intel-core-i7-5775c-broadwell

intel-core-i7-5775c-broadwell

Last month, we got our first peek at Intel’s new ‘Braswell’ system-on-chip solutions in the form of the Pentium N3700 and Celeron N3050B. These new SoCs used the 14nm process and featured Intel’s new Airmont CPU cores. When compared to the company’s 22nm Silvermont microarchitecture, Braswell promised to be more efficient - though what really got our attention was the greatly improved 3D performance.

Like Braswell, Broadwell is a 14nm die shrink. Broadwell is a derivative of Haswell, which was built using the 22nm process. Naturally, moving to a smaller process results in a smaller die and lower power consumption. However, as is often the case with Intel’s ‘Tick’ updates, a few minor tweaks have also been applied.

Year of release	Microarchitecture	Tick or Tock	Process Node
2015	Broadwell	Tick	14nm
2013	Haswell	Tock	22nm
2012	Ivy Bridge	Tick	22nm
2011	Sandy Bridge	Tock	32nm
2010	Westmere	Tick	32nm
2008	Nehalem	Tock	45nm
2007	Penryn	Tick	45nm
2006	Conroe	Tock	65nm

The advantage of this minor update is that it is compatible with the existing LGA1150 platform, at least when using an Intel 9-series chipset. It is also possible that Z87 motherboards may support these new processors through a BIOS update.

Our Braswell review touched on the fact that setbacks in developing the 14nm process had delayed the arrival of desktop ‘Broadwell’ parts, especially the high performance variants - even though the Z97 family of boards support Broadwell processors, the processors themselves have been missing so far.

Intel officially announced ten new Broadwell processors on June 2, 2015 and, at the time, handed out very limited review samples - sadly, we missed out then. We were far from the only ones, though, and getting your hands on the now month-old processor series is still next to impossible as of this writing.

Our sources indicate an early August availability - which is odd, given that Broadwell was announced two months prior. Additionally, Broadwell has already been heavily delayed, so it’s surprising that Intel has gone for what appears to be an unorganized soft launch.

Whatever the case, we now know that there are almost a dozen desktop Broadwell CPUs inbound, and today we have the flagship model on hand. Of the ten new models, five are 65W desktop processors, and five are 47W laptop processors.