Intel hasn't quite launched its 'new' Z390 series chipset, but that hasn't stopped ASRock's new Z390 Phantom Gaming 9 motherboard from being leaked out to the world through VideoCardz.

The new ASRock Z390 Phantom Gaming 9 motherboard sees the high-end gaming brand 'Fatal1ty' being retired, with this being the flagship Z300 motherboard from ASRock when it launches. ASRock will be launching other Z390 motherboards, with the Z390 Extreme4, Z390 Pro4, Z390 Phantom Gaming 4, Z390 Phantom Gaming SLI/ac, Z390 Phantom Gaming-ITX/ac and Z390 Taichi and a few others on the way according to VCZ.

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.

We're looking at a $500 price tag on the GIGABYTE X399 AORUS Extreme, and closer to $1850-$2000 for the flagship Ryzen Threadripper 2990WX when it launches soon.

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:

Maximus XI

• ROG MAXIMUS XI APEX
• ROG MAXIMUS XI CODE
• ROG MAXIMUS XI EXTREME
• ROG MAXIMUS XI FORMULA
• ROG MAXIMUS XI HERO
• ROG MAXIMUS XI HERO (WI-FI)

AMD's new 32C/64T processors are about to hit shelves across the world, with GIGABYTE the first to announce that its X399 AORUS Extreme motherboard now supports it.

GIGABYTE's X399 AORUS Extreme is the company's highest-end motherboard for Ryzen CPUs, packing 4 x reinforced PCIe slots, 8 x reinforced DDR4 DIMMs, a full backplate, 10+3 VRM power design, 3 x M.2 slots, Wi-Fi and 3 x GbE ports backed up by an insane 10GbE connector.

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.

While we won't see 14nm used for Z390, it'll give an edge to motherboard makers to make their 'new' Z390 motherboards stand out from the competition. The Z390 chipset will launch alongside Intel's new Coffee Lake-S based 8C/16T processor that should arrive in the form of the Core i7-8900K.

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.

• ASUS ROG MAXIMUS XI CODE
• ASUS ROG MAXIMUS XI EXTREME
• ASUS ROG MAXIMUS XI FORMULA
• ASUS ROG MAXIMUS XI HERO
• ASUS ROG STRIX Z390-E GAMING
• ASUS ROG STRIX Z390-F GAMING
• ASUS ROG STRIX Z390-H GAMING
• ASUS ROG STRIX Z390-I GAMING

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.

We believe that both the GIGABYTE and ASUS motherboards that demoed the CPU used a PCB meant for dual socket motherboards just so the copper plane was big enough to handle the increased current, we also believe the motherboards are using increased copper in the PCB. We also see double the ATX 8-pin power connectors, for a total of four. These power connectors are isolated for CPU power only, and by standards they should each supply up to 300W. However, we have seen more than 300W go into them with ease.

Computex 2018 - I knew that this Computex would be different now that we live in a crypto mining obsessed world, and I wasn't disappointed with what ASRock had on offer.

ASRock unveiled its new J3455 Pro BTC+ motherboard that features a built-in Intel quad-core J3455 CPU that has a clock speed of up to 2.3GHz, with the board supporting DDR3/DDR3L SO-DIMM RAM and featuring a huge 8 x PCIe x16 ports for the ultimate in mining power.

The board has HDMI and D-Sub out, 1 x SATA 6Gbps port and 1 x M.2 port, 2 x USB 3.1 Gen 1 ports, and GbE ethernet.

Computex 2018 - AMD's new B450 chipset has been shown off at Computex 2018, slapped onto the new MSI B450 TOMAHAWK motherboard, something we spotted when we were walking around the halls of Nangang before Computex 2018 kicks off tomorrow.

MSI's new B450 TOMAHAWK supports both the first- and second-gen Ryzen CPUs, features 4 DIMMs, 1 x PCIe 3.0 x16 slot, 1 x M.2 slot and 6 x SATA 6Gbps ports.

There's also some cool heat sink designs and 'Arsenal Gaming' branding at the top, with 'Tomahawk' branding on the left heat sink. There's a DVI port for older monitors, just in case you wanted to throw an APU onto the MSI B450 TOMAHAWK.