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Mid range and low voltage Skylake release?

IT Troll

IT Troll

IT Troll

Soldato
Joined
15 Jun 2005
Posts
2,798
Location
Edinburgh
Does anyone know when the mid range and low voltage Skylake processors are due to be released? I'm after something for an HTPC build.

I believe the mid range H170 motherboards are due to be released next week.
 
I'm also waiting for the new CPUs to build a fanless HTPC, but was hoping some of them would come with GT3 or GT4 graphics, but maybe those will be reserved only for the laptop processors.
 
A bit disappointing that none of the desktop Skylake chips have anything better than the 530 graphics.

I wonder if one of the desktop Broadwell chips might be a better shout to put into an HTPC at 65W TDP withIris 6200?
 
Much better.
Iris 6200 is supposed to have power comparable to GTX 750, so it's much better choice.
I read a lot of disspointed comments about the 530 graphics.
It can't even run WoW at 'Fair' details at stable 15 fps (fluctuating between 10-20 and sometimes dropping below10). Check youtube for video's.
 
I guess the next issue is lack of HDMI 2.0 on most Z170 motherboards let alone Z97 ones if I go with the Broadwell option
 
Skylake has hardware decoding of H.265/HEVC and so is the better choice for pure HTPC usage. But if you are wanting gaming too then you are going to need something else.

Unfortunately all the motherboards I've seen have gone for HDMI 1.4. However some of the full ATX boards have DisplayPort which can take an HDMI 2.0 adapter (AKA the AMD method).
 
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I'm not too fussed about gaming as I have a 980Ti in my main desktop.

There are meant to be some Z170 boards with HDMI 2.0 ports but I think they rely on additional (optional) chipsets to enable this (one from Intel, and another from some third party vendor)
 
Yes these are designed with 4K media in mind. The iGPU has hardware decoding and is capable of outputting 4K @ 60Hz. The snag is that most of the motherboards only have HDMI 1.4 and so will only do 4K @ 24Hz.

However you can get the full 60Hz if you get a motherboard with a DisplayPort. Which can then be used with an HDMI 2.0 adapter if you require.
Alternatively some of the high-end Z170 "gaming" motherboards do come with an HDMI 2.0 port; e.g. GA-Z170X-Gaming G1. But then these are rather overkill for a HTPC, where a small H170 board would be a better match.
 
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The i5-6400, i5-6500 and i5-6600 (non-K) are showing up now on amazon. However at those prices there's little point getting any of them. The i5-6600K is about the same price as any of them (more-or-less).

Not too sure about the i3 and pentium ones. Haven't seen any of them yet. AFAIKT only the i5's were slated for a September release.
 
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