A new report has emerged regarding a possible mod that can be done on Intel’s Z170 motherboards to support Coffee Lake processors. The specific motherboard that was used is the MSI Z170A Xpower Titanium. It’s worth remembering, however, that it’ll probably be rather difficult for a general consumer to replicate this modification – not to mention the drawbacks that it brings.
Sources have stated that in order to make the MSI Z170 motherboard compatible with the Intel Core i3-8350K processor, modifications had to be done to the motherboard’s BIOS. In addition, microcode changes were also necessary in order for the alteration to work. Power delivery for overclocking was modified as well.
There are, however, some disadvantages to this modification. For one, the iGPU on the Intel Core i3-8350K was apparently disabled. Besides that, the primary PCIe express slot was also found to not work after the alteration was made. That said, folks at VideoCardz have theorised that these drawbacks may just be due to driver incompatibilities.
It seems rather odd, however, to see how a Coffee Lake processor is able to run on an Intel 100-series motherboard. This is because, not too long ago, Intel have mentioned that modifications done to the power delivery for it Coffee Lake processors made it impossible for them to be used on older motherboards. Well, that doesn’t seem to be the case now.
(Source: Baidu, PCLab via VideoCardz)
