Difference between Kaby Lake and Skylake?

[bustinya]

I'm planning on buying a laptop between $600 and $700. I'll be using it at college for homework and regular 'office' work, but with a side of casual gaming (CSGO, LOL, and a few others), as well as streaming Films and TV Series. Most of my options have the i5-6200U Skylake. Nevertheless, I've found some with the newer i5-7200U Kaby Lake. This brought upon me a few questions that I hope somebody can answer.

1. What is the main difference between the Skylake processors and the Kaby Lake processors?

2. More specifically, what is the main difference between the i5-6200U and the i7-6500U, as well as between the i5-7200U and the i7-7500U?

3. Does a computer with an i5-6200U have a better battery life than the same computer with an i7-6500U? Is it the same case between an i5-7200U and an i7-7500U?

 

[Mr Kagouris]

The U-series i5s and i7s are both hyperthreaded quad cores, so I guess the only difference is really that the i7s have a small clock speed advantage.

 

[Dragos Manea]

The U-series i5s and i7s are both hyperthreaded quad cores, so I guess the only difference is really that the i7s have a small clock speed advantage.

They are not hyperthreaded quad cores, they are hyperthreaded dual cores, only notebook quad core is the HQ series and maybe the MQ but dont know sure. The diffrences between them the i5's have 3Mb of smart chache and the 7's have 4 MB of smart cache and i7's ahve a higher clock speed then the i5's. Now they all have the same tdp (some power consumption) but the newer i5's and i7's have higher clock then the older ones.
On short battery will last the same no matter what cpu do you have, they all have the same tdp just some does more stuff with the same energy.
Hope i cleared things up.

 

[Mr Kagouris]

Yup, sorry, meant hyperthreaded dual cores.

 

[Ecky]

Kaby brings slightly higher clockspeeds at the same TDP, some new video decoding blocks, and native USB 3.1. There might be a few other tweaks/changes but it's essentially the same CPU architecture, much like Haswell Refresh / Devil's Canyon was to Haswell (4770K vs 4790K), Intel just gave it a new name this time around.