Motherboards News - Page 15

Intel will be launching its new Comet Lake-S processors in April 2020 according to the latest rumors, a new CPU family that will launch alongside the Z490 chipset and a slew of new motherboards.

The new Z490 chipset will reportedly be joined by the W480, B460, and H410 which will be destined for the workstation, business, and entry-level markets, respectively. The new flagship Z490 chipset would go hand-in-hand with the new Comet Lake-S processors which will arrive with up to 10C/20T, yet it'll still only offer PCIe 3.0 versus PCIe 4.0 offered on AMD's new X570 chipset.

Intel will be introducing a new socket with Comet Lake-S, with the new LGA 1200 socket offering 49 additional pins over the LGA 1151 socket. The new LGA 1200 socket will NOT be backwards compatible with previous-gen CPUs. But, previous-gen coolers should work, something we'll know more about next year.

Now that AMD's new third-gen Ryzen Threadripper CPUs are official, motherboards makers are unveiling their boards -- one of the first is ASRock and two new TRX40-based motherboards in the Creator and Taichi families.

ASRock's new TRX40 Creator motherboard is made for content creators that want a super-smooth, and ridiculously fast third-gen Ryzen Threadripper system. ASRock is positioning the new TRX40 Creator motherboard at creators who want to throw in crazy-fast NVIDIA Quadro RTX graphics cards and super-fast PCIe 4.0-based storage.

Included in ASRock's new TRX40 Creator motherboard is 10GbE networking courtesy of AQUANTIA's AQtion 10Gbps BASE-T Ethernet controller, which will offer incredibly fast network transfers. Pair this board up with a crazy-core-count third-gen Ryzen Threadripper CPU, some Quadro RTX graphics cards, PCIe 4.0 storage and 10GbE networking and you have quite the content powerhouse.

AMD is still in the kitchen cooking up its next-gen Ryzen Threadripper CPUs based on the exciting and kick-ass Zen 2 architecture, but what about motherboards to support them? We know about the new sockets in TRX40/TRX80/WRX80 that will support 24C/32C/48C/64C next-gen chips from AMD.

VideoCardz has the scoop here of a next-gen AORUS TRX40 motherboard on the E-ATX standard (i.e. it's chunky AF) and packs 4 x PCIe 4.0 x16 ports, and 8 x DDR4 DIMM slots for quad-channel memory goodness. There's a chipset fan to keep it cool, and a debug LED that can be spotted from this single, mysterious image.

You can see there is a bunch of fin arrays near the CPU socket, which would point to the third-gen Ryzen Threadripper CPUs chewing through copious amounts of power. Given that the new Zen 2-based Ryzen Threadripper CPUs will have up to 64C/128T and up to 280W TDPs, this is no surprise.

If you thought the prospect of China getting spy chips into major US companies and their systems and networks through Supermicro motherboards seeing the company reportedly being infiltrated by members of China's People's Liberation Army was bad, well you ain't seen nothing yet.

A new story is emerging that this entire spy chip game can be done much cheaper, according to Monta Elkins who works with Foxguard as a "hacker-in-chief". Elkins will be presenting his discovery and work at the CS3sthlm security conference later this month, where using a $2 chip found on a Digismark Arduino he could hack and take over a Cisco ASA 5505 firewall server.

Elkins explained to Wired: "We think this stuff is so magical, but it's not really that hard. By showing people the hardware, I wanted to make it much more real. It's not magical. It's not impossible. I could do this in my basement. And there are lots of people smarter than me, and they can do it for almost nothing".

Intel has caught a lot of heat for the tactic of refresh after refresh of virtually similar CPUs. Just to making minuscule changes such as TIM to solder change and minor clock speed bumps as demonstrated by the initial X299 CPUs 7XXX to 9XXX series parts. Users have scoffed at the 14nm+++++++++++++++++++ as many have put it due to Intel struggling for years with the 10nm node.

Well, today, Intel's complacency and practices may have come along to bite them in the ass thoroughly. As seen on Intel's own support article page the inclusion of the new microcode for support of the new Cascade Lake-X parts will remove compatibility for the dual channel X299 based bretheren, the Kaby Lake-X.

Kaby Lake-X has moved to EOL awhile back, but it's worth putting out a PSA about this as many users have them in hand. If users are judicious about their BIOS updates, they could be met with a machine that no longer posts if they were to flash this firmware without knowing.

The internet has been ablaze with the recent update from AMD in regards to both the 3950X and the upcoming third-gen Threadripper, or Threadripper 3000. We know that the top end AM4 CPU consisting of 16 cores and 32 threads, along with the HEDT platform of Ryzen 3000 Threadripper reaching an unknown, but potentially 64 cores on a single package will see the official light of day coming in November which is a mere month away.

The eagle-eyed among enthusiasts such as the team from Videocardz noticed an update from MSI on their promotional review program page. It has been recently updated to list a new model in the register for eligible products for the promotion, the Creator TRX40.

One takeaway from this listing is that the "Creation" moniker which was applied to Z390, X570, X399, and X299 seems to be going away. It looks like the "Creation" label will be pitched aside as the new Creator X299 and TRX40 show that they may be trying to clear up the marketing and targeting message to ensure users understand these boards are made for content creators.

Intel's recent announcement of Cascade Lake-X processors and the coming massive price drop, you can bet there will be a much higher HEDT demand this time around. With the 18 core unit dropping from $2000 to sub $1000, you can bet that the X299 platform just became far more obtainable for a large part of the enthusiasts market.

GIGABYTE has released the newest in their X299 lineup, labeled the X299X series. Don't let the name fool you; all of the same parts are still in place with the chipset backbone being X299. Beyond that, GIGABYTE worked to improve connectivity and capability of their X299 based parts in the new X299X offerings.

All of the X299X offerings feature the same 70A power stages for power delivery to ensure you can push all of the new Cascade Lake-X CPU's to the limit of your cooling. These boards also enhance the memory capability and support in lockstep with the new CPU's supporting up to 256GB DDR4.

MSI has created some amazing boards over the past few chipset generations. Like most board manufacturers, MSI has also ramped up the RGB game in the process to ensure relevance with enthusiasts users and industry demands.

Until now, one of the few board models to go sans RGB has been the 'Dark Series' by EVGA. MSI noticed the desire by many enthusiasts to build custom rigs based on powerful overclocking friendly boards without the need or want for RGB.

Enter the MSI MEG X570 Unify which comes out of the gate sporting some powerful specs such as 2.5G wired LAN and 802.11 AX for equally speedy wireless networking. On top of this, MSI also employs a 14 phase power design (real or doubled phases is unknown at this time). For the most part, the MEG X570 Unify model board seems to closely parallel the popular MSI MEG X570 ACE motherboard.

We know it's coming -- but GIGABYTE, did you have to fire off the flares like this? Intel's next-gen Comet Lake (and still on 14nm) CPUs are on their way, and with it will come new 400-series motherboards.

GIGABYTE is preparing 8 new Z490 series motherboards, 10 different B460 motherboards, and 6 different H410 boards. We are to expect a bunch of them in full-sized ATX as well as right down to the micro-ATX offerings -- all supporting the first non-HEDT 10-core processors from Intel in the form of the new Comet Lake family of CPUs.

The new information is coming from GIGABYTE submitting its range of Z400-series motherboards to the Eurasian Economic Commission registration process.

ASRock has one of the highest-end motherboards its ever made about to launch, with its new X570 Aqua motherboard powered by AMD's new X570 chipset and ready for the Ryzen 3000 series CPUs.

The new ASRock X570 Aqua is "completely water cooled" apart from its DIMM slots, PCIe slots and a few other places on the board exposed. The company says the custom water block it has made is "skillfully designed to ensure the heat of the CPU, VRM, and chipset can be dissipated efficiently".

We have PCIe 4.0 connectivity courtesy of the X570 chipset, as well as a 14-phase power design that should allow for some great overclocking on the CPU. ASRock also includes 10GbE network connectivity, Wi-Fi 6, and Thunderbolt 3.