Ahead of their launch, motherboards based on Intel's cheaper H370 Express and H310 Express chipsets, hit the shelves in brick-and-mortar PC hardware stores in Thailand. Numerous pictures of ASRock-branded H370 and H310 motherboard models, namely the H370 Pro4, and the H310-HDV; GIGABYTE-branded Aorus H370 Gaming 3, and ASUS Prime H370-A, were posted to social media by PC buyers. Between March-April, Intel plans to launch cheaper H370 Express, B360 Express, and H310 Express chipsets, alongside newer Core i3 and Core i5 "Coffee Lake" quad-core and six-core SKUs; besides Pentium Gold and Celeron dual-core chips based on the silicon. The cheaper motherboards are expected to bring down the overall platform costs of 8th generation Core processors, which now require you to front over $100 on motherboards based on the expensive Z370 chipset. As with several generations of Intel chipset before it, cheaper chipsets lose out on key features such as CPU overclocking and NVIDIA SLI support.

Coffee Lake processors were launched along side the high-end Z370 motherboards. While the Z370 chipset certainly brings many innovative features to the table, different consumers have different levels of needs. Some consumers simply don't need all the bells and whistles that the Z370 chipset has to offer. That's why other mainstream chipsets like H370, H310, and B360 still hold their value, and many consumers are waiting for motherboards based on one of the aformentioned chipsets to come out. Unfortunately, Intel still haven't shared a concrete launch date with the public. But as online stores have started to list the new H370, H310, and B360 motherboards, our guess is that they will be available real soon. Since some of you are probably planning your next budget PC build with one of these chipsets, we've rounded up the images of the different models that are currently floating around the internet. You can get a sneak peek at the offerings from major manufacturers like ASRock, Gigabyte, and MSI. There are 29 models in total that range from the mini-ATX form factor to the conventional ATX form factor.

ASUS

Right now, it makes little sense to pick up Intel's Core i3 quad-core and cheaper Core i5 six-core chips, only to pair them with the company's premium Z370 Express chipset-based motherboards, which start around $139. The company had promised a second wave of Core i3 and Core i5 "Coffee Lake" processors, and newer Pentium Gold and Celeron parts based on the silicon; alongside three cheaper motherboard chipsets - H370 Express, B360 Express, and H310 Express; for launch some time in Q1-2018. We're getting word that March could be a busy month for PC hardware retailers.

The H370 has an almost identical feature-set to the Z370, except its lack of support for CPU overclocking and multi-GPU (PCIe segmentation). The B360 is slightly cheaper, and has fewer connectivity options. The H310 is entry-level, and has the least connectivity options. H370-based motherboards could be priced between $100 to $170; B360-based ones $80 to $130, and H310-based ones $50 to $70. Online retailers have already begun listing some of these motherboards. A list was compiled by Redditor dayman56. It includes links to over a dozen such listings of ASRock and GIGABYTE motherboards that, if not anything else, confirm model names.

It's no revelation that Intel is expanding its 8th generation Core "Coffee Lake" desktop processor lineup through Q1-2018, alongside cost-effective B360 Express and H310 Express motherboard chipsets. One of these is the Core i5-8500 six-core processor, positioned a notch above the current Core i5-8400. The chip surfaced on a SiSoft SANDRA database entry. Although the i5-8400 launched at $189, retailers are pushing it for 10-15 percent margins above MSRP. The i5-8500 could launch bang-on the $200-mark, although one must expect a similarly jacked up $220-ish retail price.

The Core i5-8500 comes with a psychologically-pleasing 3.00 GHz nominal clock speed (while the i5-8400 has a sub-3 GHz clock of 2.80 GHz). The database entry doesn't reveal Turbo Boost clocks, but given that the i5-8400 comes with a 4.00 GHz Boost frequency, one can expect that of the i5-8500 to be 4.20-4.30 GHz. The 6-core/6-thread chip comes with 9 MB of shared L3 cache, and a TDP rating of 65W. It scored 139.63 GOPS in the Arithmetic test, 317.88 Mpix/s in the multi-media test, 7.49 GB/s in the cryptography test, which puts its performance in the league of AMD's Ryzen 5 1600.

It turns out that Z370 Express won't be the highest-end desktop motherboard chipset for Intel's 8th generation Core "Coffee Lake" mainstream-desktop processors, with the company planning a higher Z390 Express chipset for the second half of 2018, according to a leaked company roadmap on 300-series chipset roll-out. Intel is launching its first Core "Coffee Lake" processors this October, along with the Z370 Express chipset. The mid-range B360 Express, H370 Express; and entry-level H310 Express chipsets could launch in Q1-2018, which is also the time when Intel launches the Q370 and Q360 chipsets for corporate desktops.

According to DigiTimes, sources among Taiwan-based PC vendors have indicated that Intel's upcoming Basin Falls platform, which includes Skylake-X and Kaby Lake-X processors on a new X299 chipset, will be unveiled at Computex 2017 (May 30th, June 3rd), in Taipei - two months earlier than expected. This move comes accompanied by an accelerated launch of the Coffee Lake microarchitecture, which still uses the 14 nm process, to August 2017 from an initial January 2018 launch. If true, this is big in a number of ways - that Intel would bring forward a product launch 4 months has some interesting implications - or at least, confirmations.

Remember that Coffee Lake is supposed to carry an increased number of cores in its mainstream designs. And we all know how Intel's line-up has almost been torn apart by Ryzen's aggressive core and thread-count, with AMD offering more cores and threads than Intel at virtually all price-points. And even if an argument is made regarding Intel's better gaming performance, that's one scenario out of many. Future proofing, professional work, multimedia, all of these assert AMD's dominance in a pure price-performance ratio. I, for one, would gladly give up some FPS in some games and accept an increased number of cores than go the other way around (especially with AMD's platform support and the number of patches that have increased game performance on Ryzen CPUs.)