Intel 9-series Chipset's Backwards Compatibility with Haswell Suspect

[btarunr]

Intel's 9-series chipset, which is built for the company's next-generation Core "Broadwell" processor family, and slated for the second half of 2014, may face backwards-compatibility issues with current-generation Core "Haswell" processors, and the ability of current 8-series platforms to support "Broadwell," even though the two processor families share a common LGA1150 CPU socket, according to a VR-Zone report.

The report notes that a number of electrical connections between the CPU socket and chipset are different, and the chip follows a different power supply (as in power distribution within the chip/motherboard) than "Haswell." Such differences could pose backwards-compatibility issues. Although a generation ahead of Haswell, Broadwell isn't its immediate successor. Intel plans to roll out a refreshed Core "Haswell" processor family in a few quarters from now, which in addition to fully-integrated clocking mode, could introduce a few other platform changes. The report notes that 9-series chipset motherboards could be more compatible with Haswell (refresh), than the current Haswell platform. Intel 9-series chipset could introduce support for SATA-Express, the next big consumer internal storage interface that succeeds SATA 6 Gb/s.



View at TechPowerUp Main Site

 

[Fiery]

"even though the two processor families share a common LGA1150 CPU socket, according to a VR-Zone report"

They don't share a common socket, simply because Broadwell will not be available as a socketed CPU, but only as a BGA SoC package. LGA1150 platform will only get the Haswell Refresh processors and the 9-series chipset.

 

[Roph]

Would this really be surprising? How could they force everyone to pay them more money yet again otherwise?

 

[birdie]

"even though the two processor families share a common LGA1150 CPU socket, according to a VR-Zone report"

They don't share a common socket, simply because Broadwell will not be available as a socketed CPU, but only as a BGA SoC package. LGA1150 platform will only get the Haswell Refresh processors and the 9-series chipset.

Rumors disagree with you.

 

[zsolt_93]

There will be socketed Broadwell too. Possibly just the HEDT platform, but this could be referreing exactly to that, the link between Haswell and Broadwell HEDT, and not the mainstream parts.

 

[EarthDog]

"even though the two processor families share a common LGA1150 CPU socket, according to a VR-Zone report"

They don't share a common socket, simply because Broadwell will not be available as a socketed CPU, but only as a BGA SoC package. LGA1150 platform will only get the Haswell Refresh processors and the 9-series chipset.

Laptops and low end stuff will be BGA. However, there will be an enthusiast segment that will not be BGA.

EDIT: As people above have already said, LOL!

EDIT2: I have heard this straight from Intel reps.

 

[Fiery]

Rumors disagree with you.

Not really. That's an old news post. Originally, Intel wanted to offer a LGA (desktop) and rPGA (mobile) packaged Broadwell, but later on they dropped that idea and pulled Haswell Refresh out of the bag. So LGA and rPGA will get Haswell Refresh next year, while BGA will get Broadwell SoC's.

 

[Fiery]

There will be socketed Broadwell too. Possibly just the HEDT platform, but this could be referreing exactly to that, the link between Haswell and Broadwell HEDT, and not the mainstream parts.

HEDT platform gets Ivy Bridge-E very soon now, and next year will bring Haswell-E with Quad-Channel DDR4 memory. Broadwell-E is still quite far, and may not come to life at all.

 

[ensabrenoir]

Would this really be surprising? How could they force everyone to pay them more money yet again otherwise?

seriously.... no one gets forced to do anything its all a matter of choice. All companies should be after your money, its how they stay in business and employ people.

 

[blibba]

seriously.... no one gets forced to do anything its all a matter of choice. All companies should be after your money, its how they stay in business and employ people.

Indeed, this is the system we have.

Nobody's making anyone upgrade their system. We're fortunate to live in an age where rather aged and cheap components are perfectly usable.

 

[Roph]

seriously.... no one gets forced to do anything its all a matter of choice. All companies should be after your money, its how they stay in business and employ people.

By all means, but when it's blatantly artificial, consumers have a right to be miffed.

 

[buildzoid]

By all means, but when it's blatantly artificial, consumers have a right to be miffed.

Yes but that's why you don't buy the product if you don't like it and if enough people don't buy it they change what they do.

 

[oNyX]

Doesn't Intel users get tired of this ever changing of sockets?? There's always that other rival to choose from.....

 

[Jstn7477]

Doesn't Intel users get tired of this ever changing of sockets?? There's always that other rival to choose from.....

Not everyone upgrades their computer every time a new chip comes out. In fact, many Intel users are still on second or even first generation i-series processors simply because they still perform very well. Buying an AMD chip would be backwards for me because they are on an older, more power hungry process node, the performance (not per dollar) frankly sucks, and the AM3 platform is pretty much frozen in 2010 feature-wise. The only reason why I have gen 2-4 Intel processors is because I needed more machines and I purchased one roughly every 6 months.

On the other hand, AMD's APU platform is soon to be on its third socket, FM2+, though it should have some backwards compatibility. FM1 was a one hit wonder though like LGA 1156.

 

[oNyX]

I've seen some upgrading from a 8150 to a 8350, others from a 3770k to a 4770k. It's a real waste for just a few frames.

 

[Fourstaff]

I've seen some upgrading from a 8150 to a 8350, others from a 3770k to a 4770k. It's a real waste for just a few frames.

Or perhaps, their desire to see what the new products bring firsthand. That's why you have enthusiasts.

 

[EarthDog]

Or perhaps, their desire to see what the new products bring firsthand. That's why you have enthusiasts.

That + the fact that the only difference between the AMD CPUs he listed are clockspeed I believe, while the Intel CPU listed has architectural differences and ~5% increase in CPC performance. Not to mention it has a better iGPU as well...

I get the point, but that probably wasnt the best way to prove it.

 

[Jstn7477]

Well, there is a tangible difference between Bulldozer and Piledriver with performance and especially maximum power consumption, but my point was there is no real need to upgrade if you bought something good to begin with. The FX-8350 was really what the FX-8150 should have been, and it seems like just about everyone dumped their x1xx chips for x3xx models. On the other hand, Sandy Bridge, Westmere and Nehalem were and still are excellent chips and there still isn't much of a need to upgrade from those platforms. AMD really needs to get their act together so their followers don't have to hope for performance increases and power consumption decreases every time they release a new chip. I would gladly run AMD if they were faster in a majority of programs, but they haven't been for years. I would have gone NVIDIA with my GPUs but they released a product that had most of its GPU compute ability stripped, less VRAM and doesn't support all the DX extensions the AMD GPUs do. GPUs are still a whole different ball game though.

 

[vega22]

I've seen some upgrading from a 8150 to a 8350, others from a 3770k to a 4770k. It's a real waste for just a few frames.

gaming is not the ony reason people have pc dude...

 

[Wile E]

Not everyone upgrades their computer every time a new chip comes out. In fact, many Intel users are still on second or even first generation i-series processors simply because they still perform very well. Buying an AMD chip would be backwards for me because they are on an older, more power hungry process node, the performance (not per dollar) frankly sucks, and the AM3 platform is pretty much frozen in 2010 feature-wise. The only reason why I have gen 2-4 Intel processors is because I needed more machines and I purchased one roughly every 6 months.

On the other hand, AMD's APU platform is soon to be on its third socket, FM2+, though it should have some backwards compatibility. FM1 was a one hit wonder though like LGA 1156.

Exactly. I'm still on my 3+ year old 980X because, quite frankly, there's nothing worth upgrading to yet. It would only be a small upgrade for a lot of money. At 3864Mhz, it's about the same performance as FX9590 (and I can run over 4.2Ghz without any tweaking if I want to increase my fan speed/noise), so AMD is out. And SB-E only offers a 10-15% bump in IPC at the cost of $1000 for the cpu + a mobo (have enough DDR3 to make the switch), so that doesn't seem worth it.

I'll stay on this until clocking no longer lets it keep up with what stock clock CPUs are doing. (Which, I'm guessing is going to be either an unlocked 8 core Intel or 16 core AMD of some sort.)