Coffee Lake Not Supported by Intel’s 200-Series Motherboards
by Ian Cutress on August 2, 2017 5:12 PM EST- Posted in
- CPUs
- Intel
- LGA1151
- 200-series
- Core 8th Gen
- Coffee Lake
- 300-Series

In a stunning bit of Twitter, a tweet from one of the leading motherboard manufacturers has stated that Coffee Lake, Intel’s 8th Generation Core processors, will not be supported on the current generation of 200-series motherboards.
No,Coffee Lake CPU is not compatibilble with 200 series motherboards.
— July 31, 2017
Information like this is usually kept under wraps until an Intel reveal, but it seems to have been mindlessly posted to Twitter on July 31st, an account that last tweeted on April 11th before this tweet occurred. This tweet has since been deleted.
At this point, due to the similar microarchitecture to Kaby Lake being used in Coffee Lake, most of the technology press were under the impression that the Coffee Lake processors would be compatible with LGA1151 socket motherboards, namely the 100-series and 200-series. With the above tweet essentially confirming that Coffee Lake will not be supported, it means that either the new CPUs will not be LGA1151, or that the motherboards will lock-out the processors by firmware, or the CPUs and sockets will use a different notching system to ensure the wrong processor cannot be put in the wrong board. It does mean however that 200-series users hoping to upgrade to a Coffee Lake processor (which early reports are suggesting might be up to six cores, but this has not been announced) will not be able to.
There are many potential reasons for the change if the socket is still LGA1151. The obvious one would be product segmentation on Intel’s part, which would stick in the craw for a number of the user base. The second one that it might actually be a physical requirement for the processor – if previously unused pins are required for power and/or control for different elements of the DVFS in the chip. This would depend on new features on the chip, which could extend to different power management, different graphics, or different IP blocks that require separate pin-out connections. Intel might also be using a different power system for voltage regulators, which might not be compatible with current 200-series motherboards.
At this point, nothing has been made official. The fact that this was stated on Twitter so far from any launch date that we know of is an interesting development.
*The name of the manufacturer has been removed by request after this news was published.
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Source: Twitter
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Guspaz - Thursday, August 3, 2017 - link
Intel, are you *TRYING* to get me to switch to AMD? I haven't bought an AMD processor since the AthlonXP, but you're making me mighty tempted to spend my money elsewhere...PixyMisa - Thursday, August 3, 2017 - link
Come over to the Red Side. :)mapesdhs - Thursday, August 3, 2017 - link
Hey, maybe this is what's really going on, maybe there's an Intel boss or two who's actually an AMD plant? :DGothmoth - Thursday, August 3, 2017 - link
same here athlonXP was my last AMD.. then intel just got the better perfromance and also mainboards (imho).but now im back in te AMD cmap.. and happy.
no way i buy a X299 or Z300 board.
my ryzen runs fine and the next system i update will get a threadripper.
Gothmoth - Thursday, August 3, 2017 - link
damn typing on the phone..... "AMD camp".in 2020 anandtech will get an option to edit comments?
wow a tech website with tech from the 90s.... get a decent comment system!!
yeeeeman - Thursday, August 3, 2017 - link
Happy for 7700k owners. I bet they still think they made a great choice, lolHurr Durr - Thursday, August 3, 2017 - link
They did, considering the performance. Price is a different animal though.HollyDOL - Thursday, August 3, 2017 - link
Doh, not happy. Got Z170 board with i5-6400 as a placeholder, hoped to put i7-8700K in there and be happy for quite a few years... guess it won't happen. Luckily atm I am not doing anything with the machine where stronger CPU would be needed.nevcairiel - Thursday, August 3, 2017 - link
100-series is even two generations old by then. That seems like a lot of wishful thinking.mapesdhs - Thursday, August 3, 2017 - link
I thought it was obvious Intel was going for a new-socket-every-5-seconds malarky when they ditched Z97 so fast.