VR-Zone

In a last minute attempt at getting rid of some more Sandy Bridge processors, Intel will be launching three new SKUs, one of which will be the rumoured Core i5-2550K. The big news here isn't actually the new models themselves, but the fact that none of the three new models feature built in graphics.

Besides the Core i5-2550K Intel is also planning on launching the Core i5-2380P and the Core i5-2450P where we presume the P has something to do with the lack of an active graphics core. We'd guess that these are parts where the graphics core wasn't working properly, but where the rest of the chips were fully functional and as such Intel decided to launch a few models without graphics. Although a lot of users don't use the Intel graphics that is now part of every single Sandy Bridge processor to date, there are some downsides to this move as for example you can no longer take advantage of Intel's Quick Sync technology.

The Core i5-2380P is clocked at 3.1GHz, the same as the Core i5-2400 and it has the same Turbo Boost frequency of 3.4GHz. The Core i5-2450P is the odd one out here, as it's clocked at 3.2GHz with a top Turbo Boost frequency of 3.5GHz, in other words 100MHz slower than the Core i5-2500. The Core i5-2550K on the other hand is 100MHz faster than the Core i5-2500K at 3.4GHz with a top Turbo Boost clock speed of 3.8GHz. All three models have 6MB cache, but none of them have VT-d or TXT support, a feature all previous non-K SKUs have had in the Core i5 family.

Sadly we don't know when these models will launch, but we'd expect them to arrive sometime early next year. We'd expect the P SKUs to be priced slightly lower than models with built in graphics, but we're not sure where Intel is planning on positioning the 2550K, as in reality it's a lesser version to the 2500K, so we'll see how Intel prices it and explains the lack of integrated graphics as a selling point.