Asus believes Coffee Lake should work on Z270

[NumLock21]

Bit-Tech recently sat down with Asus ROG product manager Andrew Wu with the discussion on Z370 and Coffee Lake, and found out straight from Asus themselves that Coffee Lake should work on Z270 and the extra pins don't mean much difference to warrant a new board. Z270 might support Coffee Lake and all it need was a bios update as well as a update to the Management Engine. But in the end, Intel makes the calls and they all have to follow it. Mr. Wu then goes on to Intel's defense by saying, those who owns a Z270 probably won't upgrade anyway, and the Z370 is mostly targeted those who have way older systems.

 

• Quote

   

  • bit-tech: Can you go into more technical detail about why the new CPUs are not backwards-compatible with Z270 motherboards?
  • Andrew: Actually, it depends on Intel’s decision.
  • bit-tech: So it’s not a physical limitation? Intel said it was to do with power delivery.
  • Andrew: Not really. It [the power delivery] makes a little bit of difference, but not much.
  • bit-tech: So what are they referring to – the 20 or so unused pins from before?
  • Andrew: Yes.
  • bit-tech: So if you wanted and Intel let you, you could make Z270 compatible?
  • Andrew: Yes, but you also require an upgrade from the ME [Management Engine] and a BIOS update. Intel somehow has locked the compatibility.
  • bit-tech: The 20 previously unused pins that you mentioned, what are they now used for?
  • Andrew: Many of them are used for power control. It's possible that these are in preparation for the high-core count processors.

   

  http://www.bit-tech.net/features/tech/motherboards/asus-interview-andrew-wu-rog-motherboard-pm/1/

[dragoon20005]

so this is Intel decision to fu*k end users up into buying a new board

 

thanks Intel

 

 

[RadiatingLight]

Yeah. Expected.

[rip]

now just need to have kaby/sky working on z370 right

[NoRomanBatmansAllowed]

Just when we though intel were going to be less dickish...

[NumLock21]

Just now, rip said:

now just need to have kaby/sky working on z370 right

Why? The reason to get a Z370 is for the 6 cores, why buy a Z370 and go backwards with a quad core?

 

[Damascus]

It's been well known its firmware.  Intel made a statement on how the new hex cores are more demanding and rather than risk old boards nt being capable they just said no t oall

[rip]

Just now, NumLock21 said:

Why? The reason to get a Z370 is for the 6 cores, why buy a Z370 and go backwards with a quad core?

 

bragging rights?

[Fictionvl]

tbh it makes sense, but then again 6 cores require more power in some sense, since older boards are incapable of running them to the fullest?I hope to see benchmarks of coffee lake on Z270

[NumLock21]

1 minute ago, rip said:

bragging rights?

I'm sure those that went with that i5 7640x with a X299 got lots of bragging rights!

[rip]

Just now, NumLock21 said:

I'm sure those that went with that i5 7640x with a X299 got lots of bragging rights!

maybe those with low money who would like to buy a g4560 and then upgrade to a future 8700k?

anyway im dumb 

[CookieMaster]

I thought linus tried this and it didn't work?

Has anybody actually tried?

[Fictionvl]

Just now, CookieMaster said:

I thought linus tried this and it didn't work?

Has anybody actually tried?

didnt work because there's no bios update for it.

[NoRomanBatmansAllowed]

2 minutes ago, huilun02 said:

Just get AM4

AM4 isn't perfect, and as we've seen with the FX lineup, intially AMD makes a lot of sense by they always seem to lapse behind until another major refresh happens.

[Damascus]

1 minute ago, huilun02 said:

And yet existing AM4 will get Zen refresh and Zen 2. I'll take sense and whatever lapse that may or may not occur, over another company bent on squeezing my wallet dry. 

FX was clearly garbage IPC when it launched, a straight up regression of speed.  IMO it's not comparable to zen, a brand new architecture with insane efficiency and a truly high core count

[just_dave]

The all power delivery thing is BS.

Most good Z270 boards had overkill VRMs, they would have no problem with another 20-40A

[Dabombinable]

Considering Asus were the main manufacturer who had backward support for CPU with different voltage regulator requirements. hence this dot point for some boards: 

• VRD11.1 CPU support (backward support VRD10.X CPU)

[JoostinOnline]

50 minutes ago, rip said:

now just need to have kaby/sky working on z370 right

That's utterly pointless. 

[Master Disaster]

LOL.

 

So without naming and shaming, certain people in the other threads who "knew for a fact" Intel couldn't support CL on older chipsets were talking out of their asses.

[Brooksie359]

Love it how they say that most people on the z270 motherboard wouldn't want to upgrade to the i7 8700k anyways. I can see a lot of people wanting the extra 2 cores tbh.

[BubblyCharizard]

4 minutes ago, Master Disaster said:

 

LOL.

 

So without naming and shaming, certain people in the other threads who "knew for a fact" Intel couldn't support CL on older chipsets were talking out of their asses.

 

no one really claimed it, but intel wanted to make sure that the motherboards were properly built for coffee lake, the same reason why some (not many) 100 series boards didn't support kaby lake.....especially since the early benchmarks were on 200 series chipset

[samcool55]

1 hour ago, bob51zhang said:

AM4 isn't perfect, and as we've seen with the FX lineup, intially AMD makes a lot of sense by they always seem to lapse behind until another major refresh happens.

I don't think FX is a good example, most AM3 boards were cheap and not at all designed for 200+w cpu's so imo it makes sense to block support because it could cause a lot of blown up am3 vrm's.

 

Also this time AM4 is more versatile. You can get an APU (didn't exist for AM3+), cheap and good enough for simple gaming, add a dGPU later and get a new cpu 2-3 years later without swapping the motherboard. You can basically go from an "ok" system for eSports to a decent workstation/gaming machine.

 

FX cpu's were crap to game with regardless which one you got...

 

[mr moose]

1 hour ago, Master Disaster said:

LOL.

 

So without naming and shaming, certain people in the other threads who "knew for a fact" Intel couldn't support CL on older chipsets were talking out of their asses.

I don't know if there were others who did, but my argument has always been that we didn't know anything for a fact.   That is was a safe bet it wouldn't be supported, and that Intel's claims of power management being the reason weren't unfounded or drawing an excessively long straw.

 

And quite frankly the quote above seems to simply re-iterate what we already knew adding only that the 20 extra pins are not absolutely essential if your motherboard has decent enough power delivery/control.

 

EDIT: by quote above I mean in the OP not master disaster's.

[Prox1ma]

1 hour ago, huilun02 said:

And yet existing AM4 will get Zen refresh and Zen 2. I'll take sense and whatever lapse that may or may not occur, over another company bent on squeezing my wallet dry. 

True that, but I doubt Zen refresh / Zen 2 would give any drastic performance gains against Zen. We may get to see some IPC improvement, but I'm very skeptical. I doubt AMD will catch up to Intel in IPC or clock speed event at Zen 3

[FRlTZ]

There is a issue with intel, it is called "SELL MORE", and is based on a stupid philosophy that a motherboard should only be compatible with 2 gens of CPUs.

It is fine if you as a consumer, are rich and have a lot of money to spend, and you REALLY love to take out all the cables and watercooling sets of the computer, to implement a new motherboard with CPU...

 

AMD has solved this: We promise that this will be our active socket for the next couple of years, that means we promise you can use the TR4 socket on the next gen CPU and it's offspring.

 

Intel, that right now is shaking by the hard left-right combo that AMD gave with the 1-2 punches of the Ryzen then Threadripper, should have solved this on a whole other level, not only did they pre-launch the last CPU, but pushed up and launched the Coffee Lake by some 6-8 months, and just to hurts it's own economy even more, they created a whole new chipset for the new CPU, but instead of making it possible to be same connectors as the existing series, they went out and switched some of the connectors, just for kicks and giggles.

 

 

 

I went from AMD Dragon (1090T BE) to the Skylake CPU, and as soon as I heard about AMD comming back with the Zen and Ryzen/Threadripper, instantly regretting buying this, and now, that they released the Coffee Lake I had a tiny glimmer of hope that Intel still was worth something, but...nay...

 

Intel seems more and more like a moneygrabbing troll, with dead CPU development, failed promotional material where they actually goes WAY beyond corporate politeness and calling AMD's CPU's "Glued".....

 

 

Intel, If i ever get rich or win lotto, I will buy you, just to close you down !

 

 

 

 

I posted this yesterday: