Unlocked Socketed 65W Broadwell Iris Pro Desktop CPU Demoed by Intel at GDC15
by Ian Cutress on March 5, 2015 1:22 PM EST- Posted in
- CPUs
- Trade Shows
- Overclocking
- Broadwell
- Crystal Well
- Iris Pro
- Unlocked
- 65W
- 14nm
- GDC15
The next twelve months are set to be exciting times for the desktop space for Intel. While the current fifth generation mobile processors are coming to market, and the sixth generation being talked about in hushed tones, Intel demonstrated a PC that was listed as having a Broadwell desktop part (Broadwell-DT). The interesting culmination of factors surrounding this part is that it was listed as being socketed, unlocked and containing Iris Pro internal graphics.
The key elements here include the CPU being socketed (replaceable), unlocked (overclockable) and having Iris Pro, or Intel’s extended eDRAM segmentation usually under the Crystal Well name but with the much improved Generation 8 graphics architecture. While we have heard that an unlocked Iris Pro has been coming to desktop since March last year, very few details were given at the time, and the news today at least puts a TDP on such a part: 65W. Normally the high end SKUs from Intel are 77W to 85W, suggesting that this component may not in actual fact be an i7, or it could be an Iris Pro part but using one of the low power monikers such as ‘S’.
Image from Intel
The news also puts on a more firm date, so rather than ‘2015’ we get ‘mid-2015’, which puts it within the May to September timeframe. There are two important events occurring between those dates - Computex in June and the Intel Developer Forum in August, suggesting that Intel may aim for one of these events to have a formal launch.
Despite the launch of 14nm on the desktop, there has been recent talk of Intel’s next architecture, Skylake, also occurring within the year. This puts Intel in an interesting dynamic of releasing two different platforms for desktop within the same year. One could speculate and suggest that these will synergistically work in tandem, with Skylake-DT taking a segment and Broadwell-DT taking another segment. Where mobile fits into all this as well is difficult to tell, especially given the launch of Broadwell-U and Core-M within the past few months.
As much as we would like more information, it seems that the only thing we can tell is that the motherboard being used looks like an EVGA design due to the right angled power connector. Intel is also stating that the Iris Pro model will be great for all-in-ones (no argument there) which could also feature its RealSense camera, enhancing compute power and interactivity. It would be interesting if a socketed Iris Pro was truly aimed at the AIO market, but then such a SKU would not need to be unlocked. Unlocking for the purposes of overclocking is naturally aimed at the desktop market, although usually for gamers with discrete GPUs rather than Iris Pro.
Naturally we want to get our hands on a sample for review. Ryan is at GDC this week so if he gets a chance to spend a few minutes with the system it would be interesting to hear what they actually represented in the demo as well as more information about the system itself.
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Refuge - Monday, March 9, 2015 - link
Actually, they had a special trim in California that was a nice pastel hot pink for awhile when I worked for Ford.It was the "Pink Ladies" trim or something like that, some sort of woman group in CA. Not sure what they did, but they got their own special color and trim level. (Just a California trim with a hot pastel pink paint job and a special emblem.)
CPUGPUGURU - Saturday, March 7, 2015 - link
You can stick your AMD cheer leading principals where the sun don't shine.My loyalty is to my hard earned money and for years now I don't upgrade my CPU because Intel's massive performance advantage gives me all the performance I need now and the future. Unlike AMD watt wasting IPC cripple CPUs Intel delivers the performance needed to skip a upgrade cycle or two/three, I have 920, 980 and Sandy Bridge rigs that with a high end GPU run new games with all the features and eye-candy turn on while AMD has nothing but bottle necking multi GPU strangulating, hot watt sucking CPUs. Wasting your money on a AMD rig makes you want to upgrade as soon as you turn it on, not so with Intel and its been like that for years now. Invest in a Intel rig and there is no need to upgrade and by the time the need for speed becomes a reality there's a whole new Intel platform to build without throwing good money away on a old inferior obsolete rig (AMD).
So sorry but its so true.
jeffry - Sunday, March 8, 2015 - link
The only reason to upgrade a CPU younger than, lets say 2008, is to play games. Or to get some special tasks done, like rendering...for "tyical" user cases, there is barely any need to upgrade.CPUGPUGURU - Sunday, March 8, 2015 - link
Absolutely right Jeffry but only if you when with Intel CPU that delivers the performance to skip upgrade cycles, now if you wasted your hard earned money on a AMD watt sucking IPC cripple, GPU bottle necking CPU then you would want to upgrade as soon as you plugged it in and cried I should of bought a Intel.So sorry but so true
Kutark - Sunday, March 8, 2015 - link
Agreed. My parents are running an old Core 2 Duo for the past 6 years and have had literally 0 issues. I threw a Radeon 6670 in there so my nephew could play minecraft and such when he is visiting his grandparents, and it runs most of the games he wants to play (including stuff like CS:Source/Go, etc etc) at perfectly acceptable framerates at 1080p. 1080p youtube videos? not a problem. Overall cost of the PC when we bought it + video card i later put into it? $570. Years they've been using it problem free? 6+darkfalz - Sunday, March 8, 2015 - link
Still rock a P965 based E8600 @ 3.8 GHz... hell of a nice system with budget eBay upgrades (4 GB RAM, GTX 560) - actually playing it more than my main PC at the moment because of its location in the house. I think I'll be keeping my 3570K @ 4.2 + 980 GTX for a while yet, should last at least another 2-3 years before upgrade necessary (might need to go to 16 GB at some point but that's a trivial upgrade).Kutark - Sunday, March 8, 2015 - link
Yeah, im rocking a 2700k @ 4.3, 760 SLI, 16gb ram, etc, and have no intention of upgrading for a while. Though i will admit ive gotten the itch BAD this last christmas/tax season. Right now im saving my money to buy that new Acer IPS 1440p Gsync monitor when it comes out. Assuming its not eleventy billion dollars.Gadgety - Friday, March 6, 2015 - link
They took their time to get IrisPro to the desktop. Arriving too late for me. I got the performance I needed for my kid's Sims3 on the PC with the AMD A8-7600. USD250 for an A88X MITX mobo, the A8-7600, and 8GB dual rank memory to boost performance.Refuge - Monday, March 9, 2015 - link
Did the same, I got an A8 laptop and it does everything for my little one, minecraft, WoT, LoL, WoW, SWTOR, Sims 4, but most importantly (Not that is is demanding) his favorite AC3.Dahak - Friday, March 6, 2015 - link
Is it just me or does intel have it backwards for the Iris Pro on the desktop chip.I feel that if you are going to be buying a higher end chip like this, would you not most likely be paring it with a dedicated video card, thereby not needed to use the higher end Iris pro?