Intel Z390 block diagram

[NumLock21]

Official information for Intel's Z390 chipset is finally here, and words has been going around about a mainstream Intel 8 core cpu. But,

Quote

 

Throughout the marketing materials, Intel seems to underline the fact that Z390 is designed for unlocked processors (for overclocking). Sadly, there is no word about support for 8-core processors.

Intel:

The Intel® Z390 chipset and 8th Generation Intel® Core™ processors give you the edge you need to successfully defeat your rivals. Quickly upload and access your favorite streams and get the gaming boost you need with Intel® Turbo Boost Technology 2.0 and Intel® Hyper-Threading Technology (Intel® HT Technology)…

 

Only new feature is the built in Intel wireless AC 9560 with Bluetooth 5 and USB have been updated to run at Gen 2.

 

https://videocardz.com/76205/intel-makes-z390-chipset-official

[Curufinwe_wins]

I know it's super overdue... but built in ac wifi is a very very welcome addition.

[Carbongrip]

5 minutes ago, Curufinwe_wins said:

I know it's super overdue... but built in ac wifi is a very very welcome addition.

I am the opposite, I avoid motherboards with Wi-Fi. It's added expense that I have no use for. Wi-Fi really sucks when your used to using Ethernet,

 

Wi-Fi Problems

• Adds Latency
• Loses Speed over distance
• Struggles to provide Gigabit speeds
• Interference from high number of surrounding Wi-Fi Access Points

[Jurrunio]

7 minutes ago, Carbongrip said:

I am the opposite, I avoid motherboards with Wi-Fi. It's added expense that I have no use for. Wi-Fi really sucks when your used to using Ethernet,

 

Wi-Fi Problems

• Adds Latency
• Loses Speed over distance
• Struggles to provide Gigabit speeds
• Interference from high number of surrounding Wi-Fi Access Points

You can just not use WiFi. I would avoid spending extra for that, but doesnt hurt if it does come with WiFi.

[Curufinwe_wins]

30 minutes ago, Carbongrip said:

I am the opposite, I avoid motherboards with Wi-Fi. It's added expense that I have no use for. Wi-Fi really sucks when your used to using Ethernet,

 

Wi-Fi Problems

• Adds Latency
• Loses Speed over distance
• Struggles to provide Gigabit speeds
• Interference from high number of surrounding Wi-Fi Access Points

As someone that literally had to spend the money and time to learn how to run external internet lines from the 2nd floor (American) to ground floor of my rented house in order to jerry-rig my way into having wired ethernet... having wifi as a backup or holdover is always welcome. 

[RadiatingLight]

Wait, so is the WiFi integrated into the chipset? or is it still optional for motherboard makers to include or not.

[Mira Yurizaki]

1 hour ago, Carbongrip said:

I am the opposite, I avoid motherboards with Wi-Fi. It's added expense that I have no use for. Wi-Fi really sucks when your used to using Ethernet,

 

Wi-Fi Problems

• Adds Latency
• Loses Speed over distance
• Struggles to provide Gigabit speeds
• Interference from high number of surrounding Wi-Fi Access Points

And what about the other features of the board that you are likely not using? Do you have every PCIe slot populated? Every SATA port populated? The DIMM slots full with the maximum RAM speed they support? I mean, most enthusiasts here are already paying for a GPU that almost never gets used, and yet Intel still puts them on anyway. If you don't like it, you don't have to use it.

 

Also the last statement isn't exactly true if you're using 5GHz considering that few people seemed to have upgraded to 802.11ac still and even then, 5GHz isn't remotely crowded unlike 2.4GHz.

[App4that]

Should be interesting as to what these ZX90 boards will be for Intel, if they even keep it past Z390 (obvious rushed launch patch is obvious)

 

This Z390 and Z490 bs has to be driving the manufacturers nuts. 

[Trixanity]

26 minutes ago, RadiatingLight said:

Wait, so is the WiFi integrated into the chipset? or is it still optional for motherboard makers to include or not.

Kinda the latter. Integrated WiFi means it's cheaper because many of the components are now on the chip but you still need some external components including antennas to actually make it work.

 

You will also see vendors run a completely separate WiFi solution like Killer Networks and Qualcomm despite the integration. You can be sure Microsoft will continue to use shitty Avastar WiFi modules in Surface products too.

 

Just because it's integrated doesn't mean you or they need to use it. It's just there for convenience and cheaper/easier implementations. I'm not sure if Intel's cheapest module can compete with some of the crap vendors put in their budget lines when it comes to price.

 

Either way: to use it you need their companion RF module and not just any module.

[laminutederire]

2 hours ago, Carbongrip said:

I am the opposite, I avoid motherboards with Wi-Fi. It's added expense that I have no use for. Wi-Fi really sucks when your used to using Ethernet,

 

Wi-Fi Problems

• Adds Latency
• Loses Speed over distance
• Struggles to provide Gigabit speeds
• Interference from high number of surrounding Wi-Fi Access Points

But sometimes you lease a room in a house full of idiots who think Ethernet is worse because it's a cable (yes, that level of idiot), and if you don't have Wi-Fi you can't access internet without spending some money to be able to use cables.

In that type of case, you're pretty happy to have Wi-Fi to compensate and have something anyway.

[MyName13]

Does this mean that every Z390 motherboard will have WiFi support?

[porina]

Wasn't there some fuss about Z370 potentially not supporting some future processors that would be supported by other 300 series chipset which were launched later? It seemed in the rush to get Z370 out early, it may be lacking some compatibility features required. Z390 might be correcting that mistake.

[Trixanity]

2 minutes ago, MyName13 said:

Does this mean that every Z390 motherboard will have WiFi support?

Technically, yes. In practice, in most cases probably yes. You'll need to buy an m.2 module to enable it if it's not included in the box. However that's pretty much the same way it works now. It's still good for everyone though; in my opinion that is.

[cj09beira]

pretty underwhelming for a mid cycle upgrade, probably the only big difference will be support for the 8 core chips, hopefully amd's new chipset will be more interesting (having access to the full 32 lanes for example would be nice)

[Taf the Ghost]

4 minutes ago, cj09beira said:

pretty underwhelming for a mid cycle upgrade, probably the only big difference will be support for the 8 core chips, hopefully amd's new chipset will be more interesting (having access to the full 32 lanes for example would be nice)

Well, Z370 was pretty much no upgrade, so this isn't really a mid-cycle upgrade. It's just bringing the standard back in line with the rest of the generation.

 

And "in before 8c don't work on Z370".

[NumLock21]

The diagram states wifi and bt are included into the chipset, unless board makers are a-holes and disable them, while charging extra for boards that have them enabled.

 

My board has wifi and i don't use that, however i do use bt when connecting with my phone. 

[DildorTheDecent]

It's just more USB at this point.

[Dylanc1500]

It's just Q370, but with overclocking enabled. Everything else between them is the same.

[App4that]

8 hours ago, Taf the Ghost said:

Well, Z370 was pretty much no upgrade, so this isn't really a mid-cycle upgrade. It's just bringing the standard back in line with the rest of the generation.

 

And "in before 8c don't work on Z370".

The 8 core if it actually exists will work with Z370 boards, it's the same socket. Not the same pin count like Z270 to Z370, but the exact same socket layout. 

[Taf the Ghost]

8 minutes ago, App4that said:

The 8 core if it actually exists will work with Z370 boards, it's the same socket. Not the same pin count like Z270 to Z370, but the exact same socket layout. 

The 8+2 part is in Intel's design documents, so it exists. Whether we actually see it is still the open question. Though it's looking a lot more like Intel is going to do a full Coffee Lake-R line using the 8c die & the core-disabled versions. 3 refreshes of Skylake without any major core design improvements.

[App4that]

8 minutes ago, Taf the Ghost said:

The 8+2 part is in Intel's design documents, so it exists. Whether we actually see it is still the open question. Though it's looking a lot more like Intel is going to do a full Coffee Lake-R line using the 8c die & the core-disabled versions. 3 refreshes of Skylake without any major core design improvements.

Meh, I'd personally rather have something that works and is fast, than something that has issues and slow while being new. Never understood the need people have for change. I'm a "if it's not broken, don't fix it" kinda guy.

[porina]

25 minutes ago, App4that said:

The 8 core if it actually exists will work with Z370 boards, it's the same socket. Not the same pin count like Z270 to Z370, but the exact same socket layout. 

There's still a possibility that this mystical 8 core CPU wont work on Z370, in a similar way that Haswell Refresh or Broadwell wont work on all Haswell chipsets. People had picked up on other Intel leaks that support for the 8+2 didn't list Z370 in the list of supported platforms. This could be an oversight or it might be covered in an existing Z370 document separate from the new chipsets, but it is something to note. If anyone wants to try finding this again, it wasn't that long ago, maybe a month or so. There was a page of Intel design documents which were behind a login, but you could still see the title of the documents without login which is where the 8+2 came from.

[Taf the Ghost]

7 minutes ago, App4that said:

Meh, I'd personally rather have something that works and is fast, than something that has issues and slow while being new. Never understood the need people have for change. I'm a "if it's not broken, don't fix it" kinda guy.

Tech companies that aren't improving normally are in the process of dying. While that's not true of Intel, the fact that the consumer space has been so stagnant is both a worry & an issue.

[App4that]

3 minutes ago, porina said:

There's still a possibility that this mystical 8 core CPU wont work on Z370, in a similar way that Haswell Refresh or Broadwell wont work on all Haswell chipsets. People had picked up on other Intel leaks that support for the 8+2 didn't list Z370 in the list of supported platforms. This could be an oversight or it might be covered in an existing Z370 document separate from the new chipsets, but it is something to note. If anyone wants to try finding this again, it wasn't that long ago, maybe a month or so. There was a page of Intel design documents which were behind a login, but you could still see the title of the documents without login which is where the 8+2 came from.

I'm going off the documentation that Z390 is compatible with Coffee Lake and Cannon Lake. No mention of exclusions.

 

1 minute ago, Taf the Ghost said:

Tech companies that aren't improving normally are in the process of dying. While that's not true of Intel, the fact that the consumer space has been so stagnant is both a worry & an issue.

No. They've stayed at the 14nm process for a few years but that's not stagnation. Nobody said AMD was stagnating with their GPUs. Did Polaris pr Vega make that big a deal?

 

People are looking for something to pick on Intel for. The only counter point to that accusation is that AMD received the same treatment, which they didn't. Not on the CPU side, which didn't perform, but the GPU side, which did perform.

 

Intel is still the market leader in performance.