August 4, 2017 at 17:56Coffee Lake processors may need new motherboards
Unfortunately, future Intel Coffee Lake processors, due out before mid-October, are likely to be incompatible with current 200-series motherboards that Kaby Lake runs on.
A message about this appeared on Wednesday in the official Twitter account of the company ASRock, which is engaged in the production of motherboards.
In response to a question from one of the users to @ASRockInfo whether Z270 Supercarrier motherboards will support Coffee Lake processors, the answer was that future processors are not compatible with 200 series motherboards.
ASRock subsequently deleted its answer . There is a version that this was done under pressure from Intel.
The editors of PCWorld magazine contacted ASRock representatives, but received no response. Intel declined to comment on the message on the ASRock Twitter account, noting that it did not comment on future products.
If the rumors are true, then with the new processor, with a future upgrade, you will have to buy a new motherboard.
PCWorld believes that one of the possible reasons for this decision by Intel may be the so-called "market segmentation." That is, the company wants to be paid more money.
Another possible reason is that the company wants to make sure that the entire system is guaranteed to be balanced and to avoid possible problems with technical support. There is a possibility that officially Coffee Lake will work only on the Z370, but unofficially they can be inserted into old Z270 motherboards with previous chipsets. But this is only hope, because in reality this possibility may not exist. Although Coffee Lake chips are based on the same 14nm process technology (with improvements) and seem to use the same chipset, they may be the first 6-core processors on the new platform, and Z270 motherboards were not designed for such power consumption.
This turn of events is disadvantageous for motherboard manufacturers, says PCWorld, because users can refuse to buy Z270 boards, and perhaps ASRock’s current gesture is a kind of attempt to influence Intel to change its mind.
A message about this appeared on Wednesday in the official Twitter account of the company ASRock, which is engaged in the production of motherboards.
In response to a question from one of the users to @ASRockInfo whether Z270 Supercarrier motherboards will support Coffee Lake processors, the answer was that future processors are not compatible with 200 series motherboards.
ASRock subsequently deleted its answer . There is a version that this was done under pressure from Intel.
The editors of PCWorld magazine contacted ASRock representatives, but received no response. Intel declined to comment on the message on the ASRock Twitter account, noting that it did not comment on future products.
If the rumors are true, then with the new processor, with a future upgrade, you will have to buy a new motherboard.
PCWorld believes that one of the possible reasons for this decision by Intel may be the so-called "market segmentation." That is, the company wants to be paid more money.
Another possible reason is that the company wants to make sure that the entire system is guaranteed to be balanced and to avoid possible problems with technical support. There is a possibility that officially Coffee Lake will work only on the Z370, but unofficially they can be inserted into old Z270 motherboards with previous chipsets. But this is only hope, because in reality this possibility may not exist. Although Coffee Lake chips are based on the same 14nm process technology (with improvements) and seem to use the same chipset, they may be the first 6-core processors on the new platform, and Z270 motherboards were not designed for such power consumption.
This turn of events is disadvantageous for motherboard manufacturers, says PCWorld, because users can refuse to buy Z270 boards, and perhaps ASRock’s current gesture is a kind of attempt to influence Intel to change its mind.