Generation 6
Intel’s new chips are here and they’re the best yet
Skylake. It sounds like the title of a recent James Bond movie, but is in fact the codename for Intel’s sixth generation of Core processors. It’s hardly news, of course, but the chips are finally on sale, so you can build your own Skylake machine or – better still – buy a pre-overclocked PC with a warranty.
Time was when you’d save money by building a system yourself, but those days are long gone. Not only will you pay more overall because of your lack of buying power – PC builders buy in bulk so pay less – but you’ll end up having to buy from multiple suppliers and potentially face the hassle of dealing with warranty claims or returns with more than one retailer. And you’ll have to pay for a copy of Windows.
This month we asked six UK system builders to put together their best Skylake PC, and you’ll find our reviews on page 68. They all use the new Core i5-6600K CPU. The ‘K’ suffix signifies that the chip is unlocked and overclockable, and all six companies took full advantage pushing frequencies as high as 4.5GHz. To learn how to overclock a CPU yourself, turn to our guide on page 110.
Numbers aren’t the whole story, of course, and the Skylake processors offer more than simply great performance. They also use less power, which is why they’re also a great reason to buy a new laptop. Dell’s new Inspiron 15-5558 is a brilliant example (page 27), but Schenker hasn’t limited itself to the mobile chip. Instead, it opts for a desktop CPU, meaning you get exactly the same i5-6600K as the desktop PCs in our group test.
There are lots of other Skylake processors, of course, and as the full range isn’t yet available to buy, we’ve explained everything you need to know in our complete guide on page 80.
We’ve also been busy this month testing out the latest smartphones including the iPhone 6s Plus, Sony Xperia Z5, Huawei Mate S and Motorola Moto X Style. But if you’re on a much tighter budget you can get a surprisingly good Chinese phone for under £100 (page 46 and 48).
Adobe’s Flash plugin has been in the news a fair bit over the summer, but never for the right reasons. As well as security vulnerabilities, it can also make your web browser run slowly, so now’s a good a time as any to banish it for good. We explain how on page 92. And if you’re wondering which browser is best these days with the introduction of Microsoft Edge, we’ve put the main contenders through their paces on page 86.