Coffee Lake i7-8700K Compatibility

[petermg00]

Today I just received all my parts to build a Hackintosh, then I happened to notice the announcement of the release for the i7-8700K, and thought, "Uh oh, should I wait?" This machine will be used for video editing and having 6-cores would be really beneficial.

What's the rundown of the compatibility for the i7-8700k and Z370 Motherboards? Will that take some time?

Thanks.

 

[Jamesbond007]

Today I just received all my parts to build a Hackintosh, then I happened to notice the announcement of the release for the i7-8700K, and thought, "Uh oh, should I wait?" This machine will be used for video editing and having 6-cores would be really beneficial.

What's the rundown of the compatibility for the i7-8700k and Z370 Motherboards? Will that take some time?

Thanks.

No Macs will use these hardware for some time. So expect to wait for native compatibility, if at all.

That does not mean you can't make it work, though. The X99 platform with its 6-10 core CPUs are also not natively supported and yet there are many people who make it work under Yosemite or later.

 

[kreispendl]

I'm in a similar situation as petermg00.
reading up on the z370 platform and the fact that the i7-8700k seems to work on some z270 motherboards, I imagine it would be possible to simply use it instead of z270/kaby lake.. however, i don't have enough of an understanding what features are regulated on a motherboard/bios level vs. an os level..
hopefully we'll have some brave early adopters here.. and we'll know more come october 5th
i'm holding out until then for sure.. since x299 doesn't seem to be such a good alternative for more cores..

 

[trs96]

Have a look at this post: https://www.tonymacx86.com/threads/coffee-lake-chips-to-ship-october-5th.232795/

Retail price of the I7-8700K will be 359 USD. About what we had expected. Amazing value for a 6 core chip from Intel. Thanks to AMD for providing some competition. It was a long wait.

 

[macdeutsche]

i7 8700k is around corner now, and I was told that it will be released in Oct 5th something like that.

Price wise, some says $360, some says more than $400. So it remains to be seen.

And it's for Z370 only, and DDR4 (supports DDR4-2666)

Board from gigabyte is also supposed to hit market on Oct 5th. Price unknown yet, but many predict it will be similarly price as Z270.

So if you start from scratch, it will easily cost more than $900 (360+200 board, 300 for 32gb memory and tax, if you want 64gb, $1200)

It looks like fun thing to build, but I would like to see if this is going to be supported somehow first.

Hoping that microcenter has nice deal for at least 8700k+motherboard.

If successful, this build will last long time, and if Apple uses this, there will be pretty big gap between current generation and previous one.

 

[petermg00]

No Macs will use these hardware for some time. So expect to wait for native compatibility, if at all.

That does not mean you can't make it work, though. The X99 platform with its 6-10 core CPUs are also not natively supported and yet there are many people who make it work under Yosemite or later.

Got it. This is really helpful. Would you recommend I wait a month, see if anyone reports a solid build, then make a decision about using it or not?

 

[Jamesbond007]

Got it. This is really helpful. Would you recommend I wait a month, see if anyone reports a solid build, then make a decision about using it or not?

If you really want to use the new hardware family, but are worried about compatibility, then I agree you should wait and see if anyone can make it work (under High Sierra).

 

[mahidul96]

Hi,

I ordered parts from Amazon today but cancelled the kabylake motherboard + cpu as I wasn't quite sure yet.
But I wanted to ask, if the 8th Generation CPUs are not compatible (after release/testing), would the kabylake motherboard/cpu become cheaper ? Currently, the i7-7700k I was going to buy is £279. Would the 8th Generation be around the same price?

Thanks.

 

[trs96]

Hi,

I ordered parts from Amazon today but cancelled the kabylake motherboard + cpu as I wasn't quite sure yet.
But I wanted to ask, if the 8th Generation CPUs are not compatible (after release/testing), would the kabylake motherboard/cpu become cheaper ? Currently, the i7-7700k I was going to buy is £279. Would the 8th Generation be around the same price?

Thanks.

Looks like the 8th gen will cost more than that. It gives you two extra cores. Intel is not giving those away for free. If you don't need 6 cores for the programs you'll use, stay with Kaby Lake. Six cores are best for serious video editing. For gaming the extra two cores won't matter that much, at least for current games.

 

[Allectus]

I'm in a similar situation as petermg00.
reading up on the z370 platform and the fact that the i7-8700k seems to work on some z270 motherboards, I imagine it would be possible to simply use it instead of z270/kaby lake.. however, i don't have enough of an understanding what features are regulated on a motherboard/bios level vs. an os level..
hopefully we'll have some brave early adopters here.. and we'll know more come october 5th
i'm holding out until then for sure.. since x299 doesn't seem to be such a good alternative for more cores..

I just saw this. They seem to think that the 8 series chips will not work with a Z270 board. You might want to dig a little deeper before you buy and try to assemble a new system.

Speaking for myself, I will wait until the first (or second) bios update for the Z370 boards. I don't mind being an early adopter, but I have little time and less money to waste on stuff that doesn't work.

Allectus