First image of the core i7 8700 shows significant differences with kaby lake

Intel Coffee Lake processors are only going to be compatible with the new 300 series motherboards, something that has been widely criticized for leaving out of the game the 200 series that has not been on the market for a year, especially when it is followed using the same LGA 1151 socket from Kaby Lake and Skylake. The premium image of the Core i7 8700 has appeared showing significant differences with Kaby Lake and that could explain this need for new motherboards.

Same socket but important differences in Core i7 8700

The first image of the Core i7 8700 has been filtered thanks to the user dayman56 of the Reddit forums, the image shows us the substrate of the back of the processor where significant differences can be seen with the Kaby Lake processors released at the beginning of the year. Coffee Lake still uses the LGA 1151 socket but shows a much higher density in its circuitry than what can be seen in the Kaby Lake, something that is easy to understand if we consider that these new processors come with a significant increase in the number of cores.

The alleged prices of Intel Coffee Lake processors appear

For now no details have been given as to why the new 300 series motherboards are needed, you may be using different pins for different purposes, this would make the socket actually different by breaking compatibility with previous processors designed for LGA 1151.

Only time will tell us the reason for the need for new motherboards for these processors, from what you can see in this image it seems that it is somewhat more complicated than can be solved only with a BIOS update.

Source: overclock3d