Earlier this August, the Intel Developer Conference took place. There, the company unveiled the capabilities of the seventh generation of its processors, Kaby Lake. Now, a month later, Intel Corporate Vice President Navin Shenoy has provided more details on the third "optimized" member of the 14nm chip family to follow the Broadwells and the Skylakes.
Shenoy, representing Intel, has officially unveiled its first Y-Series and U-Series processors. During the presentation, the company focused attention on the speed and 4K UHD support provided by these new processors. What's interesting, moreover, is that both new chips, Y-Series and U-Series, could be included in future updates of MacBook Retina and MacBook Airrespectively.
Intel's Kaby Lake, super powerful processors
The new Kaby Lake processors (prepared as a mid-generation upgrade ahead of Intel's Cannonlake processors) are a moderate improvement over previous Skylake chips. Intel has focused its attention on showing the benefits that these XNUMXth generation processors will bring to users. These benefits include the 4K Ultra HD video streaming, 360-degree video playback, and higher, more intensive graphics performance for gaming on smaller computers.
In addition to having received the necessary support for the reproduction of content in 4K quality from services such as YouTube or Netflix, Intel's Kaby Lake processors will also grant users the ability to create and edit your own 4K content at speeds up to 8x faster than a five-year-old PC.
Improved 14 gauge process
Intel's Kaby Lake processors have been manufactured using an improved version of Intel's 14-nanometer process, known as 14nm +. According to the company, this process has produced a 12 percent faster processor in productivity and up to 19 percent faster on the web over previous generations.
Regular users will find that these improvements are applied when switching between applications, and even within heavy-duty applications like 4K video editing software.
Improved battery life
In addition, improving battery life will be another advantage contributed. Intel says the new processors will allow up to 9,5 hours of 4K video playback on any computer starting this fall.
The launch of the Kaby LaKe processors marks Intel's first processor after the company abandoned its "tick-tock" release cycle. According to this cycle, "ticks" represented the reduction of chip manufacturing processes, while "tocks" introduced new architectures.
Intel Kaby Lake Y Series processors that may be introduced in Apple MacBooks
The future chips of the MacBook and MacBook Air
All three announced Kaby Lake Y-series processors are suitable updates for Apple's MacBook. However, last April these were updated to Skylake chips, so no other update is expected in the immediate future.
All three U-series chips could be introduced in future MacBook Air modelsas long as its graphics performance is sufficient for Apple's needs. The new U-series chips include Intel HD "GT2" graphics, while Apple has always preferred to use relatively higher performance chips, the "GT3" graphics, in the MacBook Air.
Intel's Kaby Lake U Series processors that could integrate future MacBook Airs
It is rumored that Apple could launch a MacBook Air update as early as October. Given this proximity, it is unclear whether they will use the Skylake chips or these new Kaby Lake chips. Current models continue to run on previous Broadwell chips.
Lastly, new Kaby Lake mobile chips with Iris graphics and desktop chips (appropriate for the MacBook Pro and iMac) are expected to debut in January. But Intel did not disclose a timeframe or further characteristics in this regard.
