The Intel Z690 Motherboard Overview (DDR5): Over 50+ New Models
by Gavin Bonshor on November 9, 2021 9:00 AM ESTASRock Z690 PG Velocita (DDR5)
Sitting below the Z690 Taichi in its product stack, ASRock also has a couple of Phantom Gaming series branded boards for Intel's Z690 and Alder Lake launch. The most apparent of the ATX sized versions is the ASRock Z690 PG Velocita, which was introduced back during the launch of Intel's 10th generation Z490 chipset. The ASRock Z690 PG Velocita has an interesting design layout, with elements of black, red, and purple within the rear panel cover, and integrated RGB LEDs built into both the rear panel cover and chipset heatsink.
Looking at the board's PCIe slot support. ASRock includes five PCIe slots in total, including one full-length PCIe 5.0 x16, one full-length PCIe 4.0 x4, one full-length PCIe 3.0 x4 slot, and two PCIe 3.0 x1 slots. For storage, there are four M.2 slots in total including one with support for PCIe 5.0 x4 drives when they eventually hit the market, two PCIe 4.0 x4 M.2 slots, and one PCIe 3.0 x4 M.2 slot. ASRock also includes six SATA ports with support for RAID 0, 1, 5, and 10 arrays. Located in the top right-hand corner are four memory slots, which can support speeds of up to DDR5-6400, and a combined capacity of up to 128 GB.
On the rear panel of the ASRock Z690 PG Velocita is one USB 3.2 G2 Type-C, one USB 3.2 G2 Type-A, six USB 3.2 G1 Type-A, and two USB 2.0 ports. There's a pair of video outputs consisting of an HDMI and DisplayPort, while five 3.5 mm audio jacks and S/PDIF optical output are powered by a Realtek ALC1220 HD audio codec. The board includes two RJ45 ports, with one powered by a Killer E3100G 2.5 GbE controller, and the other by an Intel I219-V Gigabit controller, with wireless support coming from a Killer AX1675 Wi-Fi 6E CNVi. Finishing off the rear panel is a small BIOS Flashback button.
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Oxford Guy - Wednesday, November 10, 2021 - link
Creating more fiat bills has consequences. Congress literally printed money to give to lobbyists as part of ‘Covid relief’.fcth - Wednesday, November 10, 2021 - link
Sad to see only one mATX board, though at least it looks like a decent (if expensive) option.Mite - Wednesday, November 10, 2021 - link
Can ASUS Z690 Maximus Extreme run PCIe 5.0 x16 GPU and PCIe 5.0 x4 M.2 SSD concurrently? Will the GPU (PCIe 5.0 x16 slot 1) drop to PCIe 5.0 x8 instead when SSD is installed on the PCIe 5.0 x4 (M2 slot)?Kakkoii - Wednesday, November 10, 2021 - link
MSI does show the Audio Codec... just not on the simplified summary. You guys have to click the "Detail" tab on the Specifications page for a given board. All the boards show which audio they're using.The Carbon for example has ALC4080.
gavbon - Thursday, November 18, 2021 - link
At the time of writing, even the detail sections of the specifications didn't show them. On top of this, all of the information we received prior to launch mentioned no specific HD audio codecs. I will update this though :)JackNJ - Friday, November 12, 2021 - link
The GIGABYTE Z690I Aorus Ultra is not DDR5 I think?chavv - Friday, November 12, 2021 - link
5 m2 slots?How is this useful for a normal user?!
Or 600$ mobo for desktop usage?!
World gone mad
mode_13h - Saturday, November 13, 2021 - link
For RAID, obviously. That borderline makes sense. If you're running a 4 or 5-drive RAID of SSDs in a consumer rig, it's more cost-effective and still plenty fast to use SATA. And I think it's not unreasonable to expect anyone using M.2 drives to put them in a PCIe carrier card, which will have better cooling potential anyhow.sunmobo - Friday, November 12, 2021 - link
You've included MSI's ITX variant in the list (MEG Z690I Unify) but I can't seem to find it on their website. Although if you google you'll find a few mentions on some shops, without pics. Is this because MSI is still working on the board, or?gavbon - Thursday, November 18, 2021 - link
It's likely to launch soon, but it does and will exist.