Forget Intel Broadwell, Skylake On the Way

Mobile CPU overclocking has lost a lot of interest for sure.

I still remember all the horror stories when I hardware overclocked my old Core 2 duo laptop from 2.26GHz to 3GHz which also meant the RAM and FSB being overclocked. Stories ranging from bursting into flames, frying eggs and reduced life to name a few. That laptop is about 7 years old now with over 6 of those permanently overclocked and never had a problem with the CPU and components except for battery, CDROM and power adapter. The power adapter didn't die because of the overclock but because it was invaded by ants, don't know how they managed to get in there but they did.

It's nice to have a boost within ones budget and one could argue it increases the lifetime of the machine before feeling the need to upgrade so overclocked it actually can last longer than not overclocked.

As for the Skylake results overclocking appears on par with Devil's Canyon so while not so great on the desktop scene, gains might be a bit better mobile wise.

 

Wrong conclusion, imo.

They don't seem so disappointing to me.

See:
http://www.tweaktown.com/reviews/72...0k-cpu-z170-chipset-gt530-review/index14.html


This is a cpu/platform we are discussing and the benefits are obviously there (with the right RAM).


Besides, desktop priorities and capabilities are different than that of mobile platforms. We'll wait to see if Skylake can give me 7% to 27% out of box increase or almost 8% to over 30% gains when the right RAM is used (see link above).

But even that measly 7% would possibly mean I might need to work about 4 hours less a week to accomplish as much as I do now in an 60 hour week...

 

To be fair tiller, as long as Intel maintains status quo, I don't think they could do anything to disappoint you

 

No, that is not true at all. What is status quo for you? Improving on each iteration for the same or lower cost? If so, maybe we can agree.

I don't make money being a fanboi of anything or anyone. I need tools to do so and Intel is the one providing those tools today.

 

Of course, but it's usually the people that enjoy using the product to its fullest that are usually most valuable resources. Not Joe Shmo that just uses Excel to keep his grocery list on, who will likely be the one to ask for help.

It's not just overclock. It's performance on demand. It's providing the added power as needed to get the most out of your system. If you're going to play League of Legends you don't need any OC or managing thermal of the machine. But if you go to play GTA V then you'll want to boost power more. A newer platform doesn't mean better. If you can tweak your system so it meets your needs instead of buying a new system, why not?

 

I'm not sure that this is true anymore. It was indisputably the case as late as Nehalem, but starting with Sandy Bridge, it's clear that more and more consideration is given to the lower TDP parts. It may very well be that the their priority for Skylake were the mobile parts and the desktop performance is lackluster because of this.

 

I'm talking about quad core i7's, not low TDP parts

 

Newer doesn't necessarily mean better performance, granted. But if mere tweaking (at no $$$ cost - and no stability/risk and noise/power annoyances) brought you a significantly better system, I would still be doing it too.

Considering all the other benefits a new platform brings (if, after testing, it's performance increase is a given, for a specific workflow...), spending money to upgrade an old platform (cpu, cooling, power supply...) has never been beneficial, ime.

The far, far better approach (yeah; for me) which I've adapted for many, many years now is to save and upgrade to a new platform and have two systems instead of a half broken one. The old one can be put to use, as needed. It can be sold. It can be donated (my preference lately).

But either way, a new platform worth upgrading to is always the most economical move to make in the long run. This has been played out for me over and over in past years.

Upgrading a system (again; me) is strictly:

• O/S
  • And that on a clean install and on a different HDD/SSD than the one currently in use
• RAM
  • Capacity trumps all - but if you can use better sticks for just a little more $, even better
  • Best to max out the RAM near the beginning of the lifecycle of the system, rather than the end.
• Storage Subsystem
  • Bigger storage capacity
  • Faster storage

Anything else? Either keep using the system as best you can (including OC'ing if you can afford the possible risks) or; upgrade to a better/newer platform.

(Again; please don't believe the websites or internet chants that repeat the mantra that the latest platform is a letdown - test it for yourself and then you'll know the truth for your specific workflows - which is just as I do and all I hold as the 'truth' for me).

 

As someone who is looking for longer battery life in my laptops, I'm completely pumped for Skylake.

Glad Intel considers that a priority...seems like a lot of desktop + high-end laptop users here, but just to add some balance to this discussion, haha.

 

It'll be interesting to see how close skylake laptop cpus will be compared to desktop cpus, considering the desktops performance has been stagnant

 

Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk

 

Skylake quad core should great as so as the dual core, but only when compared with other previous generation in the same category. Otherwise the market will be flooded even more of the same low TDP processors same as the 15 watt models, but with that being Skylake, even lesser TDP where possible.
Haswell quad core will be always be faster than any Skylake dual core, though at the expensive of battery life, but once connect to mains powers, then becomes irrelevant.
The recent days Skylake reviews now showing what the performance difference is, and the actual differences, which ain't much.
Bring on power efficiency platforms for all the mobile devices through Skylake.

 

Bombshell just dropped for all you "I want a desktop replacement notebook":

Intel is releasing a Skylake-based fully unlocked mobile chip (K-series)

 

Interesting, so this picture from May might actually be true.

 

Oh, yeah! I forgot about that leak. Curious how the unlocked part isn't the "highest-numbered" part:

i7-6820HK
i7-6920HQ

Huh. Wonder what's special about that i7-6920HQ?

 

Iris Pro graphics probably

 

i wonder if there is more to these overclocking mobile chips than meets the eye. oems can barely keep the current chips cool with no oc. how are they going to manage quantum leap in cooling , specially in the era of thin and light beats me :/

 

Ohhh, that's true. Huh...that would be pretty interesting, seeing as that 128MB eDRAM cache even helps with beastly dedicated GPUs.

Not sure anyone's putting this in a thin and light; the overclocked CPUs go into multiple-inch-thick laptops: http://www.tweaktown.com/news/40558...e-i7-4940mx-chip-clocked-at-4-4ghz/index.html

 

It's easy. You don't use thin and light.
Anybody on this planet buying a thin and light laptop intending to overclock should just remove themselves from the gene pool so they don't pass on their stupidity. It sounds harsh, but the laws of physics are not something you get around because you want a razer thin laptop weighing 3 pounds that performs like and keeps cool like my 9 pound SLI beast while being quiet.

 

If the K is like $20 more than the 6820HQ and put into decent chassis that would be good. Otherwise having an unlocked mobile isn't that big a news story.

However it might or might not be interesting to see how the Skylake mobile Xeons fair in laptops. (E3-1500M v5)

 

Intel may actually impress with Skylake.

 

I don't see the signature H in there... I wonder if those Xeons are socketed? If they're socketed and lack iGPUs then they could be the comeback for performance notebooks. Assuming overclockability of course XD

 

considering that even desktop K series hit a plateau around 4.6GHz on pretty much 80% of them, I doubt the mobile ones can do any better. with Skylake OC just seems to be a fixed function, since very very few goes above 4.6ghz...

 

yeah it's kind of silly since their default is so high (4.2GHz) but hey, if people have liquid cooling and can get it past 4.6GHz or whatever, let them go right ahead. Same arguement is for laptops, no? Whoever has good enough cooling let them OC

 

yeah but Clevo has already managed to cool 4790K and 980M in 1.5" chassis with P750ZM. so why bother with a mobile cpu when a desktop performance can be had for the same thickness, dimensions and lower price ?

 

no but what I'm saying is that this time it just seems like the CPU is designed to cap out at 4.6GHz, which is more or less like a pre-determined clock that's available rather than actually try and get the best possible. the mobile xeons probably would get the best bins but still there's not much headroom in terms of frequencies wouldn't it?

 

There are reviews that have OC'd Skylake up to 5GHz. Some agree that 4.7/4.8GHz is possible as an average.

While a measly 1 or 2 hundred MHz more may seem negligible, the performance that entails is much more than on previous platforms because that was usually one or two cores at that speed - Skylake is at that OC on all four (always).

 

I've seen no evidence toward that, though.

I'm pretty sure you can adjust a per-core multiplier since Sandy Bridge. There's lots of haswell chips around that hit 4.7-4.8 on all 4 cores. There is no reason to push haswell to have mismatched core speeds. In fact, I don't. I removed the 3.7 and 3.6 multiplier for 1 core and 2 cores and keep the whole chip at 3.5GHz all the time for mine. All my OC profiles have all 4 cores using the same max multiplier too. The statement that earlier CPUs had to only hit 4.7-4.8 on a single core just isn't true.

 

Thanks for the clarification. I did not know.

 

Skylake DT seems to overclock much the same as DC (4790K). Plenty of those can go past 4.6GHz depending on how much voltage you are comfortable with. As for heat, this article should be of interest. http://www.overclock.net/t/1568357/skylake-delidded

As for the mobile Xeon 1500M v5 my guess is they will be based on the Broadwell 1500 series which have a TDP of 45W and up to 8 cores / 16 Threads.

On my old 2500K DT the CPU had no trouble hitting 5GHz however due to cooling the best I could run 4 cores at heavy load was 4.6GHz so I had it stepped from 4 cores at 4.6GHz up to one core at 5GHz. Perhaps it would have been better to use custom power limits.

 

Intels bringing skylake xeons to notebook
https://blogs.intel.com/technology/2015/08/bringing-intel-xeon-to-notebook-pcs/

i can already see a macbook pro with it

 

They are really jumping the gun with Skylake. I wasn't expecting this just yet.

 

Intel hinted at how big Skylake would be. I hope they don't waste availability on mbp's though...

 

lol.

I doubt this is going to be anything more than rebadged Core i7s with ecc support and iris pro.
to rip off customers than anything really actually useful for mobile professionals like say a hex core mobile cpu

 

Man, I'm just going to wait and see when other Manufacturers add mobile Skylake. We know Sager is doing it. I'm wondering if MSI and Gigabyte will have 6th Gen by the end of this year. But they have since added Broadwell...

 

according to leaked slides, https://twitter.com/thesoulfate/status/596600565653602304

one of the skus will have gt4e support

 

It seems intel has been focusing on power consumption and igpu which is great for laptop user, but what can we really expect from Skylale and is it worth waiting?

Sager launched a nice sale on some of their models probably to start getting rid of their inventory for the new chips.. wondersing ifni should bite..

4710 with 16gb of ram, 970m, 1tb hdd and 120gb ssd for $1275 or something is a pretty nice deal if you ask me.. however waiting another few months on a cpu thay would offer a longer battery life doesnt bother me..

What are you guys thinking??

 

All Xeon E3s are rebadged Core i7s, even on the desktop. It's basically an inexpensive way to get ECC memory, because some workloads require that.

 

I was in your boat also until last friday when i decided to order my next laptop. I decided that 5-10% increase either in CPU power or battery time wouldn't make that much of a difference to me. The same applies for PCI-E lane update from 2.0 -> 3.0 and those usb c-connectors. While Thunderbolt would be nice for future needs (new shiny peripherals) it's not a deal breaker for me. I don't have any interest in resolutions over Full HD (HDMI 1.4 & miniDP) and i tend to use only internal HDD's except for backups and USB 3 is fast enough for that.

I just bought this Y70 during spring but the GPU isn't strong enough for my needs and that's my primary reason for updating. Maybe i'll jump the skylake wagon (or whatever is the "current" gen at the time) next time i'll need to update my primary computer.

Also one thing which affected my conclusion is that at least the current laptops have been tested for faults and there's good drivers available. With new models the first adopters will always have to take care of the "testing" of the new models and then you have to wait for better drivers and BIOS versions to correct problems with them.

That's a good price for those parts! (from european perspective)

 

See:
http://www.tomsitpro.com/articles/lenovo-thinkpad-workstation-mobile-xeon,1-2794.html


Lenovo is first out of the gate. Well, at least the announcement is.

Great to see the return of the 17" model, built in screen calibrator and dual sets of mouse buttons too.

I smell upgrade in the air...

 

Thinkpads's features are as expected i guess. only point of interest atm is whether the xeon can be overclocked

 

Too big. Where's 11.6", or at least 12.5" convertible with Xeon? =)

 

NO
*beats with Clevo stick*
P770ZM! P770ZM!

 

The Clevo's may be housing the higher performance hardware, but the keyboard, TrackPoint and ThinkTank build quality of the TP line is next to none, ime.

 

Starting work in IT Consulting in Sep.... Could do with something like the P50 lol but it will probably be a 14" Lenovo with ULV CPU... I hope not but god knows...

I like the P771 and with Skylake it's kind of perfect but my Alienware is capable enough and with no AMD/NVIDIA GPUs, no reason for a gaming upgrade IMO..

 

Skylake-U lineup

 

Very cool, and I'm glad to see they are simplifying the chip models - too many confusing specialty ones with Haswell and Broadwell.

Charles

 

*continues beating with the clevo stick because it's fun*

 

It's only fun because that is all you know.

I couldn't understand the reason for $10K+ ThinkPads either - until I was finally able to own one a couple of decades back. Since then, almost any other system is a poor imitation of a mobile workstation.

Sure, I've enjoyed my share of other than TP's, but for the most balanced productivity, performance and user satisfaction, a (high end) TP is a mobile platform done right when all aspects are considered.

Screen, keyboard and mouse/trackpoint is at least as important to raw performance a system is capable of (unless, the workload is simply click 'begin' and let it work).

So...
(clevo) sticks and stones (fruity 'computers') can't break my bones...

and TP's have been the most fun I've had... with a mobile workstation.

 

Clevo hardware inside a ThinkPad chassis would be epic.

SOMEONE MAKE THIS HAPPEN