The Death of Intel’s Broadwell Has Been Greatly Exaggerated - Socketed Broadwell Continues
by Ryan Smith on September 17, 2015 8:45 PM EST- Posted in
- CPUs
- Intel
- Broadwell
- Crystal Well
- Iris Pro
To hop right into the heart of matters, IT World published an article earlier this afternoon stating that Intel was discontinuing their two desktop Broadwell socketed SKUs, the Core i7-5775C and the Core i5-5675C. The two SKUs are notable because they are to date the only socketed Broadwell processors on the desktop, and they are also the only socketed desktop Core processors available with a GT3e Iris Pro GPU configuration – that is, Intel’s more powerful GPU combined with 128MB of eDRAM.
The idea that these processors were discontinued came as quite a shock with us, and after asking Intel for more details, the company quickly responded. Intel has made it very clear to us that these processors have not been discontinued, and that the company continues to manufacture and sell the processors as part of their current Broadwell lineup.
While the company doesn’t have an immediate explaination for the confusion at this time, we believe it may stem from a mix up over Intel’s plans for GT3e/GT4e Skylake parts on the desktop. In short, the company does not have any socketed GT3e/GT4e Core family parts on their roadmap for Skylake, so these Broadwell parts will not be seeing a Skylake refresh. That said, it should also be noted that Intel has not yet begun to ship GT3e/GT4e Skylake chips in other form factors (e.g. the 45W mobile H series), so Intel’s current Broadwell SKUs remain as their top-of-the-line SKUs for graphics across all segments, and it’s likely that will remain the case until 2016 when the Skylake 4+4e parts launch for mobile.
Intel's Skylake Roadmap
Part of the confusion may also stem from a lack of good supply for these processors in the US. Though we’ve seen evidence that the supply is ample in Europe and Asia, retailers such as Newegg have regularly been out of stock of these two processors since their launch in June. Intel’s last comment on the matter, made to the Tech Report back in August, is that the overall supply situation should pick up through Q3, which at this point is the rest of September. After which these SKUs will remain available and Intel’s top desktop graphics SKUs throughout the run of Skylake.
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boozed - Thursday, September 17, 2015 - link
So where's this mythical 95W "Broadwell K"?Mark_gb - Thursday, September 17, 2015 - link
I think it melted... :pboozed - Thursday, September 17, 2015 - link
Whoops, that's the Skylake roadmap.AndrewJacksonZA - Friday, September 18, 2015 - link
"Whoops, that's the Skylake roadmap." - boozedYour username made me snicker at your post. :-)
HeyImHJ - Friday, September 18, 2015 - link
Can they quickly respond to you ask them when the Skylake i7-6700K will be available in North America?, we are 1/2+ of September and stock hasn't improved in the slightest.HollyDOL - Friday, September 18, 2015 - link
It's same for central Europe, if they are available, it's just few pieces (whole Broadwell + Skylake) and they quickly become unavailable (Skylake much faster than Broadwell). Not even speaking about the rest of Skylake LGA-1151 models, which are not even listed in shops as "out of stock/receiving preorders" etc.MrSpadge - Friday, September 18, 2015 - link
Well, i7 6700 is available in central Europe, 60€ cheaper than the cheapest available 6700K:http://geizhals.de/intel-core-i7-6700-bx80662i7670...
silverblue - Friday, September 18, 2015 - link
"Delivering Innovation For Each Segments" nice proof reading there, Intel. /trollSo, Intel presumably doesn't believe there is a need for Skylake-C; either Broadwell-C is perfectly adequate (and why not), or the move to Skylake-C is more trouble/cost than it's worth.
prisonerX - Friday, September 18, 2015 - link
Intel knows no-one wants to buy them, since they're not actually any faster.The only performance Intel is interested in improving is marketing performance. If people understood that Intel make only a small number of different chips and then disable (fuse off) functionality to sell to different markets they'd be ashamed of giving Intel their money.
nightbringer57 - Friday, September 18, 2015 - link
And what CPU/SoC manufacturer exactly doesn't do that?There are myriad of reasons for which doing that is a better solution. Not that Intel's marketing pratiques are perfect, but the binning is an important part of lowering the overall production cost....