Intel Unleashes Onslaught Of Skylake CPUs For Next Gen Notebooks, Convertibles And Compute Sticks

When it comes to Intel’s Skylake processors, we’ve already got you covered things on the desktop side with a review of the Intel Core i7-6700K and the Z170 chipset. We followed that up with an in-depth look at Skylake’s Gen9 graphics architecture. Now Intel is following up on its Skylake bonanza by opening the floodgates on at least two dozen SKUs mostly covering the mobile sector. You’ll find detailed specs for all, and even lot pricing for some.

When it comes to Skylake, Intel is divvying up the range into four distinct series. There’s the Y-Series, which is dedicated to 2-in-1 convertibles, tablets, and Intel’s new Compute Stick venture. Then there’s the U-Series, which is aimed at thin and light notebooks and “portable” all-in-one machines. The H-Series has its sights set on gaming notebooks and mobile workstations, while the S-Series is designated for desktops, all-in-one machines, and mini PCs.

Taking a deeper dive into the Y-Series, what was previously known as simply the Core M (we’ve seen that chip previously in products like the 12-inch Apple MacBook and Asus Transformer Book Chi T300) is now expanding into a whole family of processors. There will be Core m3, Core m5, and Core m7 processors, which could be likened to the Core i3, Core i5, and Core i7 differentiators that we’ve grown accustomed to over the years in the desktop and mobile sectors.

Looking at the specs for the Y-Series, the main differentiators between the Core m3, Core m5, and Core m7 lie in not just in the processor clocks (which scale higher from Core m3 through Core m7), but also with the maximum graphics clocks for the Intel HD Graphics 515 GPU (all three families have a base graphics clock of 300MHz). Core m3, Core m5, and Core m7 have max graphics clocks of 850MHz, 900MHz, and 1GHz respectively. All of the new Core m processor have a TDP of 4.5W although Intel says that that figure can drop to as low as 3.5W under low-load situations and peak as high as 7W when more performance is required.

Intel is making some big promises with Skylake-based Core m processor, including claims that its processors offer twice the performance of competing tablets like the iPad Air 2, up to ten hours of battery life and 40 percent great performance than last year’s Core M processors. The Core m3 and Core m5 will also be used on the desktop side in future iterations of Intel’s Compute Stick. Skylake power is definitely a big step up from the Atom Z3735F processor found in the current iterations of the Compute Stick.

Intel also has a rather large assortment of 15W U-Series processors that feature either Intel HD Graphics 520 or Iris HD Graphics 540 spending on the SKU. Intel also has four 28W U-Series SKUs that range from the 2.7GHz Core i3-6167U up to a Core i7-6567U. All of these processors incorporate Iris Graphics 550 and even support DDR4 memory.

Sitting at the top of the totem pole are the 45W model Xeon processors, which are also part of the H-Series. Both processors incorporate Intel HD Graphics P530, DDR4 memory support and as one might expect, pricing for the chips is on the pricey side with the E3-1505M v5 and E3-1535M v5 retailing for $434 and $623 respectively in lots of 1,000. 

Early last month, Lenovo announced that its new P50 and P70 mobile workstations would incorporate Intel’s new mobile Xeon processor, with both systems shipping in the fourth quarter.