The Intel Z690 Motherboard Overview (DDR5): Over 50+ New Models
by Gavin Bonshor on November 9, 2021 9:00 AM ESTGIGABYTE Z690 Aero D (DDR5)
Moving away from the gaming-focused Aorus branded motherboards, and GIGABYTE has announced its content-creator-friendly Aero series will be making a return for Z690. The GIGABYTE Z690 Aero D is a solid representation of this with plenty of premium controllers, high-end features, and good compatibility with external devices. Focusing on the design, the Z690 Aero D is decked out in a contrasting black and silver aesthetic, with a classy large rear panel cover, with silver heatsinks throughout which covers the majority of the PCB. GIGABYTE has also omitted any integrated RGB LED lighting, which is typical of it for its Aero series of motherboards.
Dominating the lower half of the board on the GIGABYTE Z690 Aero D is a pair of full-length PCIe 5.0 slots that can operate at x16 and x8/x8, with a third full-length slot electronically locked down to PCIe 3.0 x4. For M.2 storage, there are four PCIe 4.0 x4 M.2 slots, while only one of these supports SATA-based drives. The Z690 Aero D also includes six SATA ports with support for Intel RAID 0, 1, 5, and 10 arrays. Located in the top right-hand corner is the board's memory slots, with GIGABYTE including four with support for DDR5-6400, and a combined capacity of up to 128 GB.
Looking at the rear panel of the GIGABYTE Z690 Aero D, and this is where all of that content-creator-friendly goodness is. It includes dual Thunderbolt 4 Type-C ports, with six USB 3.2 G2 Type-A ports, and a pair of video ports including one HDMI 2.1 video output and one DisplayPort 1.4 video input. The board's networking configuration is high-end, with an Aquantia AQC107 10 GbE and Intel I225-V 2.5 GbE controller pairing, with an Intel AX210 Wi-Fi 6E CNVi providing both wireless and BT 5.2 connectivity. Integrated audio options are basic, with just two 3.5 mm audio jacks that finish off a premium, yet interesting rear panel layout.
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mode_13h - Friday, November 12, 2021 - link
I was really disappointed not to see more discussion of costs and why the price distribution of these boards tends to skew so high.However, I was most surprised to see how much lower some of the entry-level models are priced. Do we think these will be produced in sufficient volume, or are they primarily there as a means of upselling would-be buyers who, out of frustration at seeing them always out-of-stock eventually end up buying one of the more expensive models?
mikk - Saturday, November 13, 2021 - link
MSI Pro Z690-A WIFI, MSI Pro Z690-A and many more have the cheaper Realtek ALC897 Codec, the audio table is not accurate and it says Z490 instead of Z690.ajollylife - Sunday, November 14, 2021 - link
Wtf is with the PCIe 3.0 slots? I'm looking at the Gigabyte Aorus Master, has 10gig onboard, great, but then the other two pcie slots are pcie 3.0 So confused.mode_13h - Sunday, November 14, 2021 - link
From what I've read, PCIe 4.0 tends to require retimers, which adds cost and takes space. Those could be reasons why we don't see more PCIe 4.0 slots.back2future - Monday, November 15, 2021 - link
maybe mainboards start getting reshaped/redesigned (vertical m.2, backside slots/connectors, ?) instead of using retimers (chipset TDP includes retimer power?, cooling power for peripherals on PCIe 5.x speeds on 4GB/(s*lane)=~2 lanes sufficient for fastest available (2021, consumer) SSDs )?ecclesiastes121314 - Wednesday, February 23, 2022 - link
2 ram slots? I've seen this on a few of these new DDR5 boards. Most people here are talking about Thunderbolt 4 and USB4. Yes these are very useful to a select group of people yet these can be achieved with add on cards. Then you can pay for the devices to take advantage of these technologies. Reducing ram slots from 4 to 2. Wow. Yes you can buy high density ram. But this is forcing you that direction. What is wrong with 4x16 or 4x32 ram kits? If you (me) are interested in high performance video then affordable and available ram is a huge consideration. Is it just me?