Intel Haswell Z87 Chipset Motherboards Arrival Date ~ The World is Mine

Oct 10, 2012

Intel Haswell Z87 Chipset Motherboards Arrival Date

10/10/2012 06:16:00 PM

dannzfay

We've known for some time that Intel's Haswell central processors would be launched in 2013, but we have not actually learned much about the motherboards that Chipzilla intends to offer for them.

Intel is a relative unknown on the motherboard market. Though it has been making chipsets for many years, branded mainboards were few and far between. The corporation was usually content with allowing OEMs to make such things instead. The past couple of years saw it becoming more active here though. As such, we fully expected a production plan to exist, that covered the next few quarters. ComputerBase has published some roadmap slides which expose designs based on the Z87, H87 and Q87 chipsets, featuring the LGA 1150 socket (Haswell-compatible). We will only cover the Z87 here (the one without PCI and SATA II 3.0 Gbps). Intel DZ87KLT-70K (Kinsley) has four memory slots (DDR3), three PCI Express x16 gen 3.0 slots, eight USB 3.0 ports (6 external) and eight SATA 6.0 Gbps ports, plus HDMI and Displayport. Gigabit LAN goes without saying, though the 10 Channel Audio did give us pause.

Intel DZ87KLT-75K is the second board, nicknamed Kinsley Thunderbolt. It is similar to the one above, only with (obviously) Thunderbolt support as well. A third platform would be the Intel DZ87CA-55K, or Carryville, with only two PCI Express x16 slots and six USB 3.0 ports (4 external). The number of SATA ports is reduced too (six). The fourth Z87 motherboard is called Intel DZ87CO-50K / Colebrooke and is a uATX with four RAM slots, two PCIe x16 slots, 6-channel audio, LAN, HDMI, DVI and six USB ports (4 external). As people may have already guessed, these are the high-end options, the ones with the best overclocking support. Prices aren't known, but the availability is set for early second quarter of 2013 (April-June). Stay tuned as we bring you the Intel H87- and Q87-powered motherboard designs as well.