Intel Confirms 9-Series Motherboards Support Future Broadwell CPUs

At the Game Developer Conference in San Francisco, Legit Reviews reports that Intel Vice President and General Manager Desktop Client Platforms Group, Lisa Graff, has confirmed that upcoming 9-series motherboards will support next generation 'Broadwell' LGA1150 processors.

With 9-series motherboards syncing to the bevvy of new, enthusiast-grade Haswell-refresh CPUs, such as the Pentium Anniversary Edition and 'Devil's Canyon', this news gives PC enthusiasts the confidence to buy a new 9-series motherboard in 2014, with the knowledge the drop-in upgrade in 2015 will be compatible (assuming an annual upgrade cycle).

ASUS, TUF and ROG have a full selection of 9-series motherboards lined up, with specific announcements due soon (trust me, good things come to those who wait!) Existing ASUS, TUF and ROG Z87 (and other 8-series) motherboards already have BIOS' available for Haswell refresh.

Little has been made public yet about future 'Broadwell', the follow-on processor to current 'Haswell' (4th Generation Intel Core Processors), beyond that it will (inevitably) be called the '5th Generation Intel Core Processors' built on a new 14nm '3D' transistors and that at least one future enthusiast 'unlocked' socketed processor will feature Intel Iris Pro graphics. Current 4th Gen processors with Iris Pro are limited to pre-fixed 'BGA' processors in notebooks and Intel NUC-like products. How Iris Pro will feature in Broadwell processors (as Iris Pro 5200 or some other new variant) is currently unspecified.

More detailed news on architectural and process advancements are expected to be announced later this year; traditionally at the Intel Developer Conference in September.