Coffee Lake Not Supported by Intel’s 200-Series Motherboards
by Ian Cutress on August 2, 2017 5:12 PM EST- Posted in
- CPUs
- Intel
- LGA1151
- 200-series
- Core 8th Gen
- Coffee Lake
- 300-Series
In a stunning bit of Twitter, a tweet from one of the leading motherboard manufacturers has stated that Coffee Lake, Intel’s 8th Generation Core processors, will not be supported on the current generation of 200-series motherboards.
No，Coffee Lake CPU is not compatibilble with 200 series motherboards.
— July 31, 2017
Information like this is usually kept under wraps until an Intel reveal, but it seems to have been mindlessly posted to Twitter on July 31st, an account that last tweeted on April 11th before this tweet occurred. This tweet has since been deleted.
At this point, due to the similar microarchitecture to Kaby Lake being used in Coffee Lake, most of the technology press were under the impression that the Coffee Lake processors would be compatible with LGA1151 socket motherboards, namely the 100-series and 200-series. With the above tweet essentially confirming that Coffee Lake will not be supported, it means that either the new CPUs will not be LGA1151, or that the motherboards will lock-out the processors by firmware, or the CPUs and sockets will use a different notching system to ensure the wrong processor cannot be put in the wrong board. It does mean however that 200-series users hoping to upgrade to a Coffee Lake processor (which early reports are suggesting might be up to six cores, but this has not been announced) will not be able to.
There are many potential reasons for the change if the socket is still LGA1151. The obvious one would be product segmentation on Intel’s part, which would stick in the craw for a number of the user base. The second one that it might actually be a physical requirement for the processor – if previously unused pins are required for power and/or control for different elements of the DVFS in the chip. This would depend on new features on the chip, which could extend to different power management, different graphics, or different IP blocks that require separate pin-out connections. Intel might also be using a different power system for voltage regulators, which might not be compatible with current 200-series motherboards.
At this point, nothing has been made official. The fact that this was stated on Twitter so far from any launch date that we know of is an interesting development.
*The name of the manufacturer has been removed by request after this news was published.
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mapesdhs - Friday, August 4, 2017 - link
I suppose if they're going to end up in a coffin, they make as well make their own nails. :Dcyberguyz - Thursday, August 3, 2017 - link
Pretty tired of Intel making socket changes just about every time they drop a new cpu. Intel motherboards are getting too damn expensive to have to get a new one when I move up to a new cpu.Perhaps it is time to move my butt over to AMD who has been known for keeping their motherboard architectures compatible across several chip updates.
rocky12345 - Thursday, August 3, 2017 - link
Yea Intel is known for this type of thing. They just release the 200 series chipsets and only have one product on them smart move Intel and a great way to drive consumers to AMD's Ryzen platform.With all of the weird things Intel has been doing lately you have to wonder if they turned the whole company over to a bunch of trained monkeys or something. They have been questionable things since AMD launched the Ryzen series. Other than power requirements there is no reason the Coffee lake CPU's should not at least work with the 200 series chip sets and with how most mainboards are over built these days even the power requirement argument Intel will probably use is null and void I am sure. This all comes down to greed and nothing more. Motherboard makers love the fact that Intel likes to change the sockets so often because it means big bucks for everyone involved. I wouldn't be surprised if Intel and the motherboard makers have an agreement in place that does just that. Intel says hey guys if you put the very best features on our platform boards we will make sure you sell a lot of them by changing things up very often.
It would explain why Intel boards always seem to have the better feature set than AMD's to some extent. I am not one that is into the conspiracy theories but if the shoe fits in this case and we all know just how dirty Intel can be.
BenJeremy - Thursday, August 3, 2017 - link
Enthusiasts should be running from Intel from here on out. If nothing else, they should over the premature birth of the X299 motherboards and the lame, cash-grab of VROC hobbling RAID configs on those motherboards. It's sad that my Z170 is MORE CAPABLE with the onboard M.2 slots than an X299 system, since both are still tied to DMI (To get true benefits of VROC-based RAID, you need an add-in PCI-e card and the currently non-existent and pricey VROC "Upgrade"key)
My next system is going to be AMD. Threadripper looks beefy compared to Intel's offerings.
Gothmoth - Thursday, August 3, 2017 - link
i see there are enough stupids who defend anything intels does.... LOLHurr Durr - Thursday, August 3, 2017 - link
It`s just your butthurt talking, as usual.Eventually you`ll learn to deal with it. Hopefully.
mapesdhs - Friday, August 4, 2017 - link
Nope, there are definitely plenty of people who defend anything Intel does, despite the evidence that what they're doing is dumb. I've made critical comments about Intel, for which I was lambasted, yet the tech sites said the very same things in the past but at the time they were lauded for holding Intel to account (which made no difference). In recent years though, Intel's practices have gone largely uncriticised by the tech media.jiffylube1024 - Thursday, August 3, 2017 - link
So ridiculous. It's annoying enough that they do minor socket changes every 3-4 years (1155 > 1150 > 1151).I've faithfully stuck by Intel through 1155 > 1150 > 1151, and I'll give coffee lake a look when it all shakes out but damn this is annoying.
mapesdhs - Friday, August 4, 2017 - link
Why the "faith"? It's just tech; they're not promising you 73 virgins in the afterlife. :D If they fail to deliver value, shop elsewhere.Samus - Thursday, August 3, 2017 - link
This is good for AMD then. By the way, fuck you Intel. You pulled this shit with the 80 series chipset not supporting Broadwell (and even newer Haswell chips) then said the 90 series would support the next generation of CPU's which it didn't requiring everyone to upgrade to 100 series and I mean WTF.Haven't upgraded since. Next system will be probably be AMD once I find a reason my i5-4670k isn't good enough...