14 DAY TRIAL // Today, at Gamescom, Intel finally debuted its long awaited high performance 6th generation CPUs, codenamed "Skylake."
They are built on the new 14nm silicon fabrication process and are supported by the brand new LGA 1151 socket. Intel also brought DDR4 memory support for the mainstream mainboards, promising various IPC improvements over the older "Haswells" and "Broadwell" CPUs.
The Core i7-6700K comes with a nominal clock speed of 4.00 GHz, with a Turbo Boost frequency of 4.20 GHz. It has 8 MB of L3 cache, and HyperThreading. Its integrated Intel HD 530 graphics ticks at 350 MHz, with 1200 MHz Boost.
Its smaller sibling, the Core i5-6600K, on the other hand, features clock speeds of 3.50 GHz, with 3.90 GHz Turbo Boost. It features 6 MB of L3 cache, and doesn't have HyperThreading, but boasts the same integrated graphics solution as the Core i7.
Both "K" models run at 91W TDP, and both have integrated memory controllers that will support DDR3L-1600 and DDR4-2133. All Skylake-S models come with no coolers in the box, but as the LGA 1151 socket is nigh identical to the old LGA 1150, it'll probably fit under your old Haswell monster cooling solution just fine.
Intel breaks Moore's Law
The Skylake CPU series is a major step forward for Intel, and it is considered by many the great "tock" in the CPU fabrication process. Unfortunately, Intel will not be progressing at the same pace as before when it comes to developing a new fabrication process, since it has declared that a future 10nm process will come no early than 2017 and will hit the markets in 2018.
This way, the Skylakes will be the last CPU family that will enjoy the old pace of Moore's Law, which entails exponential reduction of semiconductors at a two-year pace. So from now on, we'll be stuck with the Skylakes for three years until a future family of 10nm process will be available to us in 2018.
Coming with Skylake are also new motherboards that will host the chipset which will drive the new central processing unit. They are the Z170 units, which are aimed especially at overclockers and gamers. Being "K" models, both the Core i7 and Core i5 will have the base clock multipliers unlocked, and the chipset will allow users to push the chips' boundaries to up to 5.2GHz core speed just on air-cooling solutions.
Thinking about the future
Together with the 100-series chipset, Intel has the DMI bus bandwidth increased to 64 Gbps, with 32Gbps per each direction, which will help the new generation of storage devices that need high bandwidth, such as M.2/PCIe connected storage drives. Also the NVMe protocol will have native support on the new chipset.
The decision to release the new CPU at Gamescom in Cologne was made in order to reach the DIY gamer crowd that will gather there to hear the news about the latest games developers are working on.
Although they have a huge potential way beyond the gamer crowd, the Skylakes must be seen as gamers' CPUs before they manage to address companies and corporate clients with their impressive and extremely potent "Purley" server systems. Pleasing the crowds is always good for such an important company like Intel after the Compute Stick failure.
Skylake-S is just the beginning
Following the high-performance Skylake-S power duo will come the lower powered "T" models and the successors of the previous Broadwells, like the Intel Core i7-6700T and the Intel Core i5-6600T with a TDP of 35W, which are supposed to offer the new Skylake architecture to the growing mobile market.
The price ranges for the Skylake-S will be $350 (€321) for the Core i7-6700K and $243 (€222) for the Core i5-6600K, only if they come in 1000-unit tray quantities. Leaked prices for the "T" models will range from $282 (€256) for the Intel Core i7-6700T to $170 (€154) for the Intel Core i5-6400T.
It's very likely that more details will come from Intel at IDF 2015 later this year, as the company will unveil more about the successor of the old Broadwells.