Core i3 to Core i7- new motherboard needed?

[noooorb]

O o.... Do I need a new motherboard? I was under the impression that all Intel Core series processors were interchangeable. 

 

See attached pic where my new intel core i7 4770k appears to be  a bit too small for the cpu housing on my Gigabyte GA-Z77X-UD3H.

 

Thanks in advance fellas.

[Raa]

The Intel 4xxx series chips are for Socket 1150. You have a Socket 1155. They are not interchangeable.

 

You will need an Intel 3xxx series chip.

[Boo Berry]

Your board is a Z77 board, you'll need a Z87 board for the 4770K.

[noooorb]

Darn. Is the Socket 1150 the future of Intel core chips (want to be as future proof as possible here).

[Boo Berry]

Well...

 

1) The performance increases between generations of Intel CPUs for the last few years hasn't been *that* great to warrant an upgrade unless you absolutely want the latest chip, e.g. if you had a Sandy Bridge CPU, you're still in pretty good shape and there wouldn't be much reason to upgrade to say Ivy Bridge or Haswell.

 

2) There isn't exactly a "future-proof" socket - they tend to change from generation to generation. There is socket 2011 which is used for the higher end CPUs (for the foreseeable future at least as Haswell-E will still use it). But since you already have a 4770K, I'd recommend getting a socket 1150 (Z87) board instead and ride it for a few years. It's a hell of a CPU!  :p

[+theblazingangel MVC]

Yes, you need a new motherboard. Your impression is inaccurate, while their are usually multiple processors that will work for any given socket, there are many different sockets used throughout the entire Intel Core series. Your current motherboard has an LGA1155 socket, which is suitable for a lot of Intel "Sandy Bridge" and "Ivy Bridge" based Intel Core series processors, while your new Intel Core i7 4770K CPU is "Haswell" based and requires a motherboard with an LGA1150 CPU socket.

[Raa]

Darn. Is the Socket 1150 the future of Intel core chips (want to be as future proof as possible here).

Yes, socket 1150 replaces socket 1155 now. How long for? Hard to say, but at least the next 1-2 years at least.

[Boo Berry]

Yes, socket 1150 replaces socket 1155 now. How long for? Hard to say, but at least the next 1-2 years at least.

I predict LGA1145 for Broadwell. :p Assuming of course Broadwell comes to desktops for which I have my doubts it will.

[+theblazingangel MVC]

Damn, beaten to it by others :p

Darn. Is the Socket 1150 the future of Intel core chips (want to be as future proof as possible here).

As Boo Berry said above, they change fairly regularly. To be as "future proof" as possible in this regard, all one can possibly do is jump on a new socket as soon as it becomes available, thus "riding it out" for as long as possible... Whether you should return your new CPU and simply get a more powerful CPU for your existing board, or whether you should get a new board is your decision to make, we can't really even give a recommendation without knowing more background on your financial situation and processing requirements.

[+theblazingangel MVC]

I predict LGA1145 for Broadwell. :p Assuming of course Broadwell comes to desktops which I have my doubts it will.

Broadwell is simply a die shrink of Haswell, so won't they be sticking with the same sockets until Skylake?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_Tick-Tock

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CPU_socket

[Boo Berry]

Yep, unless they choose to gouge the consumers into purchasing new motherboards AGAIN (which they won't obviously... hopefully), heh. Again, assuming Broadwell come to desktops. Can't wait for Skylake though!

[MindTrickz]

There are 4 generation Intel Core? processors. Nehalem, Sandy Bridge, Ivy Bridge, and the latest Haswell. All 4 generation have their own variety of i3/i5 and i7 processors. The generation are not all interchangeable.

 

You have an Ivy Bridge motherboard. Ivy Bridge uses LGA 1155 and LGA 2011. The one you have is a Z77 that uses LGA 1155. The 4770K is an Haswell i7 processors, which needs a Z87 motherboard. Z87 is LGA 1150.

[PGHammer]

There are 4 generation Intel Core? processors. Nehalem, Sandy Bridge, Ivy Bridge, and the latest Haswell. All 4 generation have their own variety of i3/i5 and i7 processors. The generation are not all interchangeable.

 

You have an Ivy Bridge motherboard. Ivy Bridge uses LGA 1155 and LGA 2011. The one you have is a Z77 that uses LGA 1155. The 4770K is an Haswell i7 processors, which needs a Z87 motherboard. Z87 is LGA 1150.

Sandy Bridge and Ivy Bridge (second-generation and third-generation) ARE interchangeable, and can use the same motherboards, despite their releases using different chipsets (Z68 and Z77 respectively).  Therefore, you CAN run Sandy Bridge in a Z77 motherboard, or Ivy Bridge in Z68 - however, I recommend Z77 chipsets for either generation (due to chipset improvements in Z77 compared to Z68) - both second-generation and third-generation CPUs use LGA1155.

 

LGA2011 is a variant of Sandy Bridge and Ivy Bridge (Sandy Bridge-E and Ivy Bridge-E).  Only one high-end chipset (X79) was released for LGA2011.

 

Haswell (LGA1150) is the successor to Ivy Bridge, and has the flagship Z87 chipset - it is not electrically compatible with Ivy Bridge OR Sandy Bridge, or with Z68/Z77.

[snaphat (Myles Landwehr) Member]

Yep, unless they choose to gouge the consumers into purchasing new motherboards AGAIN (which they won't obviously... hopefully), heh. Again, assuming Broadwell come to desktops. Can't wait for Skylake though!

 

They already announced that Broadwell would be LGA1150. Skylake is going to use something called LGA1151. I imagine the LGA2011 socket will change also.

[snaphat (Myles Landwehr) Member]

Well...

 

1) The performance increases between generations of Intel CPUs for the last few years hasn't been *that* great to warrant an upgrade unless you absolutely want the latest chip, e.g. if you had a Sandy Bridge CPU, you're still in pretty good shape and there wouldn't be much reason to upgrade to say Ivy Bridge or Haswell.

 

2) There isn't exactly a "future-proof" socket - they tend to change from generation to generation. There is socket 2011 which is used for the higher end CPUs (for the foreseeable future at least as Haswell-E will still use it). But since you already have a 4770K, I'd recommend getting a socket 1150 (Z87) board instead and ride it for a few years. It's a hell of a CPU!  :p

 

High-end Haswell's (Haswell-E) don't use LGA2011, they use something called LGA2011-3. It has the same number of pins but a different pin-out than the original. They are incompatible because of the pin-out changes.

 

Broadwell-E will probably use LGA2011-3, but I doubt Skylake will given that Intel already announced socket changes from LGA1550 to LGA1551 for the mainstream processors for Skylake (they've shifted sockets across the board for all of their processors when they've changed them for each core i7 generation --> likely due to chipset and feature changes rendering incompatibilities with older chipsets).

[neo1911]

Its Intel's evil plan to make upgraders cough out more money if they want to upgrade the CPU. It should have been possible for Intel to keep socket pins unchanged for 3-4 years but that won't be as profitable.

[MindTrickz]

Sandy Bridge and Ivy Bridge (second-generation and third-generation) ARE interchangeable, and can use the same motherboards, despite their releases using different chipsets (Z68 and Z77 respectively).  Therefore, you CAN run Sandy Bridge in a Z77 motherboard, or Ivy Bridge in Z68 - however, I recommend Z77 chipsets for either generation (due to chipset improvements in Z77 compared to Z68) - both second-generation and third-generation CPUs use LGA1155.

 

LGA2011 is a variant of Sandy Bridge and Ivy Bridge (Sandy Bridge-E and Ivy Bridge-E).  Only one high-end chipset (X79) was released for LGA2011.

 

Haswell (LGA1150) is the successor to Ivy Bridge, and has the flagship Z87 chipset - it is not electrically compatible with Ivy Bridge OR Sandy Bridge, or with Z68/Z77.

 

You're simply reiterating what I've already state. I don't disagree, that's why I said "the generation are not all interchangeable", which is true. The Haswell i7-4770K he has, which is a Z87 CPU, and the Z77/Z68 are not interchangeable. He needs a new chipset.

[snaphat (Myles Landwehr) Member]

Its Intel's evil plan to make upgraders cough out more money if they want to upgrade the CPU. It should have been possible for Intel to keep socket pins unchanged for 3-4 years but that won't be as profitable.

 

Intel isn't even make motherboards anymore after Haswell, so where's the profit in them for you changing? Did you ever buy an Intel board in the first place? They only really ever made reference boards for their chipsets anyway. It was never a large business or focus for them.

[snaphat (Myles Landwehr) Member]

<snip>

 

Haswell (LGA1150) is the successor to Ivy Bridge, and has the flagship Z87 chipset - it is not electrically compatible with Ivy Bridge OR Sandy Bridge, or with Z68/Z77.

 

I said this a few post back, but there are pin-out changes in the design so it really isn't the same socket. It just has the same amount of pins and a similar mechanical structure (i guess you don't fix what isn't broken?). I imagine the pin-out changes are analogous to the pin-out changes in LGA1150.

[neo1911]

Intel isn't even make motherboards anymore after Haswell, so where's the profit in them for you changing? Did you ever buy an Intel board in the first place? They only really ever made reference boards for their chipsets anyway. It was never a large business or focus for them.

But OEMs have to keep on licensing the reference design from them everytime, don't they? So we still end up paying Intel each time.

[snaphat (Myles Landwehr) Member]

But OEMs have to keep on licensing the reference design from them everytime, don't they? So we still end up paying Intel each time.

 

Reference design for the socket? That's not how PCB manufacturing works. Intel does have reference designs for motherboard PCBs which they license under NDA to Intel partners. These would come with regardless of socket changes with each new generation of processor and chipset. The point is that you don't license the socket itself.

 

Let me discuss briefly the PCB manufacturing to show how the socket and chipset come into play for motherboard designers:

 

When designing PCBs you don't fabricate ICs or connectors you want to use, you purchase them from 3rd party distributors (the same as you would a processor). The process works like this: you design and fab you PCB, then mount components to the board. These can range from controllers for various things (USB, IDE, SATA, PATA, chipset) to connectors to place on your board (receptacles, headers, anything you plug something into). Each of these things comes with a datasheet describing the physical layout (so you can design the PCB to fit the component correctly), pin-out, and design characteristics of the component.

 

Let's go through the list of the most important parts (just to show that these things are purchasable and the documentation is available for anyone without licensing):

 

LGA1155 socket receptacle:

http://www.intel.com/content/dam/doc/guide/2nd-gen-core-lga1155-socket-guide.pdf (mechanical and thermal design guidelines -- even list suppliers)

http://www.molex.com/pdm_docs/sd/475960233_sd.pdf (datasheet)

http://www.digikey.com/product-search/en/connectors-interconnects/sockets-for-ics-transistors/1442972?k=lga1155 (list of connectors to purchase)

 

Z77 chipset:

http://ark.intel.com/products/64024/Intel-BD82Z77-PCH (Intel ark link)

http://www.intel.com/content/dam/www/public/us/en/documents/datasheets/7-series-chipset-pch-datasheet.pdf (datasheet)

http://www.mouser.com/ProductDetail/Intel/BD82Z77-S-LJC7/?qs=L4m7d03WznnvkT2%252b7C5XjQ%3D%3D (link to purchase it)

 

3rd Generation core processor pin-out and functionality:

http://www.intel.com/content/dam/www/public/us/en/documents/datasheets/3rd-gen-core-desktop-vol-1-datasheet.pdf

http://www.intel.com/content/dam/www/public/us/en/documents/datasheets/3rd-gen-core-desktop-vol-2-datasheet.pdf

[Dr K. A. Rasheed]

My intention is to assemble  a new PC on  a Motherboard that has M.2 sockets, DDR4 and USB 3.1. Many of the Motherboards that I study that it can accept Intel processors from  i3  to  i7.

 In order to save money for  short period I wish to  accept i3 as the processor fir the time being and later on when the cost of i& comes down go for the higher one. Is this feasible ?

[Jim K Global Moderator]

8 minutes ago, Dr K. A. Rasheed said:

My intention is to assemble  a new PC on  a Motherboard that has M.2 sockets, DDR4 and USB 3.1. Many of the Motherboards that I study that it can accept Intel processors from  i3  to  i7.

 In order to save money for  short period I wish to  accept i3 as the processor fir the time being and later on when the cost of i& comes down go for the higher one. Is this feasible ?

Yes...as long as the motherboard supports it.  

 

Please do not bump old threads.

 

//locked