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Intel shares details of next-gen Kaby Lake chips, Core i7 Extreme Edition and more

2016 May 31
by macjeff

Intel today announced at the Computex 2016 show in Taiwan that its seventh-generation Core processors, code-named Kaby Lake, are slated to arrive later this year. It also shared details about an all-new “Extreme” edition of the Core i7 chip for gamers and content creators, the Apollo Lake chips for tablets and hybrid devices such as all-in-ones, and more.

The company highlighted some of the advancements in performance, battery and media capabilities that the Kybe Lake platform provides. In a way, the announcement has paved the way for future Macs built around the Kybe Lake platform.

For Intel, the main theme at Computex involves expanding boundaries as billions of smart and connected devices deliver new experiences, data-rich services and breakthrough insights.

New Kaby Lake chips suitable for Macs

The seventh-generation Intel Core architecture, the Kaby Lake platform, is the likely candidate for the upcoming Mac notebook and iMac refreshes.

Built on the same 14-nanometer process technology like Intel’s previous Broadwell and Skylake platforms, but with optimized microarchitecture, the new Kaby Lake chips are a “semi-tock” product release for the chip giant.

Kaby Lake supports Thunderbolt 3 and USB 3.1 and enables faster performance, advanced media capabilities and lower power consumption. The platform lacks support for DisplayPort 1.3, meaning upcoming Kaby Lake-driven Macs probably won’t be able to drive an external 5K display over a single-stream cable.

These chips should launch by the end of the year, with production beginning within months. More than 400 devices should use Kaby Lake. We expect iMacs and Mac notebooks with Kaby Lake chips to arrive some time in the fall.

Extreme Edition chips for gamers

Intel’s new Core i7 Extreme Edition is every gamer’s dream come true, but content creators, 4K video editors, virtual reality enthusiasts and other creative professionals will no doubt squeeze every bit of power out of it as well.

With ten CPU cores (up to twenty threads), the new Turbo Boost Max Technology 3.0 and quad-channel memory support, it’s Intel’s most powerful desktop processor ever. The Extreme supports up to 40 PCIe lanes for system expansion with multiple discreet graphics cards, SSDs and Thunderbolt 3.0.

Most importantly, Extreme Edition chips are “fully unlocked for performance tuning.”

These Extreme Edition family of processors are available at online retailers worldwide starting today, Intel said.

Other tidbits

Aside from these product introductions, Intel unveiled the new Xeon processor E3-1500 v5 product family for data centers and video delivery that combines the performance of Xeon processors with the graphics power of Intel’s Iris Pro P580 graphic processor.

The new Wi-Fi (XWAY WAV500) and SoC (AnyWAN GRX 750) families represent Intel’s fifth-generation Wi-Fi products for home gateways, with features like support for local and cloud-based services, media creation and content sharing

The company also announced a partnership with iPhone manufacturer Foxconn which will accelerate development of fifth-generation wireless networks. Intel’s technologies like Mobile Edge Computing, Cloud Radio Access Network (CloudRAN) and Network Functions Virtualization (NFV) will enable more intelligent, efficient and flexible networks.

Lastly, Intel said that entry-level Apollo Lake processors for Atom-based all-in-ones, tablet PCs and ultra-thin notebooks would be arriving before the end of the year.

Intel abandons tick-tock release cycle

Intel announced earlier in the year that it would be abandoning its tick-tock release schedule because the industry had reached a point where it was no longer economically and technologically feasible to alternate between shrinking chip fabrication processes and building new architectures each year.

Image top of post: Intel’s Gregory Bryant joins Navin Shenoy via hologram, powered by the new Core i7 Extreme Edition processor.

Source: Intel

Source link: http://www.idownloadblog.com/2016/05/31/intel-kaby-lake-core-i7-extreme-edition-computex/

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