Future Macs with Intel's upcoming Skylake chips inside will have significantly faster performance and better battery life over current-generation Macs running on the firm's fifth-generation Broadwell chips.
This is according to a new report by Fanless Tech, which claims to have caught wind of an internal presentation slide from Intel, which details the improvements that future Macs will have over the older versions.
The report says Intel's new 14-nanometer chips can provide as much as 10 to 17 percent boost in performance for single-threaded CPU tasks over the older processors and up to 30 percent more battery life. This means that a Mac running on a Broadwell chip with 8.5 hours of battery life can be extended to more than 11 hours if it uses a Skylake processor.
Graphics performance will also be given a boost anywhere from 16 to more than 40 percent. Users can expect the biggest improvement in graphics in Intel's Y-Series Skylake chips, which are used for low-end devices that do not consume a lot of power and are possibly fanless, such as Apple's 12-inch MacBook.
The Y-Series chips are expected to demonstrate up to 41 percent improvement in integrated graphics, The H-Series chips, which are used for high-end laptops, such as the MacBook Pro, will see as much as 16 percent improvement in graphics. Meanwhile, the U-Series chips, which are used for low-power models such as the MacBook Air, will get around a 34 percent boost, while the S-Series used for desktops, such as the iMac, will get 28 percent.
Other improvements we can expect include support for hardware-accelerated HEVC encoding and support for 4K video recording or Full HD recording of up to four cameras.
Intel is expected to unveil two of its 18 upcoming Skylake processors, the K series and Z170 series, in August at Germany's Gamescom. The remaining 16 chips will be released in the fourth quarter, half of them being high-end processors and the other half developed for mid-range devices.
Word has it that notebook manufacturers are already developing new products based on Intel's Skylake processors, and they are ready to start mass producing in September, with Hewlett-Packard reportedly at the head of the pack.
Intel hopes its new Skylake processors will give the slumping PC market a much needed boost, as people turn to their big-screen smartphones and tablets as their main computing devices.
Photo: Maurizio Pesce | Flickr
