Motherboards News - Page 1

We might not see this happen right away, but we're going to move away from that damn 24-pin power connector going into motherboards towards something far smaller, better, and more power-efficient.

Intel seems to be the one that is pushing for the new power-efficient ATX12VO power standard, with the launch of its upcoming 12th Gen Core "Alder Lake-S" platform. But the thing is: motherboard makers and PSU manufacturers aren't happy with the news.

It would mean a new 10-pin power connector on your motherboard -- so, a new motherboard. It would also mean a new 10-pin power connector ready on your new PSU, as the power supply can't feature any other power rails other than 12V. If voltage is lower or higher than 12V then it means the motherboard will be converting that power, and not the PSU like normal. Motherboards will be much more complex... costing more money... thus they are not happy about the move just yet.

If you want one of the ultimate PC gaming setups right now, you owe it to yourself to have GIGABYTE's new custom Z590 AORUS Xtreme Waterforce motherboard to be on your radar. Check it out:

GIGABYTE is using not just 1 but 2 different LED readouts that will not only look great, but they'll provide you with useful information like displaying the temperature of the water or the CPU. It's not just the read-outs though, as the huge monoblock takes over across a huge chunk of the board across both the Z590 chipset and those super-fast PCIe 4.0 NVMe M.2 SSDs as well.

It wouldn't be a motherboard that cost $1600 and had a gigantic monoblock if it didn't rock great power delivery, with GIGABYTE using 20+1 stage VRM with 100A power stages. You should be able to crank everything to the max when overclocking, with GIGABYTE even including built-in leak detection with its new Z590 AORUS Xtreme Waterforce motherboard. If a leak is detected, it will automatically shut down your entire PC.

Oh my word has MSI crafted something special with its new MEG Z590 ACE Gold Edition motherboard, which rocks actual 24K gold on its heat sink. Check it out:

The new MSI MEG Z590 ACE Gold Edition motherboard features a unique design, with an equally unique gold/silver/black theme throughout the board. MSI uses a direct 19-phase digital VRM with 90 Amp Smart Power Stages driven through 2 x 8-pin power connectors.

An actual genuine 24K gold foil heat sink is used, with platinum-colored parts scattered on top which would look fantastic in the right system alongside some G.SKILL Trident Z Royal RAM. We have an 8-layer PCB with 2oz Thickened Copper and support for up to DDR4-5600 RAM, so you should be good for overclocking. On top of that there's also dual Thunderbolt 4 ports and 4 x M.2 slots for a gigantic chunk of super-fast SSDs.

The next-gen ASUS Z690 motherboards are still a little while out but thanks to the latest version of HWiNFO, the software now includes support for the unreleased Z690 chipset and the ASUS ROG Maximus XIV family of motherboards.

Intel's next-gen LGA 1700 socket will be the star of the show on the Z690 motherboard, which will launch alongside and support the 12th Gen Core CPUs otherwise under the Alder Lake architecture. The new Alder Lake-S flagship CPU should end up being the Core i9-12900K -- and will work on the new Z690 chipset.

The new Alder Lake-S platform will also deliver PCIe 4.0 like Rocket Lake-S recently did, but we'll be getting some next-gen DDR5 memory and PCIe 5.0 support. The flagship Z690 chipset looks to be the only one that supports DDR5-4800 memory, while lower-end H670, B650, and H610 chipsets will support up to DDR4-3200 memory.

Russia has just unveiled its first B450 motherboard that is ready to take AMD Ryzen CPUs -- with Russia's CS Group and Philax announcing it is making "at least" 40,000 motherboards and 50,000 monitors.

The reason? Russia wants to lessen its reliance on securing products internationally, so making them in-house is the first step with the introduction of the new B450-based motherboards and 50,000 monitors on the way. The new motherboards might be under development still, but they've been passing all of the tests, certified for Russian government use, and can now be pre-ordered by certain clients in the country.

Philax used the ASRock B450M Pro4 because you can add a TPM module, a requirement for use by the government -- TPM or Trusted Platform Module, is a specialized chip on the motherboard that stores RSA encryption keys used by the system for hardware-based authentication.

MSI's new MEG Z590 Unify-X motherboard has been used to break the world record for DDR4 memory frequency, with an insane DDR4-7200 memory overclock.

Taiwan-based overclocker Toppc used the MSI MEG Z590 Unify-X motherboard alongside some Kingston HyperX Predator 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4 memory, reaching DDR4-7200 speeds. With Toppc using Intel's new Core i9-11900K processor, with just 2 cores and 2 threads enabled and the CPU downclocked to 1.5GHz with 1.505V of voltage.

LN2 cooling was used for the overclocking record, with the DDR4 memory set to CL58-63-63-63-2 3600 MHz (1:27). MSI's new MEG Z590 Unify-X motherboard was built for this very task: memory overclocking and smashing memory world records and I think MSI has just done that without a problem -- and we're only weeks into the launch of Rocket Lake-S.

ASRock motherboard adoption has hit an all-time high in Japan, conquering ASUS motherboards for the first time in 10 years.

ASRock now commands 37.9% of the Japanese motherboard market, new market surveys from analyst firm BCN confirm. Until now, ASUS has dominated Japan's motherboard market for the past decade.

Based on BCN's findings, 37.9% of surveyed Japanese PC gamers own ASRock motherboards as of March 2021, compared to ASUS' 34%. The data is based on aggregated sales and ownership.

Intel's new flagship Core i9-11900K processor is here with the new Rocket Lake-S chip being used in the GIGABYTE Z590 AORUS TACHYON motherboard and pushed to over 7.3GHz in a new OC record.

GIGABYTE's new Z590 AORUS TACHYON motherboard was designed with overclocking in mind, with a powerful 12+1 direct phases solution that's capable of pumping 1300 amps with the DrMOS power state design. We also have a VRM that has been designed with a full tantalum capacitor matrix that allows for improved overclocking.

Jackson Hsu, Director of the GIGABYTE Channel Solutions Product Development Division talked about the GIGABYTE Z590 AORUS TACHYON motherboard + Core i9-11900K processor being used to push up to 7314MHz, where he said: "By the assistance of engineering design power and management team, GIGABYTE's R&D team is able to turn those wild creativity into mass production".

MSI's new MEG Z590 ACE motherboard was revealed alongside Intel's new 11th Gen Core CPUs -- also known as Rocket Lake-S which are led by the flagship Core i9-11900K processor.

But now we're getting our first look at a new variant of the board with MSI's upcoming MEG Z590 ACE Gold Edition motherboard, which sees the company changing up the color scheme and introducing brushed aluminum and parts of gold throughout the board and its design.

It's the same motherboard as the original dark version, but MSI has dipped it in the new color scheme and it really does look great. With the right components -- G.SKILL's Trident Z Royal DDR4 RAM is an absolute MUST with this motherboard in my opinion -- this motherboard would look fantastic in a gaming PC.

Intel has fionally unleashed its new Rocket Lake-S family of processors with our reviews on the new Intel Core i9-11900K and Intel Core i5-11600K processors live on the site... it's time for some juicy new Z590 motherboards.

The first of which is the ASRock Z590 OC FOrmula motherboard which marks the return of its flagship OC Formula motherboards, with a newly-tweaked overclocker-designed Z590 OC Formula that is ready to rock and roll with Intel's new 11th Gen Core processors.

Chris Lee, general manager of ASRock motherboard business unit explained: "As Intel launches its Z590 chipset to power the 11th Gen Intel® Core™ processors, ASRock once again is your partner in conquering the overclocking world with the Z590 OC Formula".