Looking to get Intel Z370 motherboard for your Intel 8th Gen Coffee Lake processor? Here is everything you need to know before buying. With the release of the new Intel Line up (Coffee Lake) Intel is back in the game after the disappointing launch of their enthusiast line up of Skylake-X CPU’s. Not only did Intel receive a bad word for launching Skylake-X but consumers felt left out as previous enthusiast CPU owners lost value over their multi core processors in an instant but that’s no surprise here as Intel has been up to such practices with constant refreshes and no competition from the Red team they had their way until the launch of Ryzen Processors which made Intel worry and re-strategize on consumer level processors leading to the Coffee Lake series getting consumer based CPU’s with 4-Cores 8-Threads even on the lowest offerings (Intel Core i5-8250U Processor).
Benchmarks revealed that Intel’s new line up is doing spectacular when it comes to performance, specially the i7 8700K which is a complete monster giving an average of 170+ fps on games like the Witcher 3 and Crysis 3 which were previously not even possible on either Ryzen or Skylake CPU’s.
So what’s the catch? Currently the only motherboards that support the Coffee Lake CPU’s are Z370 series, that means if you are looking to purchase one at the moment you are in need of a new motherboard, these CPU’s are not going to work with Z270 Chipsets or anything prior, something that has been done by Intel before as well. Whenever there is a generational leap in CPU’s there is a requirement for a new Chipset unlike AMD which promises its consumers long support for their existing products in both platforms like GPU’s and CPU’s. There are no B360/H270 motherboards coming this year. Consumers have to wait till 2018 for that.
As an Intel Representative explained that “Getting the max out of 6 core processor required changes to our motherboards, specifically to provide improved power delivery to new 6-core processors.” In other words the existing models are not good enough to provide the more and efficiency that is require for the 8th Generation Intel Processors. Furthermore Intel also added “We also took the opportunity to improve our overclocking capabilities by improving the package power delivery to the CPU. This is another change that required motherboard changes”.
You might find cheaper Z370 Motherboards on the market ranging from $120-$200 but for someone on a budget and looking for great performance from the Intel brand will have to spend the same amount on the motherboard as well as the CPU.