New Sandy Bridge i5 Processors To Have No iGPU

There has been much speculation recently about the upcoming Core i5-2550K, and it's specs and price. One of Sandy Bridge's selling points has been the integrated GPU, but it appears this will no longer be the case for the whole range. VR-Zone have now revealed preliminary details of three new i5 processors, including Core i5-2550K, which will not have an active iGPU.

The fastest of these new processors is the Core i5-2550K, with a base clock of 3.4 GHz and a maximum Turbo Boost speed of 3.8 GHz. The "K" suffix tells us that it will have an unlocked multiplier, so should overclock as easily as an Core i5-2500K.

The other two SKUs to be launched are Core i5-2380P and Core i5-2450P. Core i5-2380P has the same clock speeds as Core i5-2400, a base clock of 3.1 GHz and Turbo speed of 3.4GHz. Core i5-2450P has a base clock of 3.2 GHz and a Turbo clock of 2.5 GHz, making it 100 MHz slower than Core i5-2500.

All three new models have 6 MB level 3 cache, and most other features are consistent with other Core i5 Sandy Bridge processors. However, other Core i5 non-K SKUs have all featured VT-d and TXT support. The source says that none of the new processors will have either of these features. It has been speculated that Core i5-2550K will be a faster i5-2500K, but this new information implies it will actually be a trimmed down version, albeit with a slightly higher clock speed.

Pricing and release dates are not yet known for the new models, but with Ivy Bridge just around the corner I would expect to see them over the next few weeks. I would expect prices to be slightly lower than similar models with iGPU, even for the 2550K, due to the reduced feature set.