It was just a hope before, but now it's a certainty, and we've got lists to prove it

Jun 9, 2014 09:54 GMT  ·  By

Remember what we said back at the end of May? That you might not have to buy a new motherboard in order to use one of Intel's mighty Devil's Canyon CPUs. Well, it turns out that the rumor was true.

Which is to say, there actually are motherboards based on the X87 chipset that can be used to build personal computers around the new Intel Core i7-4790K and Core i5-4690K.

For a full list of pre-9-Series motherboards that can cope with the Core i7-4790K, go here, and for Core i5-4690K, go here. They are all powered by the 8-Series of chipsets.

The issue of chipset support for Intel processors is one that causes a lot of under-reported controversy, because it kind of goes against all the promises for “future-proof” hardware that Intel and its partners make every once in a while.

And it also puts a new kind of spin on the promise for lifetime warranty. If the warranty lasts for the product's lifetime (as in, until its successors) and the product lifetime is of just a year, it's not much of a warranty is it.

Granted, these things are a lot more ambiguous than that, but that's kind of the problem. Especially when you launch a socket that's supposed to last for years, but release a CPU one year later which, despite having the same socket, only works on the new chipset, not the ones already out.

This is what almost happened with the Devil's Canyon central processing units and the Z97 chipset. Despite having the same LGA 1150 socket as H81, B85, H87, and Z87, they weren't supposed to work on them.

It would have meant that anyone who wanted a strong, up to date PC would need to get a new mainboard, not just a new CPU, in order to “keep up” with the times.

For most, this wouldn't be an issue. After all, it's not like everyone besides hardcore gamers and overclockers buy a new PC every other six months.

It still rankled though, especially since there was no real reason why Z87-based mainboards, at least, wouldn't support the Devil's Canyon Core i5/i7 units. It's a fortunate thing that this is no longer a problem. No one wants to feel as if they wasted over $300 / €300 on a product that became obsolete within a year.

If you want a reminder as to the CPUs themselves, the Core i7-4790K is a quad-core, 4.0 / 4.4 GHz CPU with 8 threads, 8 MB L3 cache and $350 / €350 price. Meanwhile, the Core i5-4690K is a 3.5 / 3.9 GHz quad-core without Hyper-Threading, but with 6 MB L3 cache and $250 / €250 price.