Intel will support Intel Optane, only Kaby Lake-based Intel i3, Intel i5, and Intel i7 processors, but not Intel Pentium and Intel Celeron processors.

It has been confirmed that the arrival of the first Intel Optane units will be shortly and will only be compatible with Intel Kaby Lake processors. For the motherboard to support these storage drives, a BIOS update for the motherboard in question will be required and the new BIOS is beginning to be made available to users. Although it is for Kaby Lake processors, Intel has confirmed that not all Kaby Lake processors will have support for Intel Optane drives.

The latest information provided by Intel, establishes that the Pentium and Celeron based on Kaby Lake, will not support Intel Optane memories. This, among other things, is due to the fact that these processors have fewer PCIe lanes and already do not support M.2 SSD units, in addition, the simplest motherboards for these units do not usually have this type of connectors. Nor, for now, will be compatible with AMD Ryzen processors, but it is possible that these will acquire compatibility in the future, since Intel is interested, of course, selling as many units as possible.

This is a problem, especially for those who want to opt for the Intel Pentium G4560 processors, which we have been able to analyze and what good performance it offers. Intel Optane units, therefore, are reserved for Intel i3, Intel i5 and Intel i7 processors based, yes, on Intel Kaby Lake. These Intel Optane units will hit the market on April 24 in a 16GB capacity for about € 60 ($ 44), while 32GB will cost about € 90 ($ 77). They will be expensive and low-capacity units to be used mainly as cache memory and over the next few months they will grow in capacity and the price will be reduced, predictably.

Source: HardOCP