Intel 7th generation motherboard chipset: Computer parts, laptops, electronics, and more

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Intel Launches 7th Generation Kaby LakeA New Optimized 14nm Process: 14nm+Speed Shift v2: Speed HarderOptane Memory: Support for Intel 3D XPointIntel Authenticate and OPI 3.0The Kaby Lake-U/Y GPU — Media Capabilities200-Series Chipsets and MotherboardsA Brief Rundown of Results for Kaby Lake on Desktop

Chipsets

We discuss the chipsets in greater detail in our main chipset piece, but here’s a brief overview of what is coming to market. As with many other previous generation CPU launches from Intel, a new series of platform controller hubs (PCH), commonly known as chipsets, are being released. These are paired with LGA1151 socket motherboards, and thus also support Skylake as well as Kaby Lake CPUs. (This also means that 100-series chipsets, such as Z170, will support Kaby Lake with an appropriate BIOS update.)

Intel’s chipset releases are fairly predictable now: a Z-series chipset focused on multi-GPU and overclocking, an H series chipset which is basically Z without overclocking, a Q series chipset for vPro enabled platforms, and a B series chipset for a cheaper route to enablement.

Intel 200-series Chipsets
	Z270	h370	B250	Q270	Q250	HM175	QM175	CM238
DMI	3.0	3.0	3.0	3.0	3. 0	3.0	3.0	3.0
PCIe 3.0 Lanes	24	20	12	24	14	16	16	20
SATA 6 Gbps Ports	6	6	6	6	6	4	4	8
USB 3.0 Ports	>= 10	8	6	>= 10	8	>= 8	>= 8	>= 10
Total USB 2/3	14	14	12	14	14	14	14	14
Drives for PCIe RST	3	2	1	3	1	2	2	3
PCIe Config	x16 x8/x8 x8/x4/x4	x16	x16	x16 x8/x8 x8/x4/x4	x16	x16 x8/x8 x8/x4/x4
Overclocking	Yes	No
vPro	No	No	No	Yes	No	No	Yes	Yes
Intel Manageability	No	No	No	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	Yes

There is also a trio of new mobile chipsets which follow a similar pattern, including a Xeon-enabled chipset in the CM238 to allow for the new E3-1500 v6 processors.

Intel’s power consumption on chipsets isn’t officially listed for these parts yet, neither is their cost. In recent generations, there have been rumors (not officially confirmed) that pricing of chipsets has played a big part in some design decisions for OEM products, and perhaps why we are seeing more 200-series products at launch than we did for 100-series is down to this.

Motherboards

We reached out to all of the big motherboard vendors for details in advance of their new product lines, all of which are summed up in a special motherboard piece coming up this week with over 80 individual SKUs being announced. Note that some products are region focused, so flipping through our analysis will depend if a product is in your region. Nonetheless, one of the key features in this year’s motherboard lineups is that some of the vendors are streamlining their product stacks.

ASUS Maximus IX Code, Supermicro C7Z270-CG, GIGABYTE Z270X-Gaming 9
MSI Z270 Gaming Pro Carbon, ASRock Z270 Taichi, ECS Z270h5-I

There will be a series of new controllers seen on these boards, including the ASMedia ASM2142, a USB 3. 1 10 Gbps controller that uses two PCIe 3.0 lanes rather than one to supply up to two ports. Previously the ASM1142 was only one PCIe 3.0 lane for two ports, meaning the bandwidth was shared – the ASM2142 will ensure that both ports will receive peak performance when both in use.

Another new controller to note will be for audio: the Realtek ALC1220 (and ALC1220A from ASUS). This is an upgrade over the ALC1150 and ALC898 codecs we’ve seen on most motherboards over the past couple of years, with the added benefit of having a rated 120 dBA output and 113 dBA input. Despite these results, as we’ve seen in our audio testing before, the whole audio subsystem has to be up to par in order to produce the best measurable quality. ASUS is using the ALC1220A, which I’m told is a particular variant that ASUS has requested with additional features, but we’re not told if it costs anymore.

On the networking side we will still see Intel’s I219-V gigabit Ethernet controller on a lot of product, but not so much Rivet Network’s Killer E2400 solution. Last year Rivet launched their E2500 controller which we saw on a small number of late-release motherboards, but we expect that Rivet’s partners (MSI, GIGABYTE, ASRock) will be using the E2500 over the E2400 moving forward. The E2500 has additional benefits afforded by a new software package being developed (we’ve been in constant contact with Rivet on this), as well as announcements coming through Computex beyond the PC NIC.

The big change in the networking side will be the introduction of multi-gigabit Ethernet controllers, in particular Aquantia’s 5G/2.5G AQC107 controller that we reported on only a few weeks ago. From the breakdown of motherboard information we have so far, we can expect to see it on at least two ASRock boards and we’ve heard murmurings about other vendors also using it later in Q1/Q2. The AQC107 supports 5G, 2.5G and 1G connections through standard RJ-45 Cat 5 cabling at a lower footprint, power consumption, and cost to the 10GBase-T chips we’ve seen pop-up on a few products. Speaking with Aquantia, they want to expand a lot into the consumer space with their partners for switches, docks, commercial, professional and so on, meaning that with enough effort on the switch side, we might see a 2.5G/5G drop-in infrastructure take place without the need for re-cabling. It might take a few years though.

A new feature coming through on a few motherboards is a front panel USB 3.1 10 Gbps header. To my immediate knowledge it is already on MSI’s Z270 Gaming M7 and a couple of others, and in conjunction with various cable manufacturers there is hope that this connector will be a standard. At present it is being enabled through the ASM2142, using two PCIe lanes to provide one port of USB 3.1. We tried getting more detailed info from MSI as to why two PCIe lanes were needed for this but didn’t get a coherent answer, leading us to believe that perhaps the older ASM1142 chip will not support a front panel port like this. More investigation is required.

Technically all the motherboards, when equipped with Kaby Lake, should be able to support Optane Memory (remember, that’s the 16GB M. 2 cache drive) when the drives come out. Intel will be providing a certification service for this, and depending on how much it costs, we might not see it in play on the low-end products.

RGB is still going to play a big factor for 200-series motherboards as well: vendors are moving the RGB features down to lower price points on the cheaper chipsets. This will either come as onboard LEDs or as bundling an LED strip with the board for a dedicated header onboard (with software in tow). If you didn’t like LEDs before, you won’t like them now either, but there are one or two products at each price point still without LEDs (or you can turn them off).

Head over to our chipset analysis and motherboard preview pieces to learn more.

The Kaby Lake-U/Y GPU — Media Capabilities
A Brief Rundown of Results for Kaby Lake on Desktop
Intel Launches 7th Generation Kaby LakeA New Optimized 14nm Process: 14nm+Speed Shift v2: Speed HarderOptane Memory: Support for Intel 3D XPointIntel Authenticate and OPI 3. 0The Kaby Lake-U/Y GPU — Media Capabilities200-Series Chipsets and MotherboardsA Brief Rundown of Results for Kaby Lake on Desktop

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Intel’s 7th Generation Kaby Lake and 200-Series Chipset Platform Detailed

Intel is not only updating things on the HEDT side in 2016 but also bringing forth their latest Kaby Lake desktop processor platform for the mainstream market. Intel’s 7th generation core processors, codenamed Kaby Lake, will be based on the existing 14nm process node with further refinements to the design. Replacing the Skylake generation of processors, Kaby Lake isn’t expected to bring incremental increase to processor performance but will remain compatible with existing platforms while featuring support for next generation 200-series platform.

Intel’s 7th Generation Kaby Lake Platform — 200-Series Chipset, LGA 1151 Compatibility Featuring Intel Optane Support

While we have previously detailed the full Kaby Lake processor lineup which includes the H, S, U, Y series chips, this article will solely cover the desktop chips which will be launching later in 2016, as reported by Benchlife. It has been revealed that Kaby Lake processors will retain support on current generation motherboards with the LGA 1151 socket. The more surprising bit is that Intel is yet again offering users a new chipset in the form of the 200-series chipset that will launch along side the Kaby Lake processors. Just like the transition from Z87 to Z97, the new 200-series chipset will mostly remain the same but will include increased I/O performance that is very important for the platform to be ready for Intel’s next generation Optane storage products that use Intel’s 3D XPoint memory architecture. So the basic features of the 200-series chipset aside from supporting Kaby Lake-S processors will include up to 24 PCI-e 3.0 lanes (up from 20 on 100-Series Chipset), 6 SATA 3.0 and 10 USB 3.0 ports.

Image Credits/Source: Benchlife

Intel Kaby Lake Platform SKUs:

Another crucial feature of the new lineup is that not only will the Kaby Lake processors be compatible with the current 100-series motherboards but Skylake processors, available today, will also be compatible with the 200-series platform. This cross-generation support will be quite useful, not only for new users but also existing user base that may see the need to update to faster processors in the Kaby Lake-S lineup. Intel’s disruptive Optane SSDs and DIMMs will be a major feature set for the 200-series chipset as the faster storage solutions will not only result in responsive PCs but also better system utilization that is otherwise bottlenecked by conventional HDDs and even some older SSDs.

Intel Kaby Lake processors in general would be getting increased core performance (expect the usual 5-10% improvement) unless Intel plans to do something very different with Kaby Lake which seems highly unlikely. The processors will retain the basic features such for enthusiasts such as enhanced full range BCLK overclocking and 95W «Unlocked» options to choose from. While Intel has increased the core count on their enthusiast chip platform, things will remain the same on their mainstream platform with both dual and quad core (35W and 65W options) available to consumers along with the enthusiast quad core options. Other key features on the media and display side include 5K (30Hz) on one display and 5K (60Hz) dual display capabilities, HEVC 10-bit hardware decode, VP9 10-bit (hardware), UDH/4K display resolutions and support for Intel’s Thunderbolt gen3 support.

As for the specific SKUs, we will see Kaby Lake-S  (4+2) and Kaby Lake-S (2+2) SKUs. These chips will feature the GT2 graphics chip and feature integrated HDCP 2.2 support. There’s also a new Skylake 4+4e family planned for launch in 2016 which will be compatible with only KBL PCH-H (200 platform) which is surprising considering that Kaby Lake itself is compatible on both platforms while Skylake processors will require the newer platform for proper support. It kind of sounds like a repeat of the Broadwell-C series which was the only desktop chip launched in the Broadwell family that had GT4e iGPUs and vast eDRAM cache of 128 MB. For Kaby Lake, this eDRAM cache is increased from 128 MB to 256 MB and also offers several enhancements to the core GPU design structure to lift performance levels across the board.  The Kaby Lake lineup is placed on a similar path like AMD’s Zen which is expected to hit the markets in Q4 2016 and will pack vastly improvement IPC and performance over the company’s older Bulldozer core and its derivatives.

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Intel Processor Platform Comparison:

Intel Desktop CPU Generations Comparison:

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Intel chipsets 500 series vs 400 series: what is the difference
(koval@andpro.

ru)

Published: 30 April 2021

We understand what new features Intel introduced in the 500 series chipsets for 11 generation Rocket Lake processors

By tradition, for each generation of central processors, Intel presents a personal line of system logic. This happened with the 11th generation of Rocket Lake processors. And even before the announcement of the processors themselves, the 500 series motherboard line was introduced, consisting of four models of different performance. However, the new motherboards are designed on the LGA1200 socket, which is already familiar to users from the 400th series of motherboards for the 10th generation of Comet Lake processors.
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And this fact raises logical questions among users: what is the difference? Is it worth spending money on new boards, or is it enough to reflash the BIOS subsystem of the previous line.

Therefore, let’s try to understand the configurations of new products and compare them with previous versions.

Intel H510 chipset

Motherboards based on the H510 chipset are designed for budget builds based on the latest 11th generation Intel processors, and as a result, they are the most affordable, mass and popular option. System logic resources do not provide for overclocking of the central processor and RAM.
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As the junior model of the previous generation of h510 motherboards, the novelty supports a 1×16 PCI-E processor port, six PCI-E Gen 3.0 lanes, and a maximum of four SATAIII ports at 6Gb/s. Under the RAM, 2 DIMM DDR4 modules are still provided.

Thus, the new H510 chipset actually differs from its predecessor only in the support of new modern 11th generation Intel processors.

Chipset Intel B560

Motherboards based on the B560 chipset belong to the middle performance segment. Like the younger model, and the similar position of the previous line, motherboards based on the B560 chipset do not support overclocking the central processor, but it becomes possible to increase the frequencies of the RAM.

The processor port configuration has been changed: PCI-E has been increased from 16 channels for the B460 to 20, while the number of PCI-E generation 3.0 channels has decreased from 16 for the B460 to 12.
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4 DDR4 generation DIMMs are capable of supporting memory up to 3200MHz. Recall that the B460 chipset supported the same 4 lines, then with a frequency of up to 2933 MHz.

6 SASAIII ports are also available for connecting drives, but they have lost support for RAID. The total number of USB channels remains the same — 12.

Intel H570 chipset

System logic based on the H570 chipset is the pinnacle of the middle performance segment, which allows you to create powerful assemblies for games and work. Processor overclocking is still not available, but users have been provided with RAM frequency settings. The predecessor H470 was devoid of both.
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The number of PCI-E channels increased by 4 compared to the H470 chipset and amounted to 20 in the x1, x2, x4 configuration. The processor port configuration remained the same — 20 channels with x16 + x4 scheme.

The RAM frequency has been raised from 2933 GHz for the H470 models to 3200 GHz for the H570, there are 4 slots on the board with a DDR4 interface.

The number of SATA ports in both series is the same: 6 pieces of III generation with a speed of 6 Gb / s and support for RAID technology. The total number of USB ports is also 14, but of them the novelty has 2 USB 3.2 Gen 2×2 ports, which the previous generation did not have.
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Chipset Intel Z590

Motherboards based on the Z590 chipset are the flagships of the line, focused on the most powerful gaming assemblies. Traditionally, flagship models are equipped with an official set of features and technologies for overclocking the CPU and RAM.

Compared to the previous line and its flagship Z490, the following should be noted as innovations:

The increased number of DMI 3.0 lines from four to eight, which automatically increases the speed of information exchange between the processor and other nodes up to 7. 86 GG / s.
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The number of PCI-E processor lines has been increased to 20, which means it has increased by 4, and all of them are generation 4.0. The processor port configuration supports 24 channels with PCI-Express 3.0 interface.

The number of SATA ports on the reference chipset has increased to 8, but many vendors have traditionally used only 6 of them, like in the previous line.

The total maximum number of USBs is 14, but three of them can be used for the USB 3.2 Gen 2×2 interface.
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Thus, if at first glance the differences were not noticeable, then a detailed study of the configuration shows us the obvious advantages of the new 500-series system logic line:

• increase in the speed of information exchange between the chipset and the processor;
• introduction of USB 3.2 generation 2×2 connectors, demonstrating data transfer rates up to 20 Gb / s;
• in models of the average level of performance, the official function of overclocking RAM supported by the manufacturer appeared; nine0004
• support for processor lines PCI-E generation 4. 0.;

But the main indicator is support for 11th generation Rocket Lake processors without additional settings and optimization.

Brief video review of the popular motherboard from GIGABYTE Z490 AORUS XTREME — advanced technologies on the LGA1200 socket

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Intel Introduces New 12th Gen Processors and Chipsets

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• Intel Introduces New 12th Gen Processors and Chipsets

Author of the article: Sergey Koval
(koval@andpro. ru)

Published: 10 January 2022

Considering mainstream Intel processors and Adler Lake chipsets

Last fall, Intel released new 12th generation processors with hybrid technology, using high-speed cores for active applications and power-efficient cores for background tasks. According to the inventors, this approach to load distribution should have significantly increased the performance of the entire system: nothing prevents the main part of the processor from doing priority tasks, while background processes are performed in another part of the processor. The distribution of loads was supposed to be handled by a specialized hardware and software complex. According to the first tests, something revolutionary did not happen, except for the appearance of a bunch of complaints that the system did not work at all as it was intended, and many programs refused to start at all.
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But not everything is so sad, Intel, together with Microsoft, tried to solve the problems very quickly, in addition, users have always had the opportunity to control the processor cores and turn off precisely those “problematic” energy-efficient ones.

In general, enthusiasts were given 2 months to feel the new platform in the maximum configuration, to identify problem areas and shortcomings. The appearance of the younger Adler Lake was planned in early 2022, but no one thought it would happen so quickly, new processors and chipsets were announced on January 4th.
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New 12th generation processors

Intel immediately introduced 22 mainstream processors. All of them are not overclockable and have a base heat dissipation from 35 to 65 watts, and a nominal maximum from 69 to 202. The number of productive cores is different for everyone, and energy-efficient cores are present only in top models.

Core i9 processors have 8 productive and energy efficient cores, Core i7 differ in the number of energy efficient cores, there are only 4 of them. . Pentium and Celeron are equipped with only two productive cores. In addition to Celeron processors, all others support Hyper-Threading, 2 threads per productive core.
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New chipsets

In addition to new processors, Intel also introduced new chipsets: H670, B660 and H610. Compared to the top-end Z690, which many have already met, all the presented chipsets do not support processor overclocking, let’s take a closer look at each of them.

The H610 is the simplest home chipset, while the H670 is the older one. Chipsets with index B are designed for office PCs, but historically, due to the low performance requirements of an office machine, they put the most affordable motherboards.
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Other limitations also apply to USB 3 Gen 2 support — the H610 chipset can’t do that either. The number of SATA III ports has been reduced to 4 pcs.

The B660 chipset already supports memory overclocking and has 6 PCI-E 4.0 lanes and 2 USB 3 Gen 2 lanes. In terms of native support, SATA III has the same number of ports as the H610. Motherboards with this chipset can be used for office platforms and entry-level gaming computers.

Traditionally, the H670 has minor differences from the top-end Z690, the main one is that the chipset does not support overclocking of processors with an unlocked multiplier. Other differences are slightly fewer USB ports with native support. In principle, motherboards with this chipset can be a very good platform for building a full-fledged gaming computer. The lack of the ability to overclock the processor can only be rejected by enthusiasts and lovers of squeezing the maximum out of the available components. An ordinary gamer does not need to chase every score in synthetic tests, the main thing for him is stable computer operation and a comfortable number of game frames.
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New box cooling systems

In addition to new processors and chipsets, Intel also released new Intel Laminar cooling systems. The set will include three options for different capacities: Rh2 for Core i9 processors; RM1 for Core i7-i3 and for the youngest Pentium and Celeron — RS1.

The simplest RS1 cooling system is no different, except perhaps for compatibility with the new LGA1700 socket.

The most interesting Rh2 cooling system comes with the Core i9. It is an all-metal construction with blue backlighting in Intel’s signature color. But if you need to change the color, aRGB is supported. The prospect of getting a stylish modding new cooling system out of the box that will fit in new mounts is very bright.

To summarize

Intel’s promises to introduce new processors and chipsets from a non-top segment at the beginning of the new year have exceeded all expectations. Just 4 days after the chiming clock, 22 new processors and 3 new chipsets appear. Compared to the previous generation and competitive models from AMD, the new lineup will be appreciated by many, from hardcore gamers to system administrators. A slight difference in price with the previous generation (about 10-15% plus) at the time of release is more than compensated by the assortment.