Report: Upcoming Intel 9-Series Chipsets May Not Support Current Haswell CPUs

[N.Broekhuijsen]

Due to differences in electrics, it appears that Intel might have compatibility between its upcoming 9-series chipsets and current 'Haswell' processors.

Report: Upcoming Intel 9-Series Chipsets May Not Support Current Haswell CPUs : Read more

 

[apache_lives]

its no problem, theres no such thing as an upgrade path these days anyhow

and why would i want a crappy old motherboard with a brand new cpu anyhow?

also a reason why Intel is so far ahead - newer designs = better efficency without being stuck with some out of date specifications and design

still i can see everyone complaining about this...

 

[yannigr]

AHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!! typical Intel. New CPU? New mobo....

 

[STRANGEQUOTA]

now,now, haswell motherboards arent that old and crappy.

 

[STRANGEQUOTA]

now,now, haswell motherboards arent that old and crappy.

 

[STRANGEQUOTA]

now,now, haswell motherboards arent that old and crappy.

 

[yannigr]

apache_lives

i guess you are 15 years old taking money from dad and mom or some guy with full pockets, that's why you have no respect for your money. Someone who works hard on the other hand will think twice before paying every 6-12 months Intel for a new cpu AND motherboard.

 

[tului]

apache_lives

i guess you are 15 years old taking money from dad and mom or some guy with full pockets, that's why you have no respect for your money. Someone who works hard on the other hand will think twice before paying every 6-12 months Intel for a new cpu AND motherboard.

I agree with you, I'd rather save the money and not be forced to upgrade. With a little planning, Intel could have made one socket last the past 3 chips. I mean the pin count went down! 1156 > 1155 > 1150. It's not like DDR4 or anything was introduced. I see it as a cash grab for investors in the face of declining PC sales.

Now if there is a substantial upgrade in performance or features to be had, sure, I'll gladly ante up for a board. ie when LGA2011 launched, I was all over it.

 

[BoredErica]

Yannigr, I have a job and I work for my own money. Yet I agree with apache. Please stop assuming things about people's lives.

So you're saying you are willing to buy another CPU for say, $220, $320 but buying another motherboard, that is the dealbreaker? Unless you're a pure CPU workhorse (in which case consider Ivy bridge E instead), upgrading is just excessive even if you just get the CPU. Having said that yes, two motherboard changes in a row is excessive, I prefer the whole Sandy to Ivy thing.

 

[rmpumper]

What the actual f*k? AMD does not talk anything about AM3+ or even new chipsets for Steamroller CPUs (don't care about 4 core Kaveri) or even if they will be releasing any CPUs other than Kaveri and now Intel are saying that their new 1050 is already dead while 2011 socked will be dead as well after Ivy-E release. Crap time for an upgrade.

 

[yannigr]

dark_wizzie

Why pay $400 for a $220 cpu? Because that will be the cost WITH an quality new motherboard.

 

[natoco]

22nm to 14nm is a big jump % wise for chipsets to account for.

 

[apache_lives]

heh nope iv worked the industry for years

real world clients dont upgrade anything more then ram and replace faulty parts when needed, they would rather replace their computer after a ~5 year cycle which is now first gen i7 area age group

socket 775 is a great example for anyone who actually knows their facts and specifications - it may be the same physical socket for the Pentium 4/Pentium D/Celeron D/Celeron Dual Core/Celeron/Core 2 Duo/Core 2 Quad and yet the first gen 775 motherboards never supported the Pentium D, Pentium D motherboards didnt support Core 2 processors, first gen Core 2 boards rarely supported Core 2 Quads, let alone second gen Core 2 Quads etc etc and so on (with exceptions)

look at AMD, some of their sockets have a dual power limit/rating (95w and 130w), then the mess of 754/939/940/AM2/AM2+/AM3/AM3+

overclocked motherboards VRM's usually start to play up after ~3 years causing cold start issues, nvidia chipset based mainboards flake out at the 3 year mark, backplates and connectors corrode in my area due to damp/moisture and create bad contacts from the dust and crap

if anyone remembers socket 7/super socket 7 - that was an actual "upgrade path" but i take it no one here remembers that, or the modding days getting a Mendocino mainboard to support the next gen by a simple pin mod (exposing Intels pin out change to stop upgrading etc), Socket A had a good run but thats as far as it ever went

welcome to the real world, THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS AN UPGRADE PATH ANYMORE

get with the times, wake up, learn a thing or two

 

[natoco]

22nm to 14nm is a big jump % wise for chipsets to account for.

 

[ianj14]

Hmm. This seems to be saying that a current Haswell might not work on a later 9 series motherboard. How many people would upgrade their Mobo and keep their current CPU?

What would be more valuable to know would be if the later Haswells would work on the current mobo 8 series chipsets.

 

[vipervoid1]

Welcome to "new" computer era , NO UPGRADE AVAILABLE ~
What is exist ? Buy new PC like current smartphone which is dumb ~
INTEL U SUCK A BIG TIME, Now Intel want to kill PC builders~

 

[tomfreak]

Intel.... LOL use typical old tricks again.... last time spread rumor Ivy not compatible with P67/Z68 chipset, everybody buy 2600K(instead of 2500K), now Spread rumor..... I guess they are not happy with everyone buying i5 K series?

 

[dgingeri]

We had, what, 4 different versions of the socket 775 chips? None of the newer chips were supported on older boards, some of the newer chipsets didn't support older processors. This is par for the course for Intel.

 

[InvalidError]

With only a ~20% improvement between CPU generations on a given socket, upgrading the CPU is a waste of money for most people anyway. Not much of a loss there IMO. What percentage of systems worldwide ever get a CPU upgrade these days between the day they are initially assembled and the day they are retired? Nobody I know has bothered with that in over 10 years.

And now, the low-end market is moving to non-upgradable form factors, which is going to make backward/forward chipset compatibility completely moot.

 

[CaedenV]

@yannigr
so go buy AMD, their chips typically last for several generations, and they are not nearly as far behind the times as they were a few years ago.
The thing is (and as apache mentioned in his 2nd comment) that normal people do not upgrade their core system (case, mobo, cpu, and psu) ever during the life of a computer. Heck, I am a power who has built my own systems for almost 20 years and I have only ever once bought a CPU and motherboard seperately. I am not saying that you have an entirely invalid point, but you have to understand that home builders are a minority to begin with, and hardware junkies that buy a new mobo or CPU with each and every generation are even more rare, so your voice gets kinda lost among all of the $$ that is being thrown around by the masses who simply don't care.

On another side of the coin, Intel is making some HUGE changes right now with their architecture. Their goal seems to be to have the CPU become more of an SOC. They are already eating a few northbridge features with each generation, and with Haswell we saw the CPU eat the VRMs from the motherboard. Intel is already thinking about moving basic onboard audio to the CPU like they did with onboard video a few generations ago. And on top of it all, there are no real improvements in performance to be had. Haswell is faster clock per clock, but has serious thermal limits which keep the clock relatively low so that an older Sandy Bridge CPU that has been clocked to the moon can still meet or beat the current gen equipment.

And Broadwell with the 9 series chips is not going to be a desktop chip anyways! It is BGA1150, not LGA1150. Even if they make a few LGA parts to pascify the home build crowd it is going to have 0 performance increases as it is almost entirely a wattage shrink. Your next CPU upgrade is not coming until the Sky series, which may not be until late 2015 or even 2016. By then there will be enough mobo feature upgrades to justify a new mobo with the CPU anyways. Personally, I am quite happy with my Sandy Bridge. Games and most creative work is run on the GPU these days, so I feel a need to upgrade my GPU, but my CPU is simply not utilized enough to justify an upgrade on that front.
Even when I do upgrade again in a few years it will be for connectivity features, not for a boost in CPU capability.

 

[Star72]

I just simply won't upgrade. I'll stick with my 2600k & be happy. There's not enough performance gain for me to consider "upgrading" to anything newer anyways.

 

[CaedenV]

22nm to 14nm is a big jump % wise for chipsets to account for.

What does a die shrink have to do with pin outs?
Socket 478 went from 180nm Willamette down to 130nm Northwood and GallatinXE Pentium 4
LGA775 went from 90nm Prescott Pentium 4 down to 45nm Yorkfield Core2Duo, which is a much larger step
LGA1156 went from 45nm Lynnfield Core chips down to 32nm Clarkdale chips
LGA1155 went from 32nm Sandy Bridge down to 22nm Ivy Bridge
1150 (LGA and BGA) will go from 22nm down to 14nm

In every case you are seeing a 1/3 or more shrink. And if they wanted then they could stretch out a socket standard much longer. The thing is that they simply do not want to. AMD users always run into the game of having to match not only a socket, but a northbridge, BIOS revision, and a power rating to know if a specific chip will or will not work in a particular motherbaord. Intel tried that with LGA775 and decided that it caused them too many headaches. So on the Intel side all that you need to worry about is the socket and the BIOS. BIOS can typically be updated for support, so it isnt a huge deal. So (with rare exception) if it fits, then it will work for Intel.

Intel is working on more of an SOC design where all of the main features of the mobo and northbridge get built into the CPU itself. Once this process gets further along then it stands to reason that they could make a single socket that lasts for some 6+ years. Because all of the controllers would be on the CPU then you could upgrade the CPU to get the new standard of PCIe or USB without need for replacing the motherboard. If you need more physical connectors on yoru system then you could simply upgrade the mobo without needing to replace the CPU (or a smaller mobo for a smaller system). But then again it could all move to BGA in the end. who knows

 

[southernshark]

I'm just laughing at the comments and the people who believe that there is a huge difference between a motherboard from one year to the next... other than the chipset/socket. It's even funnier given that they claim to have been "working in the industry for years...." I pity their company. This isn't the 1990s when a "new" motherboard could result in real performance gains. Today the specs on a quality mobo from 2011 versus a quality mobo from 2013 are minimal but for the chipset/socket. It's not as if we are seeing new ram or some other significant upgrade. It's a board and it's not that different from the old ones... real world performance differences are negligible. As for my CPU.... I would upgrade much more frequently if I could just buy the chip. If anything Intel is hurting itself by doing this as it causes me to wait several years before buying a new product from them. I would probably upgrade every two years if I could just buy a new chip, as opposed to every three to four years as I do now. I sympathize with Intel's desire to support "the industry" but at the end of the day it needs to do something for itself and it's pathetic stock performance over the past decade. Let the motherboard makers come up with their own reasons for people to upgrade, such as a significantly improved product, which as I noted earlier, we aren't seeing lately.

 

[yhikum]

Why would Intel justify their intent on keeping new standards for motherboard? Intel has done such changes in past and most likely will do it in future. There is no opposition apart from people diverting to cheaper alternatives for AMD. Would Intel count on complacency of people to wait and accept new changes? Why would it not? Intel is currently featuring lower power requirements than any other PC manufacturer can offer. Performance wise, it is on par with AMD and leading in Windows platform.

Then we can move to another question. Would people buy it?
Corporate users would, as they are not used to upgrades often. However, due to shrinking money supply in corporate accounts per new economy and governmental policy changes, this remains to be seen as for how badly upgrade is needed. Hence, there is no absolute guarantee that companies would need upgrade.
Regular users will also be looking for new computers, not upgrade. However, the price would come into question since there are many cheaper alternatives coming from AMD and Android based computers.
Would people who upgrade their computers often be interested in upgrade again? Certainly, and this is not an issue for Intel. In fact it is they, people who upgrade often, are the early testers of technology Intel is counting for adoption. Would money be a problem for such people? If they justified purchase of new computer or upgrade previously, the same justification can be used over again. That is until money problems ensue and purchases are no longer justified the same way.

 

[jimmysmitty]

Rumors are rumors. Can't be taken seriously until we see them in action.

Honestly I don't see the big issue since it can make sense. Look at AM3/AM3+. Bulldozer was not supported in AM3 but AM3 worked in AM3+. It has a lot to do with electrical layouts and what Intel may change on the new CPU.

If it takes more from the chipset on broadwell then it would make sense.

As stated, this is also why Intel is ahead of AMD. They don't focus on compatibility which limits what you can do with a CPU. If AMD adopted the same idea I doubt they would be so far behind but since they have to build their CPU around a socket instead of building a system around the CPU and its die shrink it holds them back.

Still rumors are rumors. Not true but might hold some truth. We will see probably in about well, another 4 months or so when some more info starts to come out.