Everything We Know About Intel's Skylake Platform

[IInuyasha74]

Intel's Skylake architecture and corresponding platform represent a huge evolution in connectivity, overclocking and, ultimately, system performance. This resource should help answer any questions you have about the company's current desktop PC design.

Everything We Know About Intel's Skylake Platform : Read more

 

[Captainawzome]

Intel's Skylake architecture and corresponding platform represent a huge evolution in connectivity, overclocking and, ultimately, system performance. This resource should help answer any questions you have about the company's current desktop PC design.

Everything We Know About Intel's Skylake Platform : Read more

Thanks! Sadly, this page does not explain the nuances of other factors such as overclocking potential, and the probability of getting a skylake CPU that overclocks to 4.6, 4.8, etc

Very informational though!

 

[logainofhades]

I suspect that if Zen is in any way successful, Intel will back off a bit, on the non z overclock stance. If they price a chip that is competitive, say at least on the same single threaded performance level as Haswell, with a locked i3 or i5, AMD will get a much needed boost in sales. I honestly hope something like this happens. This one side dominating completely, is bad for consumers.

 

[IInuyasha74]

Intel's Skylake architecture and corresponding platform represent a huge evolution in connectivity, overclocking and, ultimately, system performance. This resource should help answer any questions you have about the company's current desktop PC design.

Everything We Know About Intel's Skylake Platform : Read more

Thanks! Sadly, this page does not explain the nuances of other factors such as overclocking potential, and the probability of getting a skylake CPU that overclocks to 4.6, 4.8, etc

Very informational though!

Well you see, it is hard to put a number on that which would hold up reliably. Overclocking chips could land just about anywhere, and without testing dozens of samples we couldn't come up with an average overclock that Skylake seems to be able to hit that would hold up well enough.

 

[kunstderfugue]

Hopefully the competition later this year makes Intel reconsider the way they're treating their consumers.

 

[logainofhades]

Yea, I have not been very happy with Intel, since Skylake released. The Xeon chipset part, in particular, irked me. The whole launch has been a disaster of confusion. Glad this article was made to clear some things up.

 

[TJ Hooker]

ASUS, MSI, and Gigabyte all ventured into non-k overclocking on their Z170 boards as well. The BIOSs that enabled it may have been labelled as betas, and I'm not sure if they're available through official channels anymore. But if Biostar gets a mention for releasing and then retracting non-k OC, I don't know why these other manufacturers aren't brought up.

Another drawback of non-k BCLK OC is that CPU core temperature can no longer be read.

Lastly, another potential topic to add is the subject of DDR4 at speeds greater than 2133 MHz. I've seen many forum questions about what CPU/mobo support for running 2400+ MHz DDR4. I'm under the impression that you need a Z170 mobo (I could be wrong), I've seen people say you need an unlocked CPU (from personal experience I know this is wrong), could be handy to add a section to clear this up.

 

[Guest]

Skylake Platform is in my opinion waste of money compared to x99 in about everything.

 

[josejones]

I am far more interested in articles about the soon to come Z270 motherboards

200-Series Union Point Motherboards
http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/id-2983311/200-series-union-point-motherboards.html

 

[Jaran Gaarder Heggen]

Interresting article, but can you please add chipset for dual cpu xeon also in the Workstation area?

 

[hixbot]

I am far more interested in articles about the soon to come Z270 motherboards

200-Series Union Point Motherboards
http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/id-2983311/200-series-union-point-motherboards.html

You will be lucky to see Kaby Lake mobile before the end of 2016. It will be mid 2017 at the earliest before consumers can get their hands on desktop motherboards with Union Point.
Very hard to expect a detailed breakdown of that platform at this time.

 

[hixbot]

Skylake Platform is in my opinion waste of money compared to x99 in about everything.

You are in the minority. X99 is very expensive and a niche platform.

 

[logainofhades]

Skylake Platform is in my opinion waste of money compared to x99 in about everything.

You are in the minority. X99 is very expensive and a niche platform.

Depends on what skylake platform you go with. An i7 6700k build can easily come close a 5820k build, depending on motherboard selection.

 

[lekzero]

So I bought a gigabyte GA-B150m-D3H DDR3 and a i5-6600 to use my ddr3 ram modules, and now I read this news.
Bought because in the gigabyte site is listed in the specifications :
Support for DDR3 / DDR3L 1866 ( OC ) / 1600/1333 MHz memory modules.

 

[plasmastorm]

I have a skyake i5 in my laptop I got last November and it's amazing but there is very little to make me shift to skylake from my 3570k @ 4.5ghz on my main PC sadly

 

[damric]

MJ, can you link me to official Intel statement about DDR3 voltage? I can only seem to google hearsay.

 

[ssdpro]

DDR3L voltage: 1.35v max

http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/processors/core/desktop-6th-gen-core-family-datasheet-vol-1.html

Page 18 and 100 (and about 100 other places it says DDR3L only)

 

[josejones]

Nope, you must be thinking of Cannonlake "expected to be released in the second half of 2017"

However, Kaby does appear to have been pushed back to the 3rd quarter of 2016 when they were originally coming in the 2nd.

I am far more interested in articles about the soon to come Z270 motherboards

200-Series Union Point Motherboards
http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/id-2983311/200-series-union-point-motherboards.html

You will be lucky to see Kaby Lake mobile before the end of 2016. It will be mid 2017 at the earliest before consumers can get their hands on desktop motherboards with Union Point.
Very hard to expect a detailed breakdown of that platform at this time.

 

[IInuyasha74]

MJ, can you link me to official Intel statement about DDR3 voltage? I can only seem to google hearsay.

I cannot. I don't know if Intel has this written on their site somewhere. They probably do, but I am not sure where. All the info I have on RAM listed in the article above came directly from an Intel representative that I asked personally. He had to double check with some engineers at Intel to get the info himself, but Tom's Hardware is the first to publish this info that I am aware of.

 

[damric]

DDR3L voltage: 1.35v max

http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/processors/core/desktop-6th-gen-core-family-datasheet-vol-1.html

Page 18 and 100 (and about 100 other places it says DDR3L only)

MJ, can you link me to official Intel statement about DDR3 voltage? I can only seem to google hearsay.

I cannot. I don't know if Intel has this written on their site somewhere. They probably do, but I am not sure where. All the info I have on RAM listed in the article above came directly from an Intel representative that I asked personally. He had to double check with some engineers at Intel to get the info himself, but Tom's Hardware is the first to publish this info that I am aware of.

I'd like this debunked one way or another. I've already read that data sheet cover to cover and it doesn't explicitly say anything about maximum voltage allowed on DDR3. We've heard this stuff before on previous intel platforms. It's funny, MJ, because most of the "sources" I find when googling eventually lead back to you and your nameless mystery engineers, lol.

 

[ssdpro]

All you need to do is read the datasheet. It never says DDR3. It ONLY says DDR3L and 1.35v max which is specification by JESD79-3. Regardless, it doesn't really matter - it's your CPU overvolt it however you want.

 

[IInuyasha74]

DDR3L voltage: 1.35v max

http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/processors/core/desktop-6th-gen-core-family-datasheet-vol-1.html

Page 18 and 100 (and about 100 other places it says DDR3L only)

MJ, can you link me to official Intel statement about DDR3 voltage? I can only seem to google hearsay.

I cannot. I don't know if Intel has this written on their site somewhere. They probably do, but I am not sure where. All the info I have on RAM listed in the article above came directly from an Intel representative that I asked personally. He had to double check with some engineers at Intel to get the info himself, but Tom's Hardware is the first to publish this info that I am aware of.

I'd like this debunked one way or another. I've already read that data sheet cover to cover and it doesn't explicitly say anything about maximum voltage allowed on DDR3. We've heard this stuff before on previous intel platforms. It's funny, MJ, because most of the "sources" I find when googling eventually lead back to you and your nameless mystery engineers, lol.

Well it is nice to hear Tom's Hardware and I are being credited, but as I said this info comes directly from Intel. We don't give out the names of our contacts inside of companies typically for various reasons, so you will have to take our word for it. Let me put it this way, do you think that we would permit it to be published on Tom's Hardware if Intel didn't tell us? I'm not the only one that looked over the info we received from Intel, and had any one of a number of We aren't a site that is known for publishing rumors, and we consider publishing miss information as unethical in our role as journalists. We don't make up things just to get clicks.

Now to be fair, the processor may work fine for years with higher voltage RAM. Obviously components can do more than they are advertised to do at times. That is why overclocking exists and overvolting. Just it isn't officially supported and the effects on your hardware, system life span and overall stability may change by using RAM that is officially supported.

 

[IInuyasha74]

All you need to do is read the datasheet. It never says DDR3. It ONLY says DDR3L and 1.35v max which is specification by JESD79-3. Regardless, it doesn't really matter - it's your CPU overvolt it however you want.

This is also true, DDR3L is always 1.35V, never higher.

 

[DouglasLand]

So with Microsoft and Intel in kahootz making everyone with a Skylake CPU upgrade to Windows 10 to have certain features work, I'm going to keep my Haswell a WEE bit longer methinks. And Windows 7. Curmudgeon that I am.

 

[MasterMace]

The most disappointing feature of skylake has been its 20 PCIe x16 3.0 lane limitation - I was hoping for 32 so that you can fully SLI/Xfire 2 cards on the system.