Intel announces Mac Pro-class Xeon laptop processors, balancing power and mobility

E3-1500M processors will be based on the Skylake architecture delivering high precision computing performance in a portable form factor. The chipmaker blueprints to take advantage of this fad when using the Xeon Processor E3-1500M v5 Product Family.

Intel’s Xeon chips have been powering workstations for a long time, and for the first time, Intel will offer Xeon processor options for laptops. Intel has also promised to create a list of certified software for computer-aided design, engineering, and digital media production, so owners will know which programs are guaranteed to work without issue on their machines.

Intel said it would announce further plans for this technology for laptops in the near future.

“[The] Xeon-based mobile workstations will have key features such as error-correcting code memory that automatically detects and repairs errors on-the-fly that cause data corruption and system crashes for peace-of-mind reliability”.

The E3-1500M V5 will be available this fall when Skylake is officially launched, but for more specific information, stay tuned to our coverage of the Intel Developer Forum which starts August 18.

In addition to taking advantage of built-in Intel vPro Technology, mobile workstations with Xeon processors will also support Thunderbolt 3, which is based on the reversible USB-C and promises speeds of up to 40Gbps.

This announcement does not give details about what types of processors (if they might be dual core, quad core, or have eDRAM) will be coming to the market, only that the mobile workstation market (according to IDC’s most recent report) has showed its sixth straight quarter of year-over-year growth which is a big pointer into the decision to release Xeon on mobile.

“We’re not quite ready to unveil all the details, but as you can see there is a lot for content creators, designers and engineers to get excited about”.