Coffee Lake Processors will not be compatible with Series 200 Chipsets
There has been a bit of confusion about upcoming Intel 6-core Coffee Lake being compatible with the current motherboards like thr Z270 series. Coffee lake makes use of the same socket and as such people expected (or had hoped for that).
It is now confirmed that you cannot use Coffee Lake on existing motherboards. In Specific it was ASRock who unraveled this mystery with a tweet:
As to why Coffee Lake cannot be used on Z270 remains a mystery though. The new processors will likele be introduced in late August or September with their accompanying Z370-chipset.
The presumable i7 8700K will have a 95W TDP, 3.7 GHz base clock, 4 GHz boost for 4/6 cores, 4.2 GHz for dual core and 4.3 GHz for a single core (likely 2 threads). Then there will be a 95W part with 3.2 GHz base clock and 3.4 GHz boost for 4/6 cores, and 3.6 GHz boost for 1 or two 2 threads. The last SKU is a 65W chip with a base clock of 3.1 GHz but 4/6 core turbos to 3.9 GHz. Dual core boost is 4.1 GHz while single core goes up to 4.2 GHz:
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Senior Member
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there wont adapter
not sure if there technical level difficulty, such each socket pin work different etc.
but basically intel support mobo maker to produce new mobo, which is give good sales for mobo maker... mobo maker happy = good relation/promotion
some people might think, people will keep buying the old mobo with upgrade
but that means people that already have, for example 200-series wont change their mobo with coffee lake
Senior Member
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I'm not defending this move however. How many people upgrade their PC core components more often than 4 years? Honestly I would want a new Motherboard by then. Granted som on SKL and KBL would like 6:12 but really it would have been a small number. I have had my Sandybridge for what almost 8 years now. No way would I want or expect the motherboard and RAM to be compatible with new tech.
Senior Member
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X299 was a huge mess. It's better for Coffee Lake processors to not fit on those motherboards imo.
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We were expecting/hoping the same socket because Intel is still stuck on the 14nm node, forcing them to use basically the same cpu since Skylake with minor tweaks. This results in cpus that don´r require new sockets because they are very similar. If Intel was already on the next node, then a new socket would be "normal".
In the end Intel is the one who loses with this move because some who were thinking about upgrading to a six core aren´t going to do it because they need a new board and the ones who are looking to upgrade their new system from scratch are going to think twice about going to Intel and maybe switch to AMD.
Personally i would welcome Coffe Lake support for my system so i could have an possible upgrade path in the future, this way i´m just gonna keep my 7600K for a long time.
Senior Member
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If there are no other technical reasons besides that intel doesn't *want* these CPUs to run on 200 (or dare I say it, 100) series chipsets, then maybe some company can come up with an adapter module or something, like in the olden days.