Motherboards for COFFEE processors. Why it is not worth buying the Intel processors of the eighth generation Coffee Lake. How it works

Hello everyone! Not so long ago, Intel introduced their new brainchild, the COFFEE LAKE projectors. And at the start of sales in Russia, on them, as with many other innovations there will be a mad excitement. Today I will not make a comparison, do detailed reviewidentify best model In the line, but only I will explain why buying new products in the first couple of months is not profitable. And the point here is not in coffee, sune. Below is written in absolutely any innovation. For example, I take new processors from Intel, just because this topic is now the current and most bright in the field of computer technology.

So, the first reason to abandon the purchase in the near future is the price. In most cases, the new product will be more expensive to you. The amount of overpayment depends on the huge number of factors. For example, on the number of models in the first batch, prepared for sale, the smaller the processors will be fused to the market at first, the more will be of those who want to acquire themselves among the first. This means that dealers and distributors can spin the prices as it is convenient. The recommended price for I5 8400 is $ 182, which at the time of writing the article is approximately 10,500 rubles. Not only is now the price of the price abroad and so high, it is also no secret to anyone that in Russia it will be even higher. None in the store on this moment There are no stones, but new processors can already be purchased in foreign computeruniverse. I5 8400 costs about 12,000 rubles, which is 1500 rubles more expensive than indicated in the recommendations. And I remind you that prices there, in comparison with DNS or Citylink, may differ by 10-20% in favor of the German site.

Moreover, it is important to understand that new stones are aimed at all three main market segments - budget, medium and premium. Stones in the budget and middle segments are much more in demand than stones in the premium segment. And therefore, the number of budget models on the market is much larger than models from the premium segment. From here it follows, the fact that on top models in the line, the price will be even more overestimated. For example, the best in the I7-8700K line should cost $ 359, which is 20,500 rubles. But even abroad he is already about 26,000-27,000 rubles.

That is, for the average I5 8400 overpayment at the moment about 1,500 rubles, and for the top I7 8700K overpayment is about 5,000 rubles. In our stores the price will be even higher.

• However, exceptions from the rules still happen. Remember only recently released that approximately equal to the recommended price. How did it happen? It remains only to guess, but I do not think that the same story will happen to coffee.

Next reason - product dampiness. And even in the new line of processors there are delicious options, it is important to understand that even a successful novelty requires a certain time for running. Recall only as it with Risenes. At the start of sales, standard bios did not reveal the entire potential of processors and only with new versions approaches optimization and correct operation. Multi-threaded behaved not stable in some applications, and only after the appearance of patches, everything came to normal. And the point here is not in the processor itself, but in how the other components interact with it, both on the hardware and on programmatic level. What is just a situation with boxed coolers when they did not get up on motherboards Due to the fact that they did not fit the mount. And this problem was not from AMD, but on the part of the manufacturers of the motherboard, but it is absolutely for us to users who are to blame for us, to us the main thing that everything worked correctly and reliably. Of course, it is not a fact that with Intel will happen the same story, but can happen anything. Even before Ryazan, the most vivid example is Windows 10, which was in the so-called "beta testing" state for a very long time, when there were a lot of errors and bugs and they corrected with time every new patch until the transaction was stable . In general, everything that I want to say is that any new product is usually faced with some unforeseen problems at the first time, so you should wait until these problems are eliminated.

The third reason is marketing. Era Marketing, what to say here. Marketing solutions are present in any product production and computer techologies did not exception. The new socket 1151 V.2, which will support Coffee Lake, at the moment there is only one chipset on the market - it is Z370, which is premium, very expensive and supports overclocking.

What is it, if not marketing? Those who wish to acquire simple stones I3 8100 and I5 8400 will have to buy the first two months of moms on this chipset. But why, if overclocking data stones are not amenable to overclocking? Obviously, this is a pre-thoughtful stroke, which will make those who want to be among the first to buy more expensive mothers with the top chipset. The simplest chipsets H370 and H310 will appear only in the new year. Returning to the issue of price, you can include here and motherboards. Due to the market deficit, the first time they will cost more expensive.

And the last reason is competition. In the production market, the processors currently actually reigns dopolia. Accordingly, the stronger than the new product in some, the more radical measures need to be taken to other to keep their audience or attract new buyers. So it was with the Vene. Its exit sugh green for development, because Nvidia saw a strong competitor in the face of Vega 56. So it was with Ryzen. After the release of the rhyze, the prices of the blue processors of the Kaby Lake series have greatly fallen due to the fact that the new Coffee Lake line was still in development, and buyers need to stimulate buy their product. There are a lot of examples in history. The most important thing is that, ultimately, from all these manipulations, we win anyway - we, end users. Perhaps the exit Coffee Lake will make the red podnaping and update the Ryzen line in the near future. Perhaps this will not, but wait a couple of months in any case, the reason for this is not one.

Following the Announcement of Intel Core 8-Generation Processors, famous for Coffee Lake code name, all leading maternal manufacturers announced their solutions based on Intel Z370 chipsets for new processors. In this article we will get acquainted with an inexpensive Asus Prime Z370-A board.

Equipment and packaging

The ASUS Prime Z370-A fee is supplied in the compact box on which all its advantages are eloquently painted.

Delivery kit is very modest: three SATA cables (all connectors with latches, one cable with an angular connector on one side), user manual, DVD with software and drivers, plug for the back panel board, SLI bridge into two video cards and a holder for an additional fan (40 × 40 or 50 × 50 mm), which can be optionally fastened to the board. The fan itself is not included.

Configuration and Features of the Board

The summary table of the ASUS Prime Z370-A card features is shown below, and then we will look at all its features and functionality.

Form factor

The ASUS Prime Z370-A board is performed in the ATX form factor (305 × 244 mm), for its installation, standard nine holes are provided in the housing.

Chipset and processor connector

The ASUS Prime Z370-A board is based on the new Intel Z370 chipset and supports only intel processors 8th generation CORE (COFFEE LAKE code name) with LGA1151 connector.

Memory

To install memory modules on asus board Prime Z370-A is provided by four DIMM slots. The board supports non-buffered DDR4 memory (Non-ESS), and the maximum amount of memory is 64 GB (when using a capacity of 16 GB with a capacity modules).

Extension slots, connectors M.2

To install video cards, extension and drives on the ASUS Prime Z370-A motherboard, there are three slots with PCI Express X16 form factor, four PCI Express 3.0 x1 slots and two M.2 connector.

The first slot switchable and can operate at x16 / x8 speeds, that is, it is a PCI Express 3.0 x16 / x8 slot. To switch the operation modes of this slot, four multiplexers / demultiplexer of PCIe 3.0 ASMEDIA ASM1480 lines are used.

The second slot with the PCI Express X16 formator always operates at the X8 speed, that is, this is the PCI Express 3.0 x8 slot in the PCI Express X16 form factor.

Accordingly, the modes of operation of these two slots can be the following: either x16 / - or x8 / x8. If only the first slot is used, it will work at the X16 speed, if both slots are used, they operate at the X8 speed.

The third slot with the PCI Express X16 formator works only at the X4 speed and are the PCI Express 3.0 x4 slot in the PCI Express X16 form factor. This slot is already implemented on the basis of four PCIe 3.0 chipset lines.

Note that the board supports NVIDIA SLI and AMD CrossFirex technology and allows you to install two nVIDIA video cards and up to three AMD video cards.

Four PCI Express 3.0 X1 slots are also implemented through the Intel Z370 chipset.

M.2 connectors are designed to install SSD drives with a size of 2242/2260/2280. One connector (M.2_1) supports PCIe 3.0 X4 and SATA devices, and the second (M.2_2) is only the PCIe 3.0 x4 devices. Both M.2 connections are implemented through the chipset.

Video invoices

Since Coffee Lake processors have an integrated graphic kernelTo connect the monitor on the back of the board, there are video outputs Display Port 1.2, DVI-D and HDMI 1.4.

SATA ports

To connect drives or optical drives The board provides six SATA ports 6 Gb / s, which are implemented on the basis of the Intel Z370 controller integrated into the chipset. These ports support the ability to create RAID arrays of levels 0, 1, 5, 10.

USB connectors

To connect all kinds peripheral devices The board provides six USB ports 3.0, six USB 2.0 and two ports. uSB ports 3.1.

USB 2.0 and USB 3.0 ports are implemented through the Intel Z370 chipset. Two USB 2.0 ports and two USB 3.0 ports are displayed on rear panel Boards, and to connect four more USB 2.0 ports and four USB 3.0 ports on the board there are two USB 2.0 port connector and two USB 3.0 port connector (two ports on the connector).

Two USB 3.1 ports are implemented on the basis of the ASMEDIA ASM3142 controller, which connects to the chipset along two PCIe 3.0 lines. These ports are displayed on the backbone of the board, and one port has a Type-A connector, and the other is the Type-C connector.

Network interface

To connect to the network on the ASUS Prime Z370-A board, a gigabit network interface based on the controller physical level Intel i219-V (used in combination with the MAC-level chipset controller).

How it works

In its capabilities, the Intel Z370 chipset is no different from the Intel Z270 chipset. Actually, the only difference between these chipsets is that they support different families of processors: Intel Z270 is only the Intel Core processors of the 6th and 7th generations, and the Intel Z370 is only the 8th generation Intel Core processors.

So, we recall that the Intel Z370 chipset has 30 high-speed I / O ports (HSIO), which can be PCIe 3.0 ports, USB 3.0 and SATA 6 Gb / s. Part ports are strictly fixed, but there are HSIO ports that can be configured as USB 3.0 or PCIe 3.0, SATA or PCI 3.0. And there may be no more than 10 ports of USB 3.0, no more than 6 SATA ports and no more than 24 PCIe 3.0 ports.

And now let's see how all this is implemented in the ASUS Prime Z370-A version.

Through the chipset on the board are implemented: PCI Express 3.0 x4 slot, four PCI Express 3.0 x1 slots, two M.2 connections, a network controller and the ASMEDIA ASM3142 controller. All this in the aggregate requires 19 PCIe 3.0 ports. But here you need to add that there are 6 SATA ports and 6 USB ports 3.0, and this is another 12 HSIO ports. That is, it turns out 31 HSIO port. It is clear that without separating ports and connectors here is not to do.

It is divided in this case by the M.2_2 connector with two SATA ports. That is, if the M.2_2 connector is used in PCIe 3.0 x4 mode, then two SATA ports (SATA # 5 and SATA # 6) will be unavailable. If the SATA # 5 and SATA # 6 ports are activated, the M.2_2 connector will be available only in PCIe 3.0 x2 mode. Accordingly, only 4 HSIO ports are required to the M.2_2 connector and two SATA ports, of which two ports can be configured as SATA or as PCIe 3.0. M.2_2 connector operation mode sets uEFI settings BIOS.

In addition, the M.2_1 connector is divided with the SATA # 1 port along the SATA line. That is, if the M.2 connector is used in sATA modeThe SATA # 1 port will be unavailable. If the SATA # 1 port is used, the M.2 connector is available only in PCIE mode.

Taking into account the specified separation, 29 HSIO ports are required. These are 17 separate PCIe 3.0 ports, 6 USB ports 3.0 and 4 SATA ports. Two more HSIO ports are configured or as two SATA ports, or as two PCIe 3.0 ports.

ASUS PRIME Z370-A card flowchart is shown in the figure.

Extra features

Additional features on gaming Place ASUS Prime Z370-A is not so much, but they are.

Let's start with the fact that there are two buttons: the power button and traditional for the ASUS button MEMOK!.

There is a clrrtc jumper for reset bIOS settings, as well as the jumper CPU_OV, for the possibility of setting high voltage values \u200b\u200bwhen overclocking the processor.

Another feature is the implementation of RGB-backlight. On this inexpensive board it is minimal, without delights. FROM back side Cards, under the 24-pin power connector, there are a series of 8 LEDs. In the UEFI BIOS settings, you can only turn off the RGB backlight, but not adjust it. To configure you need to use utility asus Aura.

On the board there is a special four-contact (12V / G / R / B) connector for connecting the LED tape.

We also note another fee of the board. Two slots with PCI Express X16 form factor, implemented on the basis of PCIe 3.0 processor lines, have metal housings.

Supply system

Like most boards, the ASUS Prime Z370-A model has a 24-pin and 8-pin connectors for connecting the power supply.

The processor power voltage regulator on the board is 8-channel. The power voltage controller with the ASP1400BT marking controller is controlled.

Cooling system

The cooling system of the ASUS Prime Z370-A board consists of several radiators. Two radiator are located on two adjacent parties to the processor connector and are designed to remove heat from the elements of the processor supply voltage regulator. Another radiator is designed to cool the chipset. In addition, a radiator is also provided for the drive installed in the M.2_1 connector.

In addition, to create an effective heat sink system, six four-pin connectors are provided for connecting fans. Two connectors are designed for a processor cooler, two more - for additional enclosure fans, one connector is designed for the M.2-drive cooler fan and there is a connector for connecting the pump. There is an optional connector for connecting the ASUS Extension Fan extension board (the board itself is not included). In addition, the board has a two-contact connector for connecting the thermal sensor (again, the thermal sensor itself is not included).

AudioSystem

ASUS Prime Z370-A audio system is based on the REALTEK ALC1220 codec. There are no additional amplifiers and codecs. All elements of the audio code are isolated at the level of PCB layers from other components of the board and are highlighted in a separate zone.

The rear panel of the board provides five audio connections of the type of minijack (3.5 mm) and one Optical S / PDIF connector (output).

To test the output audio path intended for connecting headphones or external acoustics, we used external sound card Creative E-MU 0204 USB in combination with the utility Right Mark Audio Analyzer 6.3.0. Testing was conducted for stereo mode, 24-bit / 44.1 kHz. According to the results of testing, the audio code on the Asus Prime Z370-A fee received the rating "Good". A full report with test results in the RMAA 6.3.0 program is submitted to a separate page, then a brief report is given.

In the near future, Intel is going to update the range of its offers for desktop systems at the expense of the Coffee Lake family processors, which should come to the Skylake and Kaby Lake change. As it became recently known, this update will become a grand inclination in increasing the productivity of the mass desktop platform, since the COFFEE Lake Models of the Core i7 and Core i5 series will receive from their disposal by computing nuclei. However, it is now finding out the unpleasant nuance: Coffee Lake processors will be incompatible with the Park of existing motherboards on LGA1151, based on the Z270 logic sets, and even more so Z170.

Previously, it was already repeatedly assumed that Coffee Lake could require new motherboards for their work. However, the final confidence before this day was not in this. Now the places for doubt do not remain: the six-core CPUs for desktops will come together with new platformAnd currently the LGA1151 motherboards on the market will not work with them. Confirmed this in its official twitter account ASRock, whose representatives on a specific question of the user about Coffee Lake compatibility and database boards system logic Intel Z270 answered negatively.

"Not. COFFEE LAKE processors are incompatible with the 200th Series Motherboards "

Information on incompatibility, originally emanating from ASRock, has confirmed two more independent in the industry. This is reported by sites. Tomshardware.com. and Pcworld.com.. Thus, the possibility of error or incorrect interpretation is excluded, and soon we will really witness this ridiculous grimace market segmentation from Intel.

As you know, Coffee Lake processors will be based on the same microarchitecture as Kaby Lake, and their main differences from predecessors will be an increased number of computational nuclei and use in their production. new version 14-nm technical process (14 ++ nm). Intel has previously promised that the advantage in performance that will give Coffee Lake compared to existing desktop processors will be up to 30%, but all this win is to write off to an increased number of nuclei. There were no fundamental innovations in Coffee Lake, therefore, the deprivation of compatibility with old fees is rather a marketing step.

Traditionally, Intel changes platforms every two generations of processors - this approach allows the company to make changes to the platform in a timely manner and makes it possible to stable earnings manufacturers of motherboards. The need to use with Coffee Lake new motherboards based on future chipsets of the 300th series fits into this logic. However, there was a chance that under pressure from the competition from the Ryzen microprocessor giant revises its attitude towards the duration of the platform life cycle, because AMD promises to maintain the relevance of its Socket AM4 platform until 2020. But Intel decided not to deviate from the established course even under the threat that, when upgrading the old LGA1151 systems, users can choose the processors of another manufacturer.

Earlier it was reported that Coffee Lake processors will have a similar Kaby Lake form factor LGA1151, but this does not mean that the lack of compatibility with old fees will be limited exclusively at the firmware level. Perhaps Coffee Lake will impose any specific requirements for nutrition scheme on the motherboard associated with the introduction of new energy-saving technologies or the transfer of some elements of the power converter to the processor itself, as is done in SkyLake-X.

When COFFEE LAKE processors and their motherboards associated with new chipsets of the 300th series will come to the market, it is not reliably known. Initially, it was believed that the announcement of the desktop versions of Coffee Lake will be held in January 2018, then this temporary line was shifted to September this year, but some maternal manufacturers as the COFFEE Lake appearance time call the end of this year.

News on Intel processors is smoothly ranked from the Chinese direction. One of the users of the maternal mSI cards Z170A XPower Titanium On the basis of the Intel Z170 logic database, it was possible to find a way to run the COFFEE Lake generation COFFEE generation processor, which is not supported by such fees. About your impressions The author of the experiment wrote on the Baidu resource pages - in Chinese, of course, the language.

Image Source: Baidu

Screenshots were made using the camera directly from the monitor to reduce the number of skeptics, ready to sort with the author in the art of falsification of evidence. Alas, the quality of images has been predictable.

Image Source: Baidu

Judging by the illustrations, the Chinese enthusiast modified the microcode of the motherboard, forcing it to think that instead of Core i3-8350K, the Core i7-7700K Core Lake generation processor was installed, which intel chipset Z170 is supported officially.

Image Source: Baidu

Alas, without loss - the built-in graphics of the Core i3-8350K processor did not function, and the nearest to central processor The PCI Express X16 slot also did not take the video card.

Image Source: Baidu

Perhaps the main conclusion can be done according to such results - the incompatibility of COFFEE Lake processors with motherboards based on the Intel Z170 logic database is artificial. At the very least, the four-core models of the Coffee Lake can be launched on old boards after modifying the microcode. Intel at the time claimed that motherboards based on the Intel Z370 logic dialing have an upgraded nutritional subsystem capable of taking the Coffee Lake six-core processors.

Hello, dear readers! Today we will have a PC assembly on Intel Coffee Lake. New Intel processors were officially announced on September 24, 2017, and they became accessible to purchase on October 5, 2017. New ruler became a response to released in the spring of 2017 aMD processors Ryzen, and run on before the answer turned out to be very successful. Processors turned out so good that the purchase of processors of the previous generation became meaningless.

Assembly on Intel Core i3 8100

In general, the assembly allows you to play all modern games on medium-high graphics settings. In the future, I recommend buying another 8GB memory bar. The assembly can be reduced, removing the processor cooler, replacing it with boxes, but it will be noisy.

• Motherboard - ASUS Prime H310m-K
• Processor - Intel Core i3 8100
• Processor Cooler - LC-POWER COSMO COOL LC-CC-120
• Memory - Crucial Ballistics Sport LT Rot 8GB DDR4
• Video Card - ASUS GeForce Cerberus GTX1050Ti
• Power Supply - Seasonic S12II-430 Bronze 430 Watt ATX2.2
• Winchester - WD Blue Desktop WD10EZEX 1TB

Assembly in the online store ComputerUniverse, taking into account delivery and will cost us at 37,700 rubles, which is comparable to the assemblies on the previous processor generation Intel Core i5 7400, but do not forget that Intel has worked well over performance processor coresAnd Core i3 8100 has become more productive Core i5 7400.

Assembly on Intel Core i5 8400

The assembly will allow you to play all modern games on maximum setup graphics in full HD resolution. The assembly can be reduced, removing the processor cooler, replacing it with boxes, but it will be noisy.

• Motherboard - ASUS Prime B360M-K
• Processor - Intel Core i5 8400
• Processor Cooler - LC-POWER COSMO COOL LC-CC-120
• Memory - G.SKILL VALUE 16GB DDR4 16GNT KIT 2400 CL15 (2x8GB)
• Video Card - ASUS GeForce GTX1060 Dual-6G
• Power supply --SEasonic S12II-620 Bronze
• Winchester - WD Blue Desktop WD10EZEX 1TB

Assembly in the online store ComputerUniverse, taking into account delivery and will cost us 57,000 rubles, which is 6500 rubles cheaper than assembly with the processor of the previous generation Intel Core i7 7700, but do not forget that Intel has worked well on the performance of the processor nuclei, and Core i5 8400 It became more productive Core i7 7700, so you get a more productive processor for less money.

Corps on Intel Core i5 8600K

The assembly will allow you to play all the modern games on the maximum setting of graphics in the resolution of WQHD. In contrast to the previous assembly, there is a processor with the possibility of overclocking and a more powerful video card.

• Motherboard - ASRock Z370 Pro 4
• Processor - Intel Core i5 8600K
• Processor cooler - Be Quiet! PURE ROCK.
• Memory -
• Video Card - Palit GeForce GTX1080 Dual OC
• Power Supply - EVGA B1 Bronze 600 Watt
• Winchester - WD Blue Desktop WD10EZEX 1TB

Building in the online store ComputerUniverse with delivery and will cost us 76439 rubles, it is less than assembling on the processor of the previous generation of Intel Core I7 7700K, while you will receive a more productive processor for less money.

Cabinet on Intel Core i7 8700

Assembly for playing at maximum graphics settings in all modern games on the WQHD resolution, and in some cases at high graphics settings in 4K permission.

• Motherboard - ASUS Prime B360M-A
• Processor - Intel Core i7 8700
• Processor cooler - Be Quiet! PURE ROCK.
• Memory - G.Skill Aegis 16GB DDR4 16GISB K2
• Video Card - ASUS GeForce GTX1070Ti
• Power Supply - Seasonic S12II-620 Bronze
• Winchester - WD Blue Desktop WD10EZEX 1TB

ATTENTION!

So, as the cost of goods in the assembly exceeds 1000 euros, in order to avoid problems with customs, the order will need to be divided into 2 parts, and order on different people. It will also reduce the final shipping cost of about 1,500 rubles.

Building in the online store ComputerUniverse, taking into account delivery and will cost us 80,000 rubles, it is only 2 thousand rubles more than an assembly based on Intel Core I7 7700K, while you will receive a 6-nuclear 12-stream processor, and not 4-nuclear 8th stream. In this case, the nucleus themselves are faster.

Assembly on Intel Core i7 8700K

Assembling for high and, in some cases, the maximum graphics settings in modern 4K resolution games. The processor cooler allows you to overclock the processor up to 4.8-5 GHz, especially if you apply scalping, and replace the thermo processor interface. This power is enough not only for 1080ti, but also for the next generation top video cards.

• Motherboard - ASRock Z370 Killer SLI
• Processor -