Starting January 4, 2021, Intel has begun to phase out its 300 series chipsets. The company recently published a Notification of product change detailing the end-of-life timeline of its chipsets supporting 8th and 9th generation Intel processors, and by the end of January 2022, the chipsets will be silicon history. The 2020 release of Intel’s 10th generation CPUs and 400 series chipsets already marked retirement for the 300 series, but now it’s official.
The last date anyone can place an order for 300 Series motherboards is July 23, 2021, with a deadline of January 28, 2022. This will affect consumer desktop chipsets Z390, Z370, H370, B365, B360, H310C, and H310D . and the consumer mobile chipset QMS380, which are based on a now-old motherboard socket, the LGA 1151. (The Q370 chipset was not listed, but it is a business chipset that supports vPro versions of 8th and 9th generation Intel processors. )
This makes sense from a production standpoint. Intel and other tech companies are having trouble getting it production capabilities they need to keep up with demand. CPUs, GPUs, and other components have been or are still being affected – and now that Intel is catching up with AMD in supporting PCIe 4.0, I can understand why it wants to focus on newer enhancements and be more forward-thinking in its manufacturing approach. The 400 series chipsets are based on the new LGA 1200 socket, which supports the PCIe 4.0 standard that Intel wants to integrate with its 11th generation desktop processors.
But it makes it tricky for consumers who want to stay with Intel. I have written about it before, but chipset compatibility is one of the biggest things AMD has over Intel at the moment. Depending on the CPU, AMD processors (non-APU) work on multiple generations of motherboards. The Ryzen 2000 series works with 300, 400 and 500 series chipsets, and both the Ryzen 3000 and 5000 series works with 400 and 500 series chipsets. It’s also worth noting that AMD’s Ryzen 3000 series APUs work with 300, 400 and 500 series chipsets.
Some previous rumors pointed to AMD releasing a 600 series chipset before the end of 2020, but clearly that hasn’t happened – and I’ll be surprised when AMD announces a new chipset at CES. The 500 series motherboards support PCIe 4.0 and have AMD’s Smart Access Memory (SAM) integrated at the BIOS level to work with the new Radeon graphics cards. (SAM is not owned by AMD, though. Nvidia is currently working on one similar update to RTX 30 series cards.)
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At the hardware level, there doesn’t seem to be a reason for AMD to release a new chipset yet. AMD has kept its promise to support the AM4 socket through 2020, and it looks like it will continue through 2021 as motherboard manufacturers are still rolling out BIOS updates for 400 series motherboards to work with 5000 series processors. The next chipset AMD releases could have a brand new socket, which wouldn’t be too bad considering how many CPU generations have remained on the AM4 – and it hasn’t announced any plans for the end of life of its chipsets.
In contrast, Intel has released a new chipset and / or socket every one or two generations. In the case of 7th and 8th generation CPUs, the company released an update to its LGA 1151 socket that made version 2 incompatible with 7th and 6th generation processors, so anyone upgrading to a Core i-8000 – whatever at the time but was needed to get a new motherboard. That was towards the end of 2017 and the beginning of 2018, depending on exactly when each processor was released.
In 2020 Intel released the 1200 socket that will require anyone interested in upgrading from a 9th generation or earlier CPU to buy a new motherboard. Not only that, Intel discontinued its 8th generation CPUs in June 2020. And while AMD has discontinued its Ryzen 1000 and Ryzen 2000 at this point (or rather, I assume it has discontinued the 2000 series as there is no longer an option to direct one of those CPUs. from AMD on its website), if you still have one of those chips, you can easily find a motherboard that works with it.
Intel’s CPUs, sockets and chipsets have not been transferred from gene to gene in the same way that AMD designed its products – and now that Intel has started the EOL process for its 300 series chipsets, consumers and laptop manufacturers alike will be. forced to adopt at least 10th Gen Intel processors by July 2021, meaning nice budget laptops like Acer’s Nitro 5 with a 9th generation processor could soon be more difficult to find or may become virtually non-existent. Intel hasn’t released EOL plans for its 9th-gen CPUs, or even the LGA 1151 socket, but the 300 series chipsets were the last to have the 1151 socket – and the 1151 socket is needed for a 9th-gen processor. When you link the end of the 300 series With Intel’s 8th Gen CPUs discontinued … this could be the last step before Intel decides to phase out its 1151 socket and 9th Gen CPUs for good.
If you’re a DIY PC, planning your PC upgrade just got a little more difficult. If you’re still looking for a 9th Gen CPU at this point, you should probably wait until at least after CES, when Intel will likely reveal more information about its 11th Gen processors.