I Knew It. Intel Doesn't Want To Support Kaby Lake On Z370

[NvidiaIntelAMDLoveTriangle]

Bloody well knew it, Intel won't allow Kaby Lake processors to work on Z370 motherboards even though they can. Also Z370 will only support Covfefe and nothing else. So Cannon Lake or Ice Lake or whatever the next one is because honestly I don't even know which is switch anymore, won't work on Z370.

So if you're planning on getting Covfefe do yourself a favor and get a Z390 motherboard which according to some rumors that I can't find right now, I'm sure someone will post them if they can or want to, will support Covfefe and whatever the next one is.

 

Quote from Hilbert:

Quote

Much has been said and spoken about Intel upcoming 6-core Coffee Lake processors. It will launch based on a LGA 1151 Socket. We’ve been able to confirm that Z370 will only support Coffee Lake processors. Here’s the shocker, they could support Kaby Lake, yet Intel doesn’t allow it.

Over the past few weeks I have been talking to many motherboard manufacturers, and the story is the same. There is no reason for the Z370 chipset to not be able to support last-gen Kaby Lake, it is merely firmware restriction. Intel is enforcing the motherboard manufacturers to only support Intel 8th gen processors, thus Coffee Lake on Z370.

We’ve seen it in the past though, a BIOS update all of the sudden might enable other processors. The board-partners are very tight-lipped about this, understandably. Earlier this week you have already seen our Dutch colleagues from HWI try out a 7th gen Celeron G3930 Kaby Lake based processor on Z370. That processor got in the BIOS post code up-to code 26 when it halted. Post code 26 is the graphics pass, all passes before that would have been valid including memory and CPU.

According to some board partners the extra pins used on Z370 are merely supported voltage pahs. Ergo, (but not confirmed) perhapsvice versa Coffee lake could have been supported on Z270 as well. But this last bit remains speculation of course. But the reality is, that other processors than Coffee Lake on LGA1151 could have been supported on Z370, yet Intel simply will not allow board partners to support them.

New info also shows that the new 6-core procs can do an all-core 5 GHz overclock on a proper air cooler / liquid cooling without too much complication.

 

Source:

http://www.guru3d.com/news-story/intel-z370-chipset-could-support-kaby-lake-but-intel-will-not-allow-it.html

 

Oh and based on what he's saying it would seem like Z270 might've worked with Covfefe. But don't take it as an absolute since it's just speculation. Which knowing how Intel works, I wouldn't be surprised if they indeed worked.

 

 

 

 

[DocSwag]

I think that everyone already knew this...

[Jurrunio]

Old news are always exciting I guess

 

 

To someone poor like me though Coffee Lake only means cheaper used CPUs and motherboards, and that's good.

[PlayStation 2]

Are we still making inferences over nothing?

[Hunter259]

Why is this a big deal exactly? What features are going to be added to this platform that Z170/270 didn't have?

[DocSwag]

8 minutes ago, Hunter259 said:

Why is this a big deal exactly? What features are going to be added to this platform that Z170/270 didn't have?

6 cores

[ravenshrike]

Gotta keep that upgrade train rolling.

[samcool55]

F you Intel, that's really anti-consumer....

 

[captain cactus]

[BWLServers]

Intel by definition is anti-consumer.

[Hunter259]

1 hour ago, DocSwag said:

6 cores

Which don't exist with Kaby Lake....

[Mooshi]

To be completely honest here, once my system is 4+ years old, I have zero desire to plop a modern processor into it and would have already had plans for a full platform upgrade. In the grand scheme of things, this is a non issue.

[Drak3]

At this point, it would be a bigger revelation if I bought a white RAM, had the color tested, and it turned out my white truck was white.

 

But obligatory "boo intel" comment.

[Nicnac]

1 hour ago, BWLServers said:

Intel by definition is anti-consumer.

I'd prefer pro-profit. Anti-consumer has such a negative connotation...

[ARikozuM]

The pinouts are different for the KBL and CFL chips. Could Intel have made due with the current socket? I'm not an engineer and can't say. 

4 minutes ago, Drak3 said:

At this point, it would be a bigger revelation if I bought a white RAM, had the color tested, and it turned out my white truck was white.

Please use hex codes for color as "white" is too vague for testing.

[Jito463]

22 minutes ago, ARikozuM said:

The pinouts are different for the KBL and CFL chips.

That was the rumor circulating, but I don't believe it was ever confirmed.

[MyName13]

1 hour ago, Mooshi said:

To be completely honest here, once my system is 4+ years old, I have zero desire to plop a modern processor into it and would have already had plans for a full platform upgrade. In the grand scheme of things, this is a non issue.

Not to mention that motherboards have 3 year warranties so you'd actually put a new CPU on a 4 year motherboard and expect it to last 7-8 years, after the socket dies there won't be any motherboards on the market.Theres no reason to make sockets last longer when you have the best CPUs on the market.There's also a potential lack of (ddr4) ram (because of ddr5).

[Bananasplit_00]

3 hours ago, DocSwag said:

I think that everyone already knew this...

congrats on the 10K  wellcome to the club

[Master Disaster]

What's funny is a few of the names in this thread were also in the older threads about Z170/270 supporting CL and were adamant that Intel had to change things on the socket to support new tech in the chips and that they had no choice but not support older chipsets with Coffee Lake.

 

Quote

Spot on, Intel had to rearrange the pins to support the additional cores and DDR4-2666. It's not "Intel being assholes and creating artificial limitations"

 

Now it's emerging that Intel could have done backwards compatibility the same people are in here agreeing to posts like they knew this was the case from the start.

 

Just an interesting observation.

[vanished]

Well, they had two choices:

• Make the new chips compatible with old boards and sell chips to both new buyers and those with existing Intel boards, or
• Make the new chips not compatible with old boards, forcing anyone who wants a new chip to buy a new board, thus increasing revenue from sales of new boards, but decreasing revenue from fewer people being willing to buy the new chip.

I guess they took the second option, which means they figure they'll make more through additional board sales than they'll lose from alienating existing owners.

I guess we'll never know if that was a smart move or not but ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[Skanky Sylveon]

2 minutes ago, Ryan_Vickers said:

I guess they took the second option, which means they figure they'll make more through additional board sales than they'll lose from alienating existing owners.

I guess we'll never know if that was a smart move or not but ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

In a post Ryzen world, I would say it's pretty dumb.

[vanished]

Just now, Cinnabar Sonar said:

In a post Ryzen world, I would say it's pretty dumb.

I agree.  I mentioned this way back when the rumours of this news broke and Luke said the same thing on the WAN show:

 

In a market where Intel is the only real option, they can play tricks like this to force sales, but when there's a potential alternative, it doesn't work any more.  They should be doing everything they can to retain existing customers (ie, go with option #1 in my previous post).  By not doing that, and by forcing anyone who wants the new chip to buy a new board, they've made the barrier to entry equal for everyone, which means if someone wants to upgrade, they could go Intel, or they could go Ryzen too since the cost would be the "same" (they'd have to buy a new board anyway)

[Master Disaster]

3 minutes ago, Ryan_Vickers said:

I agree.  I mentioned this way back when the rumours of this news broke and Luke said the same thing on the WAN show:

 

In a market where Intel is the only real option, they can play tricks like this to force sales, but when there's a potential alternative, it doesn't work any more.  They should be doing everything they can to retain existing customers (ie, go with option #1 in my previous post).  By not doing that, and by forcing anyone who wants the new chip to buy a new board, they've made the barrier to entry equal for everyone, which means if someone wants to upgrade, they could go Intel, or they could go Ryzen too since the cost would be the "same" (they'd have to buy a new board anyway)

It seems as though AMD really did shake things up with Ryzen, some of Intel's recent decisions seem rushed and frankly baffling, they have the stench of a company in panic mode making knee jerk reactions without fully contemplating the situation.

 

I can't decide if it's fear or stupidity in the wheelhouse at Intel these days.

[Dabombinable]

Can Intel stop making chipsets and allow some competition again?

[NumLock21]

12 minutes ago, Dabombinable said:

Can Intel stop making chipsets and allow some competition again?

They been doing this chipset nonsense since 2005, with the first ever dual core Pentium D.

or a bit earlier with the 915 chipset that only work with P4 not PD.