Intel (Finally) Releases Some 5th-gen Broadwell Chips For The Desktop

Intel has just released ten brand-new processors based on its fifth-generation Core architecture, called Broadwell. Five of those join previous models on mobile, while the other five are brand-new for the desktop.

Broadwell is the “tick” part of Intel’s tick/tock cadence, which means it’s an effective slimming down of its predecessor; Haswell was built on a 22nm process, while Broadwell is 14nm. While 95W chips used to be a regular part of Intel’s mainstream lineup, Haswell’s mainstream parts capped off at 88W. With Broadwell, that peak becomes 65W. That doesn’t mean 95W parts are done with, though, as some are rumored to be planned for Skylake.

Besides its drop to 14nm, the overall performance of Broadwell is a bit better than Haswell, especially on the graphics front. Bundling in Iris Pro 6200, Intel says that either for compute or gaming, users can expect up to a 2x performance improvement; about +35% for video encoding, and +20% for general computing. For gaming, Intel says that users could attain playable framerates at 1080p in World of Warcraft using medium settings (~61 FPS) and League of Legends using high settings (~147 FPS).

The full desktop lineup is:

There are a couple of important things to note here. First, “C” models represent an unlocked part, and one that’s socketed – meaning, user upgradeable. The R parts on the other hand are not unlocked and use a ball grid array (BGA) package rather than land grid array, meaning those will be for OEM use only. BGA Broadwells are what we’ve seen in solutions such as Intel’s own NUC.

That all being the case, it means enthusiasts have a choice of exactly two Broadwell chips, and the choice between those is a battle of Core i5 vs. Core i7. There is quite a big difference in specs between what amounts to a $90 difference between these models.

The release of Broadwell for the desktop comes at a great time for those who wanted to build a new rig this summer, but those equipped with Haswell would do well to hold off, as there’s not enough new with Broadwell to warrant upgrading.

What could warrant an upgrade is Skylake, Broadwell’s successor, set to come out this fall. Yes, that does in fact mean that Broadwell’s lifespan is going to be humorously short, but I am glad Intel decided to release it anyway, so that those building new rigs between now and then will have a better option than before. This short timeframe undoubtedly ties into the reason why there are only two socketed models available.

Skylake will require a new socket, LGA1151, and brings with it a number of major upgrades, such as support for Thunderbolt 3.0, DDR4, and DirectX 12. Whenever the Skylake-E enthusiasts chips arrive, it’s rumored that we’ll be introduced to PCIe 4.0. Sounds tasty.