Question 8th generation v 9th generation Intel

Neillb

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Jul 1, 2013
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I'm trying to establish whether a motherboard I've bought (Gigabyte 360M H matx) is in fact 9th generation compatible (as advertised) as well as being 8th generation compatible.

I've installed an i5 9400f CPU (which needs a graphics card) and a Gigabyte GeForce 710 2Gb graphics card.

On testing the motherboard, the CPU fan spins, and the fan on the graphics card also spins, but I get no signals to a screen, either by HDMI or VGA. I've checked seating of the graphics card.

Can any technies help please, by telling me whether the spinning fans but lack of video indicates the motherboard is incompatible with a 9th generation processor?
 
The Gigabyte 360M H matx was made for the Gen 8 cpu but with a bios update will work with gen 9's. Sadly the only way to do a bios update on most motherboards is to have a gen 8 cpu to boot up with to do the update then switch to the gen 9.

To work straight out of the box you would have need a series 365 board for gen 9.
 
Your motherboard does support i5-9400f. But it needs bios f12 to do so.
Here is the cpu support list:
https://www.gigabyte.com/us/Motherboard/B360M-H-rev-10/support#support-cpu
f12 bios was released 3/2019 so if you bought fresh stock, the latest bios would have been included.

If you can, return the motherboard for fresh stock.
Failing that, beg buy or borrow a 8th gen processor to be able to flash the motherboard to F12 or f13
 
Thank you for the replies.

The 9th series/8th series is a trap for users. One more question, if I may?
Looking at specs for 8th generation CPUs, I see many specify 2400 memory, but with my 8th/9th generation board which proves to be 8th generation only so far, I bought 2600 memory. If memory is rated faster than motherboard support, does it just run at motherboard maximum, or does it not run at all?

After this build I think I will switch to AMD, or does the Mafia control the CPU/motherboard industries?

Again, thanks for the replies.
 
The supported ram speed refers to the speed at which ram will boot to the bios.
Whatever that is, any ram will have a default lower speed at which you can boot and access the bios.
Once there, you can select a ram xmp profile up to the limit of the ram speed or the limit of overclcocking ram for that particular motherboard. for your B360 based motherboard the max speed will be 2666.
Z390 based motherboards will usually allow speeds in the 4000 range.
Do not worry much about that.
Intel does not depend much on ram speed for performance. Think a couple of % difference in app speed or fps.

And... amd works the same way, a bios update is often necessary to support processors annnounced after the motherboard was initially produced.