I knew it was going to happen sooner or later … Coffee Lake CPUs running on a Z170 chipset motherboard via a hack. Although I would NOT recommend it.
The seemingly impossible (as per Intel) has happened: an Intel Z170 motherboard was made to support Intel’s latest Core i3-8350K. This news comes after various reports and counter reports went for and against this being actually viable, according to motherboard socket pin count and function allocation. That this happened not on a Z270 motherboard, but on a Z170, really does serve to open our eyes as customers to what sort of games might be being played by tech companies in product refreshes and new motherboard chipsets.
Granted, the mod isn’t flawless – but it would hardly be so, anyway. It’s being reported by a Baidu user, who has posted pics and CPU-Z validations of the unlikely CPU + motherboard combo. This mod was achieved via custom BIOS modifications and microcode changes, and not by a team of Intel engineers – as such, there are some bugs still to iron out, such as the IGP not functioning, and the primary PCIe slot being unavailable.
Sources: Baidu, PCLab, via Videocardz and TPU
