Backward compatibility

[Zaydoon]

Is it true, in theory,that intel can make coffee lake processors backward compatible with z170/270 motherboards if Intel intend to by changing bios or other software manibulation or is that impossible?

[FuzzyLogic]

If I remember correctly, the reason Coffee Lake uses a different chipset, but same socket is because it needs better power delivery, so that would be a physical limitation of the z270 boards. Therefore, it wouldn't be easy (or possible?) to convert z270 to z370.

[minibois]

Intel has said (not sure if officially) that the Coffee Lake CPU's take more power, a product manager of Asus has said this is not true and their Z270 boards would be capable of running Coffee Lake.

I think its a little bit of both, the CPU's use more energy,  but some boards were already made very well and could work with it. That said, I think Intel just wanted to be sure it will work properly on all boards, thus eliminating all Z270 boards (and below)

[Princess Luna]

Yes Coffee Lake could've work on z170 and z270 motherboards if Intel wanted to because it still is the same 14nm architecture, the pin differences and better power deliver as just the official justifications though many Experts and even Asus themselves already affirm that it could have worked if Intel made the layout the same.

 

Why did Intel didn't want to? Easy answer: MONEY$$$.