Intel Coffee Lake CPUs Won’t Arrive Until September 16

Intel’s next generation Coffee Lake is set to be announced for launch on Monday, August 21, 2017. However, this appears to be merely a paper launch. There are no actual processors available yet. The new platform requires a new motherboard as well, although they will look identical to current 100 and 200-series mainboards due to a similar socket design. ASRock confirmed previously that the Coffee Lake CPUs only work on these 300-series boards, which should not be a surprise. However, they have been quiet about whether Kaby Lake and Skylake CPUs can be used on 300-series mainboards.

A surprising lack of leaks showing any new motherboard designs suggests that manufacturers are not ready to roll out their 300-series boards as well. After a hectic back-to-back release schedule with Ryzen X370/B350, X299 and more recently X399 motherboards, it is understandable that they could not keep pace with Intel’s demand of an actual August 2017 launch. Even X399 motherboards were on display at Computex before launch, and still only have a few options ready for actual release day. So far, only two motherboards have leaked showing the Z370 chipset: a Supermicro C7370-CG-L and a GA-Z370 AORUS Gaming 7.

Intel Tactic to Slow Down AMD Sales?

If the CPU and motherboard is not ready, then why launch early? The most obvious answer is to slow down those considering building a new system to wait. Wait and see how the new 8th gen platform is. There is also the fact that Intel has to please their investors and delaying a launch does not inspire confidence.

Leaked Prices Show Higher Price than 7th Generation CPUs

According to a leak from an online retailer PC Canada which lists these 8th gen processors already, they do not have any on stock until September 16. It gives a preview of the prices although it is in pre-tax Canadian dollars, it shows the price premium versus the previous generation model:

The new platform does not bring much new features over the 200-series but for the first time, Intel is bringing hexa-core CPUs to the mainstream desktop line. This is the main reason for the price bump. The flagship i7-8700K has 6-cores and 12-threads while the i7-7700K only has 4-cores and 8-threads. Whether this makes it worth the wait or not is still up for debate.