Intel's Skylake chips can power three 4K monitors simultaneously, launch details in 'couple of weeks
A launch date for Intel's next-generation Skylake processors should be announced in a "couple of weeks," a senior principal engineer recently revealed at an Intel Developer Forum presentation.
The company in the meantime shared a variety of details about the platform, according to PCWorld. Skylake processors will, for instance, use a technology called Speed Shift to dynamically change power state and reduce consumption.
Planned performance boosts are already well-known, but one improvement will come in the form of "eDRAM+," a fully coherent form of cache memory that can work for the CPU and not just integrated graphics. eDRAM+ will also be used in more chips than eDRAM, and in 64- and 128-megabyte sizes.
A new extension technology, SGX -- Software Guard eXtensions -- should limit the potential damage of privileged malware attacks.
Graphically, Intel claimed that Skylake's graphics technology will be powerful enough to drive three 4K monitors at 60 hertz, versus a single 4K monitor with Broadwell chips.
Skylake processors are expected to drive the next generation of Apple Macs, from the MacBook Air through to the iMac. Most updates will probably have to wait until next year however, since Skylake is only debuting later this year and most Macs have already seen a 2015 refresh
The company in the meantime shared a variety of details about the platform, according to PCWorld. Skylake processors will, for instance, use a technology called Speed Shift to dynamically change power state and reduce consumption.
Planned performance boosts are already well-known, but one improvement will come in the form of "eDRAM+," a fully coherent form of cache memory that can work for the CPU and not just integrated graphics. eDRAM+ will also be used in more chips than eDRAM, and in 64- and 128-megabyte sizes.
A new extension technology, SGX -- Software Guard eXtensions -- should limit the potential damage of privileged malware attacks.
Graphically, Intel claimed that Skylake's graphics technology will be powerful enough to drive three 4K monitors at 60 hertz, versus a single 4K monitor with Broadwell chips.
Skylake processors are expected to drive the next generation of Apple Macs, from the MacBook Air through to the iMac. Most updates will probably have to wait until next year however, since Skylake is only debuting later this year and most Macs have already seen a 2015 refresh
Comments
Apple has done CPU refresh's at beginning of the year and then full Macbook (GPU/Form factor changes, screen, etc) updates at end of the year multiple times now.
So, the fact that Apple 'updated' CPU only really means nothing..
Money already in-hand for an updated Skylake 5K iMac. Just bring it.
Huh, I just did a skylake build with an i5-6600K last weekend (parts from Frys), surely it's a bit late for launch details?
Is this a launch date for Skylake mobile processors? Otherwise Skylake already came out weeks ago.
Badly written article, this news is for Skylake core processors not Skylake desktop which already released, yet there is no mention of core in the entire article.
Two Skylake chips came out in a soft launch. The rest of the lineup isn't out yet.
What this doesn't make clear is if the iGPU driving three 4k displays is IRISPro only, or if even the base graphics can do that.
Two Skylake chips came out in a soft launch. The rest of the lineup isn't out yet.
What this doesn't make clear is if the iGPU driving three 4k displays is IRISPro only, or if even the base graphics can do that.
So, how is IRISPro accepted by gamers?
There are lots of workstation applications that would do fine with Skylake's IRISPro, as would most consumer Applications. Should Nvidia and AMD be concerned?
Supposedly it's "10x" faster than Sandy Bridge.
Sandy Bridge's iGPU's Passmark is around... 310. So 10x = Radeon R7 260X or GeForce GTX 560. This puts it into "99$" dedicated video card territory.
So if this makes all the GPU vendors quit putting out garbage GPU's, that's a good thing. However Intel will never shed the "useless iGPU" image. Most iGPU parts that go into desktops are unused as GPU's and are only used for Quicksync. It's allowed plenty of cheap USB "game capture" cards to proliferate and mostly Youtube and and TwitchTV gain from not having to compress the video a second time.
Fingers crossed for USB-C/Thunderbolt 3 in a shiny new housing. Or, at the very least, USB-C/Thunderbolt 3 in the old housing, but with even better battery.
Thunderbolt 3 uses USB-C port. Yes, that's right, you can use Thunderbolt and USB protocols in the SAME port.
The USB-C type port will be the port for EVERYTHING, even MHL 3.0, DisplayPort 1.3, and Thunderbolt thanks to its alternate mode.
Yes they should be. The big problem is that demand for low end chips is evaporating this means that theRe is far less product to distribute development costs across. Expect GPU cards to become far more expensive in the near future. AMD has already been hit hard by this reality. Their APU chips simply can't keep up with Intel even when they leverage their abilities with GPUs. AMD literally needs to pull a rabbit out of the hat for their next APU.
This is good..
So I guess later this year intel NUC with skylake will have HDMI 2.0, DP 1.4 will support at least 2 4K monitors..
DP will daisy chain another 4K monitor at 60hz(?).
I don't think iGPU can't be hardcore gamer. But it will be great for stock trader who don't need external GPU to support more than 2 4K monitors.
NUC will be cheap and great for that. I hope Mac mini update the skylake this year as well(HDMI 2.0).
People has suggested I'm nuts for advising people to hold off for SkyLake but the reality is these GPU improvements are very significant. It means that something like a Nuc or Mini will be viable for many years. Well that is if these machines get the better SkyLake chips.
Yeah the NUC is getting a decent chip but nothing that could be considered "high-end."
I like the idea of the Mini or Nucs, that is very compact PC's that don't waste much space. The biggest problem with them, at least in the past, has been the lackluster GPU performance. The GPUs have been so bad in some models that they effectively couldn't stand in as a HTPC. As the iGPUs have improved this has become less and less of a problem and these new SkyLake Chips pretty much eliminate the GPU as an issue for many uses.
So I would expect to see more and more of these sorts of compact PCs in the future. I really don't think we are far from machines that are composed of a heat sink that mounts on the back of a monitor. A PC that literally sits between the VESA flange and the video monitor. If I looked around hard enough I probably could find something like that today though the performance might be wanting. Decent performance in such a brick should be available with the next process shrink.