The Intel Z690 Motherboard Overview (DDR5): Over 50+ New Models
by Gavin Bonshor on November 9, 2021 9:00 AM ESTGIGABYTE Z690 Aorus Master (DDR5)
Moving down the Aorus series is the GIGABYTE Z690 Aorus Master, which combines a very premium feature set, with the typical Aorus gaming-focused aesthetic we've seen from GIGABYTE over the last couple of years. Focusing on the aesthetic, GIGABYTE is using a primarily black theme with contrasting shades of black and grey throughout, with a brushed aluminum-styled rear panel cover. There are two main areas of integrated RGB LED lighting which include the rear panel cover behind the Aorus logo, as well as within the chipset heatsink. GIGABYTE is advertising a direct 19-phase power delivery with the latest 105 A power stages which screams high end.
Looking at PCIe support, the GIGABYTE Z690 Aorus Master includes one full-length PCIe 5.0 x16 slot, with two full-length PCIe 3.0 x4 slots. Located around the PCIe slot area is a total of five M.2 slots, with four of these operating at PCIe 4.0 x4 M.2, and one PCIe 3.0 x4 M.2 slot. Other storage options include six SATA ports with all featuring support for Intel RAID 0, 1, 5, and 10 arrays. Located in the top right-hand corner is a bank of four memory slots, with support for DDR5-6400, with a maximum capacity of up to 128 GB.
On the rear panel of the GIGABYTE Z690 Aorus Master are two USB 3.2 G2x2 Type-C ports, five USB 3.2 G2 Type-A, and four USB 3.2 G1 Type-A ports. GIGABYTE does include one DisplayPort 1.4 video output for users looking to utilize Intel's integrated graphics, while five 3.5 mm audio jacks and S/PDIF optical output are powered by a Realtek ALC1220 HD audio codec and ESS Sabre 9118EQ amplifier pairing. Networking is impressive with a single Aquantia AQC107 10 GbE controller and Intel AX211 Wi-Fi 6E CNVi pairing. Finishing off the rear panel is a clear CMOS button and Q-Flash 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.