Intel to start mass production of Broadwell-E in early 2016

Intel will start mass production of Broadwell-E, the upcoming desktop platform for the high-end market, in early 2016. That’s what VR-Zone claims. The site also publishes a photo of an engineering sample from Skylake-S. The first two samples would be clocked at 2.2GHz and 2.3GHz.

Broadwell-E is combined with the current X99 platform for Haswell-E, comes in variants with six and eight cores. Intel also comes with the usual K and Extreme Edition models, whose multiplier is unlocked for overclocking options, claims VR-Zone. The Taiwanese site often releases correct Intel information early. The platform is very similar to Haswell-E, but the Broadwell-E processors are produced at 14nm instead of 22nm and support ddr4 2400 memory instead of ddr4 2133. Due to the combination with the X99 platform, the tdp remains at 140W.

The first Broadwell chips are the Core m models for entry-level laptops and tablets, which will appear at the end of this year. After that, and thus before the introduction of Broadwell-E for the high-end market, Intel will come with Skylake for the lower segments. This generation is also produced at 14nm, but also brings a new architecture. According to VR-Zone again, the first engineering samples are now being sent to Intel partners. It would be two models: one with a clock speed of 2.3GHz and a Turbo Boost to 2.9GHz, and a variant with a clock speed of 2.2GHz with Turbo Boost to 2.4GHz and with GT2 GPU. Skylake-S is paired with Z170, H170, B150, Q150 and Q170 chipsets. Skylake should appear in the second half of 2015 according to Intel itself.