During our live podcast on Wednesday, a viewer asked about the launch schedule for unlocked Broadwell desktop processors. I guesstimated that the chips would arrive mid-year, around the Computex trade show, which is when motherboard makers traditionally roll out new products. The latest leaked roadmap suggests a slightly earlier release, and it maps out Intel’s plans for the rest of the year and into 2016.
VR-Zone’s Chinese alter-ego published the graphic, which schedules unlocked Broadwell chips for mid-Q2. The roadmap doesn’t mention Broadwell-K specifically, but it does refer to unlocked chips with an LGA package and 65W thermal envelope.
If the leak is accurate, the next K-series parts will be based on Skylake-S silicon. They’re slated for the end of Q2, shortly after Broadwell hits the desktop. These unlocked chips will have 95W thermal envelopes, according to the roadmap, and they’ll be joined by non-K variants with 65W and 35W TDPs. Broadwell and Skylake should be able to coexist on the desktop, since the former will work in existing 9-series motherboards, while the latter will presumably require a new chipset.
The mobile variant of Skylake will reportedly debut just before the desktop chip. 15W and 28W flavors of Skylake-U are on tap, both with BGA packages. There’s no mention of a lower-power replacement for the Core M, though. The lowest-wattage chip on the roadmap is the Braswell replacement for Bay Trail-D, which is supposed to arrive early in Q2. That SoC is listed with a 10W thermal envelope, and it seems to be targeted at low-power desktops. Intel is already shipping Cherry Trail, its Bay Trail successor for tablets.
The last item on the roadmap is Broadwell-E, which is scheduled for the first quarter of next year. That CPU should plug into existing X99 motherboards, and it’s listed with the same 140W thermal envelope as Haswell-E.