The arrival of the Intel's 8th-generation Coffee Lake processors is finally made official by the chipset maker this week. The successor of the Kaby Lake and Skylake processors is set for an Oct. 5 release date, offering new heights for desktop computers in terms of performance. Although, it was revealed that the Coffee Lake chipset is quite different compared to previous Intel processors. Necessary adjustments should be made with the motherboards.
As reported by WCCFTech, the official Intel Coffee Lake briefing this week mentioned the changes featured by the latest chipset. The main difference in the new processors is the updated pin configuration, in which they will no longer be compatible with the 200 and 100 series motherboards.
To clarify the details, Intel's resident tech expert, David Schor, stated that the Coffee Lake processors are using a different electrical pin configuration, making them incompatible with older versions of motherboards that have the LGA 1151 socket. With this change, it is expected that the motherboard sockets should be configured to use Intel Coffee Lake. Furthermore, the corresponding changes for Coffee Lake compatibility will happen more in the computer's hardware level, rather than software adjustments.
Specifically, the Intel Coffee Lake processors have 391 VSS ground pins and 146 VCC electrical pins. When compared to the previous Kaby Lake chipset, the Coffee Lake features a total of 14 and 18 pin number increase in VSS and VCC, respectively. In terms of reserved pins, the Coffee Lake has 25 pins which is 21 pins less than Kaby Lake's 46 reserved pins.
Meanwhile, there are reports suggesting that there will be a shortage in Intel Coffee Lake supply during the first few months of the chipset launch. It was claimed that the release of Coffee Lake processors was rushed to meet the October target launch date instead of Q1 2018. The adjustment in schedule was likely due to Intel pitting the Coffee Lake against AMD's Ryzen and Threadtripper processors.
Based on the estimates of the Swedish tech website Sweclockers, the markets will experience the shortage in Intel Coffee Lake processors sometime in October and November. Things are expected to go better by December, although the best time to buy the new Intel processor is during the first few months of 2018.
