Intel intros pair of Skylake CPUs without integrated graphics

[HEXUS]

Meanwhile its $16.7 billion purchase of Altera Corp. completes.

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[LemmingOverlord]

I'm guessing "DU"-class CPUs is juxtaposed "ultra low power" for "desktop"

[scaryjim]

I'm guessing "DU"-class CPUs is juxtaposed "ultra low power" for "desktop"

That was my first thought too. If that's right, the big question would be whether they were socketed, or BGA for use in set-top style boxes. Perhaps a use for silicon that won't hit the lower voltages required for mobile? They could easily cope with an extra 5W - 10W TDP if they were intended for desktop use...

[pastymuncher]

Presumeably these new gpu less cpu's are locked? They should have made the unlocked "K" series cpu's without onboard graphics. I should imagine the vast majority of people who buy them are enthusiasts with discrete gpu's. I have never used the onboard gpu on my 4670k.

[Percy1983]

I will say being able to buy without a gpu would be nice across the board if it could make prices cheaper, but I guess with economies of scale its cheaper to leave it in than it is to take it out.

I love the GPUs on my AMD APUs (the main reason for buying them) but have never used the GPU on my 3570k.

[devBunny]

Intel plans to begin selling products made up of a Xeon chip and an Altera FPGA

Which will be useful to whom for doing what?

[Peter Parker]

Which will be useful to whom for doing what?

I can think of a few examples :-

* Finance - I've heard of investment banks using FPGAs several times.
* Science - weather prediction and other super-computer users might benefit from being to optimise parts of their system in gate logic.
* Intelligence - it'd be nice to be able to implement some kind of custom DSP functions if you're trying to process lots of video/audio data.

All these can be done on a normal CPU, GPU, or DSP, but having a block of programmable gate logic on a off-the-shelf Intel CPU could be very attractive to some big spenders.