Intel to launch Sandy Bridge CPU without IGP

Intel will be launching three new Sandy Bridge processor without the integrated graphics core, one of which will be the rumoured Core i5-2550K. Next to the Core i5-2550K Intel is also planning a Core i5-2380P and Core i5-2450P. Assumed is that the P indicator has something to do with the lack of an active graphics core.

It might be possible that these are fully fteched Sandy Bridge processors, yet with the IGP simply disabled as due to bad yields the graphics core wasn't working properly (yet the rest of the chips is fully functional).

As VR-Zone reported the Core i5-2380P is clocked at 3.1GHz, the same as the Core i5-2400 and it has the same Turbo Boost frequency of 3.4GHz. The Core i5-2450P is the odd one out here, as it's clocked at 3.2GHz with a top Turbo Boost frequency of 3.5GHz, in other words 100MHz slower than the Core i5-2500. The Core i5-2550K on the other hand is 100MHz faster than the Core i5-2500K at 3.4GHz with a top Turbo Boost clock speed of 3.8GHz. All three models have 6MB cache, but none of them have VT-d or TXT support, a feature all previous non-K SKUs have had in the Core i5 family.

Sadly we don't know when these models will launch, but we'd expect them to arrive sometime early next year. We'd expect the P SKUs to be priced slightly lower than models with built in graphics, but we're not sure where Intel is planning on positioning the 2550K, as in reality it's a lesser version to the 2500K, so we'll see how Intel prices it and explains the lack of integrated graphics as a selling point.