Intel has unveiled 40 of its new chips belonging to the Skylake or 6th Generation family.
While there many advancements all over, for the price-sensitive customers, the launch gives special reasons to celebrate.
FOR DESKTOPS
First, the Skylake processors bring 4K UHD display support at a silicon price of just $64 (Rs 4,200). This was unthinkable earlier, as 4K support required you to buy an entry-level Core i3 processor that cost $120, or nearly twice as much.
The chip responsible for this is the dual-core Pentium G4400, with a box price of $64 and a thermal envelope (max power consumption) of 47 watt. In fact, even in the power consumption department, the Pentium G4400 is an advancement, as the entry-level Core i3 used to have a thermal envelope of 54 watts.
LAPTOPS/TABLETS
The good news doesn’t end there for price-sensitive customers.
If desktop is not your thing and you have your focus on a tablet or laptop, here too, there are some substantial advancements.
The biggest advancement is that Intel is bringing its Core M or Y series technology to the Pentium label. And what does that mean? Of course, lower prices.
The last time it had introduced such a chip was back in 2013, when it had the Pentium 3560Y. However, that chip was seriously underpowered, scoring only 30% above the current batch of Airmont (Braswell) cores in single-core performance.
And let’s face it, Intel’s Braswell chips do not exactly blow you away with their performance.
Intel launched a number of Braswell/Airmont based Pentium chips in the beginning of this year intended for laptops and desktops with thermal envelopes of 7.5 watts.
However, these chips (identified with an ‘N’ at the beginning of their model number) cannot be used for general purpose computing due to their poor performance, scoring only 1000 in Geekbench single-core results. These days, even high-end mobile processors (Kirin 950) score double that.
However, the newly launched Pentium 4405Y processor with Skylake Core m technology should double the power of Intel chips meant for cheap tablets and laptops even as it lowers power consumption.
The new Pentium 4405Y comes with a power envelope of just 6 watts and should score about 2,000 Geekbench points on a single core, going by the performance of other Skylake Core m parts unveiled today. That is double the power of Intel’s existing offerings for low-priced laptops and two-in-one convertibles and tablets.
Though the Pentium 4405Y would also have made a nice efficient desktop processor, it unlikely to be available in retail. However, watch out for NUCs and mini-computers with the chip built in soon.
For NUCs and mini-PCs, Intel has also unveiled the ‘U’ version of the chip with Core m technology — Pentium 4405U, which scores about 2200 on Geekbench (single core). The main difference between the 4405Y and the 4405U is not in power, but in power consumption and price.
While both have similar levels of power, the 4405U will be considerably cheaper as it consumes 15 watts at peak compared to 6 watts for 4405Y. However like Pentium 4405Y, 4405U will also only be available to OEMs.
We expect the 4405U to be priced at about $130 and the 4405Y to be priced around $180, excluding partner discounts.
On the other hand, Y series chips that are tagged Core m (m3, m5 and m7 to be precise) will cost between $200 and $300 depending on the exact branding).
So, expect NUCs and cheap laptops and convertibles built with the Pentium 4405Y to have a starting price of just around $280 or about Rs 20,000 in India. In comparison, you get only models with Braswell series chips or AMD processors at that price in India now.
| Name | Cores | Watts | Graphics | Price |
| Core i3-6100 (3M, 3.70 GHz) | 2 | 47 W | 530 | N/A |
| Core i3-6100H (3M, 2.70 GHz) | 2 | 35 W | 530 | N/A |
| Core i3-6100T (3M, 3.20 GHz) | 2 | 35 W | 530 | BOX : $117 |
| Core i3-6100U (3M, 2.30 GHz) | 2 | 15 W | 520 | N/A |
| Core i3-6300 (4M, 3.80 GHz) | 2 | 47 W | 530 | BOX : $147 |
| Core i3-6300T (4M, 3.30 GHz) | 2 | 35 W | 530 | BOX : $147 |
| Core i3-6320 (4M, 3.40 GHz) | 2 | 47 W | 530 | BOX : $157 |
| Core i5-6200U (3M, 2.80 GHz) | 2 | 15 W | 520 | N/A |
| Core i5-6300HQ (6M, 3.20 GHz) | 4 | 45 W | 530 | N/A |
| Core i5-6300U (3M, 3 GHz) | 2 | 15 W | 520 | N/A |
| Core i5-6400 (6M, 3.30 GHz) | 4 | 65 W | 530 | BOX : $187 |
| Core i5-6400T (6M, 2.80 GHz) | 4 | 35 W | 530 | TRAY: $182 |
| Core i5-6440HQ (6M, 3.50 GHz) | 4 | 45 W | 530 | N/A |
| Core i5-6500 (6M, 3.60 GHz) | 4 | 65 W | 530 | BOX : $202, TRAY: $192 |
| Core i5-6500T (6M, 3.10 GHz) | 4 | 35 W | 530 | TRAY: $192 |
| Core i5-6600 (6M, 3.90 GHz) | 4 | 65 W | 530 | BOX : $224, TRAY: $213 |
| Core i5-6600K (6M, 3.90 GHz) | 4 | 91 W | 530 | BOX : $243, TRAY: $242 |
| Core i5-6600T (6M, 3.50 GHz) | 4 | 35 W | 530 | TRAY: $213 |
| Core i7-6500U (4M, 3.10 GHz) | 2 | 15 W | 520 | N/A |
| Core i7-6600U (4M, 3.40 GHz) | 2 | 15 W | 520 | N/A |
| Core i7-6650U (4M, 3.40 GHz) | 2 | 15 W | N/A | |
| Core i7-6700 (8M, 4 GHz) | 4 | 65 W | 530 | TRAY: $303, BOX : $312 |
| Core i7-6700HQ (6M, 3.50 GHz) | 4 | 45 W | 530 | N/A |
| Core i7-6700K (8M, up to 4.20 GHz) | 4 | 91 W | 530 | BOX : $350, TRAY: $339 |
| Core i7-6700T (8M, 3.60 GHz) | 4 | 35 W | 530 | TRAY: $303 |
| Core i7-6820HK (8M, 3.60 GHz) | 4 | 45 W | 530 | N/A |
| Core i7-6820HQ (8M, 3.60 GHz) | 4 | 45 W | 530 | N/A |
| Core i7-6920HQ (8M, 3.80 GHz) | 4 | 45 W | 530 | N/A |
| Core m3-6Y30 (4M, 2.20 GHz) | 2 | 4.5 W | 515 | N/A |
| Core m5-6Y54 Processor (4M, 2.70 GHz) | 2 | 4.5 W | 515 | N/A |
| Core m5-6Y57 (4M, 2.80 GHz) | 2 | 4.5 W | 515 | N/A |
| Core m7-6Y75 (4M, 3.10 GHz) | 2 | 4.5 W | 515 | N/A |
| Pentium 4405U (2M, 2.10 GHz) | 2 | 15 W | 510 | N/A |
| Pentium 4405Y (2M, 1.50 GHz) | 2 | 6 W | 510 | N/A |
| Pentium G4400 (3M, 3.30 GHz) | 2 | 47 W | 510 | BOX : $64 |
| Pentium G4400T (3M, 2.90 GHz) | 2 | 35 W | 510 | N/A |
| Pentium G4500 (3M, 3.50 GHz) | 2 | 47 W | 530 | BOX : $82 |
| Pentium G4500T (3M, 3 GHz) | 2 | 35 W | 530 | N/A |
| Pentium G4520 (3M Cache, 3.60 GHz) | 2 | 47 W | 530 | BOX : $93 |
| Xeon E3-1505M v5 (8M, 2.80 GHz) | 4 | 45 W | P530 | N/A |
| Xeon E3-1535M v5 (8M, 2.90 GHz) | 4 | 45 W | P530 | N/A |