The Intel Z690 Motherboard Overview (DDR5): Over 50+ New Models
by Gavin Bonshor on November 9, 2021 9:00 AM ESTASRock Z690 Phantom Gaming-ITX/TB4 (DDR5)
For the launch of Intel's Alder Lake, ASRock has prepared two mini-ITX form factor motherboards for launch, one for the premium market and one for entry-level users. The most premium of the pairing is the ASRock Z690 Phantom Gaming-ITX/TB4 which continues the brand's lineage of providing premium power and features but on the smaller mini-ITX sized platform. The pocket rocket Z690 Phantom Gaming-ITX/TB4 opts for a classy glossy black rear panel cover and heatsink selection, with elements of red around the board and within the ASRock and PG gaming logo too. ASRock is also advertising an 11-phase power delivery with smart power stages, with a single 8-pin 12 V ATX CPU power input delivering power to the processor.
As this is a mini-ITX sized motherboard, it includes just one full-length PCIe slot which is operating at PCIe 5.0 x16. As a consequence of its size, it's only able to fit two PCIe 4.0 x4 M.2 slots on it and opts for just three SATA ports, which are still capable of supporting Intel RAID 0, 1, 5, and 10 arrays. On the right-hand side of the board is a pair of memory slots that are capable of supporting DDR5-6400 out of the box, with a combined capacity of up to 64 GB.
One of the board's most prominent features is that it has one Thunderbolt 4 Type-C port, with additional support from four USB 3.2 G2 Type-A, and one USB 3.2 G1 Type-A port. Integrated audio consists of five 3.5 mm audio jacks with one S/PDIF optical output powered by a Realtek ALC1220 HD audio codec, with a Killer E3100G 2.5 GbE controller and Killer AX1675 Wi-Fi 6E CNVi providing the boards networking support. Finishing off the rear panel is one HDMI 2.1 and one DisplayPort 1.4 video output, with a clear CMOS button and 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.