The Intel Z690 Motherboard Overview (DDR5): Over 50+ New Models
by Gavin Bonshor on November 9, 2021 9:00 AM ESTASUS ROG Strix Z690-I Gaming WIFI (DDR5)
For Intel's 12th generation of Alder Lake desktop processors, ASUS has only made one mini-ITX board available for the launch of its LGA1700 offerings, the ASUS ROG Strix Z690-I Gaming WIFI. Designed for users looking to harness the big P and little E cores on Alder Lake, but in a small package, the Z690-I Gaming WIFI offers a solid feature set in a small form factor-friendly package. Being as small as it is, it still packs a punch in the design stakes, with a primarily black design, with contrasting elements including a tight mesh effect rear panel cover, glossy and matte black heatsinks, and an all-black PCB. In the bottom left-hand corner bridging the rear panel cover and M.2 heatsink is a ROG Strix branded cornerpiece.
Size playing an important role in PCIe support, the ASUS ROG Strix Z690-I Gaming WIFI has just one, a full-length PCIe 5.0 x16 slot. For storage is a pair of PCIe 4.0 x4 M.2 slots, with four SATA ports capable of supporting RAID 0, 1, 5, and 10 arrays. As space is restricted, ASUS includes two memory slots that are located on the right-hand side of the LGA1700 socket, with support for 64 GB, but we don't currently have what speed this model will support at this time.
Much like ASRock has done with its premium ITX models over the years, ASUS has adopted a similar style by including dual Thunderbolt 4 Type-C ports. Other USB options include two USB 3.2 G2 Type-A, three USB 3.2 G1 Type-A, and two USB 2.0 ports. There is a single HDMI video output, with three 3.5 mm audio jacks and S/PDIF optical output powered by a SupremeFX ALC4080 HD audio codec and Savitech SV3H712 amplifier pairing. Finishing off the rear panel is a solid networking array including one Intel I225-V 2.5 GbE port, as well as an Intel Wi-Fi 6E CNVi, and the panel also includes a BIOS Flashback button.
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DigitalFreak - Tuesday, November 9, 2021 - link
Except DirectStorage actually exists in the XBox Series X. Once the XBSX native games start getting ported things will start to move.Bp_968 - Wednesday, November 10, 2021 - link
Why fill my pc with loud and hot hard drives? I have 2 M.2 sticks as local storage and a NAS for all the rust drives in another room. I wouldn't want to go back to the days of using my PC for that.And if you must have tons of sata just buy a SAS card. Their cheap and flexible. Each SAS port on the card fans out to 4 sata ports using a cheap cable.
The Von Matrices - Tuesday, November 9, 2021 - link
Since the 100 series chipsets, the lanes for the SATA ports are shared with other things, so you aren't getting dedicated ports like you used to. You have to disable other features if you want to use all the SATA ports. With my current Z390 board, I can't use more than 2 SATA ports without compromising on other features, and I can't use all 6 SATA ports unless I disable both M.2 slots. Since they're sharing lanes, there's little cost and little reason to not have them, and that will probably continue into the future.DigitalFreak - Tuesday, November 9, 2021 - link
Things have changed the last couple of generations. My Z690 board has 6 SATA ports and 4 PCIe 4.0 x4 M.2 slots. The only thing shared is SATA between one SATA port and one of the M.2 slots. As long as you don't need a M.2 SATA drive, you can run 4 NVMe drives and 6 SATA devices simultaneously..KarlKastor - Wednesday, November 10, 2021 - link
There has nothing changed. The IO-Lanes of the chipset can eather be SATA or PCIe. The reason why you have nothing shared is, because they saved money for switches. You have not the option how to use this Lanes.This happens since Rocket Lake. The CPU has additional PCIe lanes, so you don't need to share much anymore and the Board is full already. There is no space for more M.2. Backside maybe.
12345 - Monday, November 15, 2021 - link
Z690 has a x8 gen 4 link to the chipset now. You don't have to disable SATA anymore to use all m.2 slots.meacupla - Tuesday, November 9, 2021 - link
I am pretty sure intel had 8 SATA ports since Z77, but board manufacturers routed 2 SATA ports for m.2 SATA. The On Z87 and Z97, 8 SATA ports with 2 ports shared for m.2 SATA was totally a thing.KarlKastor - Wednesday, November 10, 2021 - link
The silicon has 8 ports for long time. But maximum usable for the Zxy7 was 6. Eight were workstation only.If you used shared SATA on M.2, then you had less than six SATA Ports usable.
TheinsanegamerN - Tuesday, November 9, 2021 - link
SATA SSD sales continue to remain strong, and are much mroe economical for large file storage per TB then M.2 drives (a 2TB SATA drive is around $170 now), and if you have a RAID aray with 3+ drives speeds begin to encroah on NVMe speeds, a RAID 5 array with 4 SATA III will hit 1.6GB/s read speeds.Mr Perfect - Tuesday, November 9, 2021 - link
Man, these Z-chipset boards keep going up in price. I'm curious what eventual H670 chipset boards will look like. If they've got everything you need without all the flashy bits, I'll probably shoot for one of those.