Motherboards - Page 17

CES 2019 - ASUS has chosen the Consumer Electronics Show as the time to launch its new ROG series motherboards, both prepared for respective HEDT processors from AMD in the new Ryzen Threadripper 2000 series and the Intel Core-X range.

The new motherboards are redesigned in a few ways including power delivery, but this is the first time ASUS has stepped up to the HEDT motherboard mantle with similar features on both of the X399 and X299 motherboards which is a great things to see. Both boards support up to 128GB of DDR4 and support 3-way SLI and CFX multi-GPU configurations and a boat load of connectivity, features, and other technologies.

Both of the new ASUS motherboards feature 10GbE network connectivity, and the usual slew of USB connectivity on the rear.

Supermicro isn't a name you typically find at the top of the extreme overclocking rankings over at HWBot, but today is different. Using a Supermicro C9Z390-PGW, user "Superm" submitted the highest LN2 9900K frequency world record, at 7.511GHz. While there is one score roughly 100MHz higher, that result uses Liquid Helium, which has a boiling point of -268C, which is much colder than the -196C liquid nitrogen can achieve.

The best part about this news is that the C9Z390-PGW is a six phase motherboard, without any of that twin or doubler stuff. Just six chokes (inductors) and six Infineon integrated power stages controlled by a Primarion digital PWM. If that doesn't yell quality over quantity, we don't know what does.

You can find our review of the motherboard here. The motherboard features a 6+2 phase VRM, with 6 for the CPU and 2 for the iGPU. The digital PWM controller is the Primarion PXE1610 and the power stages are Infineon TDA21232, which we figure are rated around 55A each, and then six Vitec 66A power inductors are used. While visiting Supermicro's HQ last month, I had a chance to talk with their engineers about their VRM. I was originally a bit wary of the motherboard featuring just six phases for such a power hungry S-SKU CPU, but they assured me not to worry, and when I did my review I was shocked that it handled the 9900K with ease.

GIGABYTE has just unveiled its latest AORUS motherboard just in time for the holidays, with the new Z390 AORUS Xtreme Waterforce ready to dip its toes into some water cooling goodness on a new Intel Core i9-9900K processor.

The new motherboard is for liquid cooling enthusiasts to push their CPUs to the limit, as well as everything else on the motherboard. It bursts out of the game with a gigantic monoblock that's pre-fitted to the motehrboard. This monoblock goes from the CPU socket through the power delivery part of the board, and the Z390 chipset itself.

The company is using a plastic cover close to the PCI Express slots, with metal heat sinks keeping the M.2 SSDs cool.

ASRock has just added another motherboard into its HEDT line up, with its first X399-based motherboard in its Phantom Gaming range. The new ASRock X399 Phantom Gaming 6 motherboard is similar to ASRock's current X399 FATAL1TY, with some wicked styling and packed with features.

The new board takes a helluva lot of RAM with 8 x DDR4 DIMMs that see the ASRock X399 Phantom Gaming 6 motherboard supporting up to 128GB of DDR4 at up to 3400MHz with specific DDR4 kits.

It supports 3-way SLI (2-way Turing) and 3-way CrossFire, if you want to go down the multi-GPU route with a Ryzen Threadripper CPU. There's a bunch of USB 3.0 ports, USB 3.1, dual gigabit Ethernet, RGBs, and more.

Supermicro just launched four Z390 motherboards that are available to purchase as of today, with the fully loaded C9Z390-PGW leading the pack.

The mini-ITX C9Z390-CG-IW, the ATX C9Z390-CG, the loaded ATX C9Z390-CGW, and the fully loaded ATX C9Z390-PGW for those who want the most feature loaded Z390 we have yet to see. The high-end C9Z390-PGW features the iconic PEX8747, which is now sold by Broadcom and can increase PCI-E lane count from the CPU by 100%.

We get a total of 32 PCI-E 3.0 lanes attached to the chip, which is then attached to the CPU, and this will let you run two cards at x16/x16 or all slots at x8/x8/x8/x8 among other configurations. Supermicro has also revamped their UEFI BIOS, and they offer their SuperO Booster application that allows for simple and easy to use Windows based overclocking, fan control, and RGB LED control.

Now that Intel has made its next-gen Skylake-X processors official, the flagship Core i9-9980XE will find the perfect home in the beyond enthusiast motherboard from ASUS.

The new ASUS ROG Dominus Extreme is a one of the highest-end motherboards I've ever seen, with an unbelievable amount of power and features crammed into a huge Super ETX form factor motherboard. Not only does it support the 18C/36T processor from Intel, but even the new 28C/56T processor in the form of the new Xeon W-3175W processor.

ASUS' new ROG Dominus Extreme motherboard uses the same LGA 3647 socket, but it amps things up in every single other area. Here's what to expect:

MSI had its turn just before with their new Z390 motherboards led by the flagship MEG Z390 GODLIKE motherboard, but now it's time for ASUS to shine in the light with their Z390 motherboards and the flagship Z390 ROG Maximus XI.

The new ASUS Z390 ROG Maximus XI CODE motherboard with an absolutely huge heat sink that spreads from the first to second x16 PCIe port and over the Z390 chipset, edging to the 4 x DDR4 DIMM slots. It looks glorious as well, with some awesome RGB-lit start/reset buttons next the DIMMs. It requires an 8+6-pin power at the top, and is ready for the flagship Core i9-9900K processor.

This motherboard is the new ASUS Z390 ROG Maximus XI, and you can see that there's some EK Water Blocks cooling above the CPU, with the same behemoth of a heat sink on the board. Looks great IMO, even in black and white as a preview image.

Intel is getting its new 9000-series CPUs ready for launch in the next month, with motherboard makers preparing their Z390 motherboards. MSI's new Z390 range has now leaked, led by the flagship MEG Z390 GODLIKE which looks so damn awesome.

MSI's new flagship MEG Z390 GODLIKE features an M.2 expansion card as well as something else - it seems to be a streaming-related card with an HDMI port on the back so maybe this is for gamers who want to game on their Core i9-9900K as well as stream to Twitch, etc. The MZI MEG Z390 GODLIKE motherboard sports four PCIe x16 ports, three M.2 slots (and another two with the M.2 expansion card), and a larger E-ATX form factor.

Next up we have the new MSI MPG Z390 Gaming Pro Carbon AC motherboard that has tons of RGBs coming out of it - hell, all of these new Z390 motherboards from MSI do.

Intel will soon enough be unleashing its next-gen-but-kind-of-not Z390 chipset, with GIGABYTE's upcoming Z390 Gaming SLI motherboard teased courtesy of VideoCardz.

As you can see, the Z390 Gaming SLI motherboard has one of its PCIe x1 slots upgraded to a x16 port allowing for two NVIDIA GeForce graphics cards to be installed in SLI. We're not looking at GIGABYTE's highest-end motherboard, as there are some models above this before we even enter the AORUS brand.

There's a pre-installed backplate which looks slick, and less connections on the I/O which is a shame - but expected on a more mid-range motherboard. Still, it will support two of NVIDIA's next-gen GeForce RTX 2080s or RTX 2080 Ti in SLI and not break the bank (at least on the motherboard, the GPUs are an entirely new argument on price, ha).

GIGABYTE has just announced their flagship X399 motherboard that is fully prepared and laden with features ready for AMD's upcoming next-gen Ryzen Threadripper CPUs.

The new GIGABYTE X399 AORUS Extreme motherboard will support the new Threadripper 2990WX which is AMD's upcoming 32C/64T flagship second-gen TR processor that has a TDP of up to 250W. GIGABYTE is using a heavily improved cooling system on the X399 AORUS Extreme, with 10+3 phase PWM supply that gets its power through not one, but two 8-pin EPS connectors.

There are 8 x DDR4 DIMM slots on the GIGABYTE X399 AORUS Extreme, 6 x SATA 6Gbps ports, 3 x M.2 slots (which are cooled by GIGABYTE's M.2 heat sinks), 4 x PCIe 3.0 x16 slots, and 1 x PCIe 3.0 x1 slot. There's 64 PCIe lanes thanks to Threadripper, so GIGABYTE is preparing for anyone to throw the kitchen sink at this motherboard with connectivity options galore.

ASUS has just confirmed that it's working on a slew of Z390 motherboards, with a huge 19 motherboards set to be unleashed in the coming months.

There is a listing on the official ASUS website with the new Z390 motherboards to be found in the families of STRIX, Prime, TUF, and Dragon series while the flagship Maximus XI takes care of the high-end side of the market. There will be ASUS ROG Maximus XI APEX and FORMULA motherboards for overclockers, while a mini-ITX motherboard can be found in the Z390-I STRIX.

Here's the full list:

Intel is expected to launch its new Z390 chipset in the near future, but according to the latest rumors the 'new' Z390 chipset won't be so new after all... and will reportedly be a rebadged Z370 chipset.

Right now, all of Intel's current 300-series chipsets are made on the 14nm node, except for the Z370. It was expected that the refreshed Z390 chipset would be made on 14nm, but with Intel having a million troubles right now - 10nm node is busted, their CEO resigned just a few days ago - things are changing.

Z390 will reportedly not be made on the 14nm node but will be on the same 22nm node as the current Z370 chipset. This means we won't see native support for USB 3.1 Gen 2 and other technologies that would've made it into the 14nm-based Z390, so there will be third-party controllers used by motherboard makers instead.

Intel didn't unveil its new Z390 chipset during Computex 2018, but that doesn't mean it disappeared and won't be released, as the purported ASUS ROG Maximus XI motherboard has been teased.

VideoCardz is behind the new report, stating that they "finally got info from my moles at ASUS. It appears that ASUS will bump the Roman numeration for Intel's upcoming high-end chipset". The site also confirms that there will be at least four Maximus XI motherboards on their way, while confirming four ROG STRIX motherboards.

GIGABYTE teased all with their huge motherboard capable of overclocking Intel's 28-core monster CPU to 5GHz, let's see what was hiding under the heat sinks and find out more about the CPU and motherboard.

There has been a lot of chatter about Intel's debut of their 5GHz 28-core beast, and while that CPU is probably a modified Xeon Platinum 8180, Intel nor the vendors would give us any information on the CPU or even motherboard. However, we can learn a lot from the motherboard used to demo the chip to the world. For starters, let's get this out of the way; yes, that chip was without a doubt overclocked. The VRM on the motherboard is a monster, and designed to support much more than Intel's "300W" TDP number (the Platinum 8180 is rated for 205W TDP).

For reference, Intel's 18-core 7980XE can easily pull 500W when overclocked to 4.5GHz. So add the increased leakage from taking more than 50% more cores all 500MHz higher, and add to that the decrease in VRM efficiency due to increased phase count, and we think the VRM could be pulling 1.2-1.8 KW. We heard rumors of the 7980XE pulling up to 1000W under LN2, so we don't think our numbers are too far off. We also heard that Intel was hitting the limits of physics, and we aren't just talking about upgrading their circuit breakers.

ASUS has just unveiled its monster new crypto mining motherboard, with the introduction of the H370 Mining Master motherboard, which can handle 20 graphics cards for the ultimate mining motherboard.

ASUS has learned from its first B350 Mining Expert motherboard, with the new H370 Mining Master motherboard simplifying the entire mining experience by letting USB riser cables connect directly into the PCB. Glorious. This means you can run 20 graphics cards at once, without as many cables and headaches - and trust me, there are lots of headaches with super-crazy mining setups.

The H370 Mining Master motherboard has mining-specific tweaks that ASUS has performed to the board, another nice touch, with one of them being the GPU state detection before the board boots, as you can see in the image above.

Intel and AMD are preparing new chipsets that are sure to confuse customers in the coming months, with AMD planning their beefed up Z490 chipset while Intel do the same with a suped up Z390 chipset.

AMD's upcoming Z490 chipset will be very similar to the just-released Z470 chipset, except the new Z490 chipset will rock new PCIe lanes when it drops in June. We should expect an 8C/16T variant of Intel's Coffee Lake CPUs, so think the Core i7-8790K, which will debut alongside the refreshed Z390 chipset.

Intel will be keeping its HEDT chipset around for a while, with X299 staying with us through 2H 2018.

AMD is currently in the process of launching their new flagship X470 chipset with the Pinnacle Ridge-based Ryzen 2000 series processors, but now a mysterious Z490 chipset has been teased.

VideoCardz reports on a slide that was allegedly posted on the PCEva forums, where it shows a presentation of GIGABYTE's AORUS X470 motherboards, showing the differences between some of the chipsets and then the mysterious Z490 (not X490, but Z490) chipset.

The purported Z490 chipset is identical to the X470 chipset except that it rocks 4 additional PCIe 3.0 lanes, something that would be great for multi-GPU users who want PCIe lanes for precious graphics cards, and multiple super-fast NVMe M.2 SSDs that need PCIe lanes to drive their insane speeds.

BIOSTAR has accidentally leaked out Intel's upcoming Z390 chipset, with an early reveal of their own Z390 RACING GT3 and GT5 motherboards with a manual on the B360 RACING GT3S leaking and teasing the Z390 as well.

If we're seeing manuals on these motherboards, it means that the new/refreshed Z390 motherboards are imminent. The manual can even be downloaded from BIOSTAR's website, but we don't know much about the Z390 chipset at all. We do know that BIOSTAR's new motherboard has support for CPUs at up to 95W TDP, which might "indirectly confirm the maximum TDP of 8-core Coffee Lake-S CPU" according to VideoCardz.

If there was a teeny tiny Ryzen 2000-capable motherboard that wins best all-round looks, it would go to the ASUS ROG STRIX X470-I Mini-ITX, which looks awesome.

The upcoming ASUS ROG STRIX X470-I Mini-ITX is a powerhouse motherboard offering a hidden M.2 slot, two DDR4 DIMM slots, and a built-in Wi-Fi adapter.

ASUS includes the usual full-length PCIe x16 slot, so you can power your new AMD Ryzen 7 2700X with a Radeon RX Vega 64 (yeah, probably not), or a GeForce GTX 1080 Ti.

ASUS is preparing the ROG Crosshair VII motherboard with AMD's new X470 chipset, ready for the launch of the new Ryzen 2000 series CPUs that are right around the corner.

The new ASUS ROG Crosshair VII motherboard rocks a new VRM heat sink, a pre-installed I/O shield, power on/rest buttons have been moved next to the DIMM slots, while we now have a M.2 slot with a dedicated heat sink to keep those super-fast NVMe drives from getting too hot.

ASUS have changed things up between the previous-gen ROG Crosshair VI and the new ROG Crosshair VII, with the latter featuring less SATA 6Gbps ports with 6 drives capable on the new board compared to 8 on the former. The I/O bracket features 12 x USB ports (with a mix of 2.0, 3.0, and 3.1) compared to 14 on the previous-gen port, but the new board now sports a PS/2 port.