The Intel Z690 Motherboard Overview (DDR5): Over 50+ New Models
by Gavin Bonshor on November 9, 2021 9:00 AM ESTMSI MEG Z690 Ace (DDR5)
As it stands at the time of writing, the MSI MEG Z690 Ace is the brand's premier flagship model, until the Godlike hits the shelves, which is likely to be after Alder Lake's launch. Rolling back to the Ace, and it's jam-packed full of premium features as we've come to expect over the years including the previous MSI MEG Z590 Ace. Looking at the aesthetic, MSI has gone with a black and gold theme without the need for integrated RGB LED lighting. It's actually a really classy look despite the gold not being as widely native to other hardware components, so hardware matching could be an issue, nevertheless, it's a stunning board.
Looking like a gladiator covered in gold and black armor, the MSI MEG Z690 Ace has two full-length PCIe 5.0 slots that can operate at either x16 or x8/x8, with a full-length PCIe 4.0 slot for good measure. Storage options are also premium, with support for four PCIe 4.0 x4 M.2 drives, with one PCIe 3.0 x4 slot bringing the total of M.2 slots to five. MSI also includes six SATA ports with support for Intel RAID 0, 1, 5, and 10 arrays. Located in the top-right hand corner are four memory slots, with support for up to DDR5-6666, with a combined capacity of up to 128 GB.
On the rear panel of the MSI MEG Z690 Ace is a premium selection of input and output, which is spearheaded by dual Thunderbolt 4 Type-C ports, with two Mini-DisplayPort inputs. Also featured are a USB 3.2 G2 Type-C and seven USB 3.2 G2 Type-A ports. The Ace also includes dual Intel I225-V 2.5 GbE controllers, as well as Intel's latest AX211 Wi-Fi 6E CNVi, which adds wireless and BT 5.2 connectivity. There are five 3.5 mm audio jacks and S/PDIF optical output powered by a Realtek ALC4082 HD audio codec and ESS Sabre 9018Q2C amp, as well as a BIOS Flashback button and Clear CMOS 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.