The Intel Z690 Motherboard Overview (DDR5): Over 50+ New Models
by Gavin Bonshor on November 9, 2021 9:00 AM ESTASUS Prime Z690-A (DDR5)
The ASUS Prime series of motherboards is perhaps one of its most key ranges. It represents the more affordable and entry-level segment, with functional features, wallet-friendly controllers sets, but all packed into a basic, yet elegant theme. The ASUS Prime Z690-A includes a futuristic black and silver design throughout, with plenty of premium features, and as such, sits more towards the mid-range than the entry-level. It includes a fanciful rear panel cover with the Prime series logo, with a black opaque panel just below this. The same design is present on the chipset heatsink, and the PCB is primarily black with white patterning.
On the lower section of the ASUS Prime Z690-A is a varied selection of PCIe slots. At the top, ASUS includes a full-length PCIe 5.0 x16 slot, while at the bottom is a full-length PCIe 3.0 x4 slot. In between these is a half-length PCIe 3.0 x4 slot, with two smaller PCIe 3.0 x1 slots. For storage, there's a total of four M.2 slots, including three PCIe 4.0 x4 slots, one PCIe 4.0 x4/SATA slot, and four SATA ports. In the top right-hand corner is four memory slots that are capable of supporting DDR5-6000 and have a maximum capacity of 128 GB.
On the rear panel on the Prime Z690-A is one USB 3.2 G2x2 Type-C, one USB 3.2 G2 Type-C, two USB 3.2 G2 Type-A, and four USB 3.2 G1 Type-A ports. ASUS includes a pair of video outputs consisting of a DisplayPort and HDMI, with five 3.5 mm audio jacks and S/PDIF optical output powered by a Realtek S1220A HD audio codec. Last but not least, there's one Ethernet port that is driven by an Intel I225-V 2.5 GbE controller.
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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.