Intel has reportedly delayed its upcoming 14nm Skylake desktop CPUs to the end of August, according to sources speaking to Digitimes.
The CPUs and their corresponding 100-series chipsets were originally set to launch in the second quarter of 2015, following Intel's normal release schedule, but sources in Taiwan's motherboard industry say we won't see them until later than that. The delay will also affect production and shipment plans of the Haswell Refresh and Broadwell-U series, and could also affect other Broadwell models featuring a 65W TDP.
The report of the delay, if it's accurate, is disappointing. But it's not surprising. Due to delays to Intel's Broadwell platform (specifically, the desktop processors), Skylake was going to release nearly simultaneously. Even as recently as January, reports said Skylake wouldn't be delayed, but it makes far more sense for Intel to space the two platform launches out by several months.
Unfortunately this means that PC makers won't get their hands on the chip in time to have Skylake-based models ready to show off at Computex 2015 in June, when we previously expected to first see Skylake machines in the wild. This could potentially affect PC sales in the second half of 2015, but could also be a move to encourage people to upgrade to Broadwell now, rather than skipping a generation and waiting for Skylake.
Following Intel's typical pattern, Broadwell is the smaller "tick" upgrade, while Skylake will be a more substantial "tock" architecture change.
