Published in PC Hardware

Most Broadwell parts launching in Q1 2015

by on16 July 2014

Broadwell-Y is Q4 2014

We have mentioned that Broadwell-Y is launching in Q4 2014 and this will be the only market segment to get the new 14nm architecture in 2014. Intel’s Y-series of processors is all about low power, low TDPs and is fitting in the thinnest and lightest devices. It could be viewed as the jewell in Intel's processor crown. Everything else is coming in Q1 2015 and beyond.

Broadwell 14nm, also known as the 5th generation Core, will come in a range of Core i7, Core i5 and Core i3 products. This is not all as there will be Pentium and Celeron based Broadwell processors. This might bring some confusion as Celeron and Pentium products are going to get the Braswell core and the same Celeron and Pentium branding. Obviously Intel will use different numbers to differentiate these products, knowing that most of its consumers don't understand the difference and that a bigger number denotes a better chip. 

Broadwell-Y, currently branded as Core 5Y70, will be the only 14nm processor line to launch in Q4 2014, followed by two lower spec SKUs based on the same Broadwell-Y core.

Most Broadwell products with a higher TDP, including Broadwell-U processors that range between 15W and 28W, will launch in Q1 2015. This is the bulk of Intel’s mobile processors, as most of them will feature a TDP of 15W to 28W. 

The high performance Broadwell-H with TDPs of 47W will start coming in Q2 2015 and according to what we saw there won't be Broadwell-M based processors with such high TDPs. They can possibly come later but not before Q2 2015 or most likely later.

We don't know when Skylake, the second generation 14nm Core is coming to notebooks but according to some plans desktop version codenamed Skylake-S might be coming as soon as Q2 2015. We will keep our eyes open for Skylake mobile parts, but we don't expect miracles as the tock version based on 14nm manufacturing process cannot end up being that much faster than Broadwell. This is what we learned from the past tick-tock way of introduction.

Still with most of its mobile parts transitioned to 14nm already in first half of 2015, Intel will have a huge advantage over AMD, Qualcomm, Nvidia, Samsung and the rest of the competition, as 14nm is without a doubt more efficient then 20nm which is the best that the competing fabs can do in 2015.

Last modified on 16 July 2014
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