. To tap into this continuing spring of revenue, Intel moved its most precious CPUs where it's guaranteed to make a buck.
Enthusiasts can now carry their overclocking benches with them
In other words, expect to see Core i7-6700K and Core i5-6600K Skylake chips on gaming laptops very soon. Although this is just speculation for now, it's highly probable that the new CPUs will have unlocked multipliers, Hyper-Threading technology, 8MB cache, and somewhere around 60W of thermal design power.
It's also very likely that enthusiasts who want to buy such extreme notebooks will only find unlocked Intel Core i7-6000-series mobile processors directly at manufacturers, and not in retail shops. No need to add that they'll come at a hefty price of at least $1,000 (€901).
Overall, this is great news from Intel these days, as it shows an almost unnatural openness towards its enthusiasts all over the globe. Bringing the most powerful CPUs to laptops is something that was never tried nor dared before, and this is only possible thanks to the generally lower TDP of the new Skylake CPUs that are much more suitable for laptops than their predecessors. Add to that much more powerful integrated graphics and you've got the perfect package for a new and strong mobile gaming platform.