Intel Begins End-of-Life Plan For Coffee Lake 300-Series Chipsets
by Gavin Bonshor on January 5, 2021 10:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Motherboards
- Intel
- Coffee Lake
- Z370
- B360
- H310
- Q370
- Cannon Point
- Z390
- B365
- EOL
Intel has begun plans to discontinue its 300-series chipsets, including the higher-end Z390, Z370 chipsets, as well as its longer life B and H series chipsets. The 300-series chipsets are based on the second revision of Intel's LGA1151 socket designed for its Coffee Lake processors.
In 2017, to complement the launch of its 8th generation Core i7, i5, i3, Pentium, and Celeron Coffee Lake processors, Intel unveiled its 300-series chipsets. This includes the Z390, Z370, B365, and H310 chipsets. The most notable processors for the 300-series are the Core i7-8700K and Core i9-9900K, with these chips serving as Intel's flagship desktop processors from the end of 2017 up through the spring of 2020.
But Coffee Lake's time on the market is getting ready to sunset, and thus so are the chipsets that support it.
Outlining its discontinuance plan until the last shipping date expected on or before January 28th 2022, Intel advises its customers to make its final orders by July 23rd 2021.
Perhaps one of the most critical elements of the end of life plan is the H310 chipset. This is a chipset designed for longevity with three variations, including H310 and H310D based on 14 nm and the H310C built on 22 nm. It could be that the H310 chipset wasn't as popular as expected, especially compared to the H81 chipset, which lasted over 7 years before it was discontinued.
The Intel 300-series chipset has since been replaced by the 400-series desktop chipset, including Z490, W480, H470, B460, and Q470. These chipsets introduced support for Intel's Comet Lake (10th gen Core) processors, and their associated LGA 1200 socket. There have also been many rumors circulating that Intel's latest 500-series chipsets will be announced during CES, with Intel finally offering PCIe 4.0 with its new 14 nm Rocket Lake processors are expected towards the end of Q1.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
22 Comments
View All Comments
brookheather - Tuesday, January 5, 2021 - link
"These chipsets offer better support for its Coffee Lake processors." - the 400-series chipsets are for Comet Lake not Coffee Lake - completely different CPU generation.Ryan Smith - Tuesday, January 5, 2021 - link
Thanks! We didn't get our tea/coffee this morning, and it shows.Xajel - Wednesday, January 6, 2021 - link
Don't worry, Intel naming is so much confusing even after coffee/tea.MenhirMike - Tuesday, January 5, 2021 - link
"The most notable processors for the 300-series are the Core i7-8700K and Core i5-8600K"I'd add the i9-9900K to that list, together with a good Z390 board (VRMs!) it was the high end desktop to get for a while.
"then replaced with the 400-series, with a focus on Intel's 9th Generation Core processors"
Uhm... No. Z370 was 8th Gen (9th Gen with Bios update), Z390 was 9th Gen, 400 Series is 10th Gen.
TheinsanegamerN - Wednesday, January 6, 2021 - link
I'd say 9700k, it was much more affordable then a 9900k and the difference in games was minimal at best.MenhirMike - Tuesday, January 5, 2021 - link
The interesting thing about Intel for a while has been that getting a second hand CPU for cheap was relatively easy, but then getting a compatible board is really expensive. I got my hands on a B250 Board a year ago, and it was more expensive than a B360 board was. I'm not going on the "AMD Good, Intel Bad" train here, but I can't deny that Intel is more of a "Buy and retire the CPU and Mainboard together, since you won't get a compatible replacement in the future" experience.TheinsanegamerN - Wednesday, January 6, 2021 - link
Well yeah, you're not wrong. The thing with the whole "compatibility" argument is the lifespan of CPUs today is FAR longer then it used to be. I was rocking a 3570k until two years ago, and never had issues with it. I only upgraded to use NVMe drives. If ivy bridge had NVMe support I'd likely still be using that 3570k.Sure if you buy a Z390 board you are stuck with a 9700/9900k max and only PCIe 3.0, but given how long the core 2 duos remained relevant, some with PCIe 1.0 boards, in all likelyhood the 9th gen gaming chips will still be good for games for at least another 5 years, if not longer. So who cares if they cant run 10th or 11th gen processors? By the time you NEED an upgrade there will be PCIe 5.0 and we'll be on the 17th gen intel processors.
back2future - Wednesday, January 6, 2021 - link
for taking responsibility NEED has to be balanced with environmental surroundings issues, employment/economical growth, power savings, waste/recycling/raw materials extraction or workflow efficiency and customer related latencies or services to provide for compatibility ...A desktop (that is 12/2020 42% share of a computing market world wide on 76% Windows (~75% Windows10, ~4% Windows8.1, ~18% Win7, ~0.8% WindowsXp), 17% MacOs, 1.9-1.7 Linux and ChromeOs, compared to increasing almost 56% mobiles, ~75-85%Android, ~15-25% iOS) for personal usage and support transforms more often into tablets/notepads, laptops/notebooks or smartphones to some extent and there's already lpddr5 and cpus/socs comparable to core i3? power/benchmark performance at least.
fogifds - Tuesday, January 5, 2021 - link
Also Rocket Lake will be 14 nm, not 10 nm.erotomania - Tuesday, January 5, 2021 - link
The sad thing about AnandTech these days is that I went into this article expecting the facts to be wrong. In that regard, I was not disappointed.