Chip giant Intel on Tuesday finally unveiled new quad-core mobile processors based on its Broadwell architecture -- six months after the first Broadwell chips rolled out -- but it may be too late to snag Apple's recently updated MacBook Pro.
Intel's new chips include the i7-5950HQ, -5050HQ, -5750HQ, and -5700HQ. Each one carries a 47-watt TDP rating with base clock frequencies ranging from 2.5 gigahertz to 2.9 gigahertz.
The processors all contain 4 physical cores --Â or 8 logical cores when using Hyper-Threading --Â and 6 megabytes of L3 cache. The 5950, 5850, and 5750 ship with Intel's Iris Pro 6200 graphics, while the 5700 comes with Intel HD 5600 graphics.
If Apple were to move the 15-inch MacBook Pro lineup to Broadwell, these are the chips they would use. The larger MacBook Pro was recently updated with faster storage and a Force Touch trackpad, however, while sticking with previous-generation Haswell processors.
Given the recent revamp and rumors that suggest Intel's next-generation Skylake platform will debut before the end of 2015, it seems likely that Apple will skip Broadwell in its high-performance notebooks. Skylake will bring performance and efficiency improvements, along with support for WiGig, Rezence charging, and possibly Thunderbolt 3.