Report: What to Expect From Intel 9-Series Chipsets
The supposed 'final specifications' of some of the upcoming 9-Series chipsets have been leaked.
A report from the Japanese website Hermitage Akihabara has told us a number of things about the upcoming Z97, H97, and X99 chipsets from Intel.
Starting off with the Z97 and H97 chipsets, these are largely identical, with a couple of subtle differences. Both of these chipsets follow the same principles as respective previous chipsets. Both of the chipsets are going to be wired to an Intel LGA1150 socket, which will allow them to support Intel Pentium, Celeron, Core i3, Core i5, and Core i7 Haswell processors, as well as the upcoming Haswell refresh processors.
Both of the chipsets will also be able to drive up to three independent displays (assuming the connectivity is present on your motherboard of choice), as well as have native support for the new M.2 PCI-Express based storage devices. Both of the chipsets will also feature a total of 14 USB ports (six of which are USB 3.0 capable) as well as six SATA3 (6 GB/s) lines.
The Z97 chipset will support CPU overclocking (when using Intel K-series processors, of course), as well as up to three graphics cards, all which will have to share up to 16 PCIe Gen 3.0 lanes.
The H97 chipset will not support CPU overclocking, nor will it support multiple graphics cards; only a single card with 16 PCI-Express lanes can be installed.
Moving on to the X99 chipset, we find half of the new HEDT (High-End Desktop) platform from Intel. This chipset will be wired to a socket LGA2011-3, which is built to support the upcoming Haswell-E processors. This chipset will be able to drive up to 10 SATA3 (6 Gb/s) ports, support CPU overclocking, and support up to four discrete memory channels. Regarding graphics, the chipset will be able to dedicate up to 40 PCI-Express Gen 3.0 lanes. As such, you'll be able to install anywhere from a single PCIe x16 graphics card all the way up to five graphics cards, giving each eight individual lanes.
To be clear about all this though, this is still unverified information. A number of websites are reporting these as the final specifications of the new chipsets, which while very well possible, is not something that we want to do just yet – so as always with rumors, do be sure to take it all with a grain of salt.
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Niels Broekhuijsen is a Contributing Writer for Tom's Hardware US. He reviews cases, water cooling and pc builds.
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zero2dash I ran 3 22" on Z77X-UD3H while my PSU was being RMA'd (since at that time I couldn't use my 560Ti's); not sure why this is a "selling point" when it was already possible?Reply -
SirKnobsworth Looks like the IO configuration on the H97 and Z97 is going to be the same as their predecessors - 6 USB 3, 6 SATA 3, 8 PCIe 2 with 18 ports total. I guess X99 adds 4 SATA ports but no word on how that interacts with FlexIO.I'm curious as to what M.2 has to do with the chipset though - isn't it just a socket which hosts otherwise standard connections? What prevents routing 4 PCIe lanes to an M.2 socket if they're not otherwise occupied?Reply -
lp231 Saying the H97 can only install 1x PCIe x16 slot is incorrect, because on the H87, it also says the same thing, but there are motherboards running on H87 chipset and it has 2 physical PCIe x16 slots. They're not both wired to run at x16. One is at x16 and the other is at x4. http://online.bs/2013/06/27/intel-z87-motherboard-review-with-haswell-gigabyte-msi-asrock-and-asus/Reply -
josejones Why waste the time even coming out with the 9-Series mobos if there's almost nothing truly new or beneficial. I am NOT impressed at all and neither are most others - the 9-Series isn't even enough of a performance increase to get anybody I know with a 2600 to upgrade. Intel, get back to us when you have something serious to offer with real performance increases. It just seems like little has changed in like the last 5 years.Reply -
SirKnobsworth lp231: Usually the second slot on H87 (and some Z87) boards is actually PCIe 2.0 from the chipset rather than 3.0 lanes from the processor. Can you find any spec sheets which specifically say otherwise?Reply -
lp231 Reply13003399 said:Why waste the time even coming out with the 9-Series mobos if there's almost nothing truly new or beneficial. I am NOT impressed at all and neither are most others - the 9-Series isn't even enough of a performance increase to get anybody I know with a 2600 to upgrade. Intel, get back to us when you have something serious to offer with real performance increases. It just seems like little has changed in like the last 5 years.
They might have done so, if AMD was still being competitive in the desktop segment. But seeing AMD has some what move their focus more on APUs, Intel doesn't see the need to release something with serious performance increase.
If it wasn't for those Radeon graphic cards, I doubt AMD will survive this long just by selling on APUs, as Intel can just lower the price of their CPUs, and that will be the end for AMD. -
undercovernerd6 The Haswell e looks insane for multi gpu configurations 40 lanes of pci e up to 5x gpu @8Reply -
bak0n I was actually hoping to see DDR-4 on this. The sooner it comes out the sooner it'll hit mainstream!Reply -
ekagori It seems like my faithful 2500k will ride on for one more year until Broadwell and hopefully DDR4.Reply