2017 Hardware Thread

essenbe said:

Tommy, when they change the architecture, the TDP of the CPU and the internal mechanism, they have to have chipsets that support it. The Z170 boards, at least many of them, could run Kaby Lake CPUs, but the came out with a chipset built for the 7700K. If you had a Z170 board, you didn't have to buy a new board. X299 is the same architecture no matter how many cores it has. All the boards can run on the same chipset. We have known ever since Sandy Bridge that the i7s and i5s were the same CPU. The only difference was that hyperthreading was turned off.

Coffee Lake is a very different circumstance. They added 2 more cores and a higher TDP, so power delivery had to change. If power delivery changes, how does that affect the VRM of the board? I don't know, but I believe an educated guess is it would have to be different. The Coffee Lake CPUs have the same number of pins, they are just mapped to do different things that Kaby lakes pinout did. They altered the way the CPU internals work. I can see why a new chipset was needed with this CPU.

Now, was it necessary for them to come out with a Z270 board when a Z170 would run the new CPU? My guess is probably not. You and I have X99 boards, Yours is just a newer version than mine. With a bios update my board will run your CPU just fine I hear. So, did they need to come out with a V2 X99 chipset? Probably not.

I can fault Intel for a lot of the things they have done and maybe some they are doing now. But, I can't fault them for this new chipset. You probably can fault them for coming out with 3 chipsets in less than a year, and probably for coming out with some of the CPUs they have come out with. I do and can find a lot of other stuff tha is greed. We have always known that with a new CPU, Intel is going to come out with a new chipset or new boards for it. Many time it was not necessary at all. I just think this time it was justified. What d8bauer said was the because of the extra cores and increased TDP, more pins were needed for power delivery and regulation. They just remapped some of the pins from Kaby Lake to Coffee Lake. The socket still has the same number of pins, just those pins do different things now. You can put a 7700K in a Z370 board. It just won't run.

I totally get this ,when i was saying about the same socket Intel could of did away with the in between's i would be fine with waiting a extra year for a release of a product that has features that are semi matured then rushed out the door to be hit with endless bios updates to correct something they rushed on

In the end of all of this it is up to us the consumer to do research and educating themselves on what could be a useless feature if they don't need it

Optane is a feature mostly for mechanical hard drives that was the newest feature z270 came with but in the end not so much of a great feature when everyone is using SSD M.2's but hey it's the consumers choice again what i might find useless will be gold for someone else

Cliff S said:

There is nothing more satisfying to do, on a Saturday evening, then watch the latest JayzTwoCents B-roll hardware porn in 4K!
And that Primochill Vue fluid just looks awesome flowing through the tubes

No lie i get lost in His Montage Music hahaha he uses good Background music it's easy to sit back and relax

Brink said:

I'm starting to lean towards a 8700K instead of 7820X for the savings that could be applied to other components.

I don't think I'll ever use all the extra cores and PCI-E lanes. At least I currently don't now.

I do wish 8700K supported 4 memory channels instead of just 2 though.

If it was me i would look at the X99 platform still good years left and with that being said 6950x kicks the 7900x butt in gaming and some apps vice versa for the 7900x at best the X99 still does a sweet job and a little cheaper then going all new plus the 6 core chips are cheaper than x299

Currently my 6850k is selling under $300 and it's neck and neck with the 7800 you could get a 8 core 6900k for $500 and build around that and still have 40 lanes to play with

Hi,
The 8720X is a good chip I came really close to getting it instead of the 7900x
I hear the 7740 is also darn good :)