Here are some of the first pictures of ASRock's upcoming socket LGA1200 motherboards based on the Intel Z490 chipset, courtesy VideoCardz. The selection of pics reveal the company's flagship Z490 motherboard to be the Z490 Taichi, with its elaborate CPU VRM solution that pulls power from a pair of 8-pin EPS connectors, a metal shroud covering most of the board, including the heatsinks over the three M.2 slots and the PCH; and an elaborate CPU VRM heatsink assembly. Connectivity options include 2.5 GbE, 802.11ax, and preparation for Thunderbolt. The company is planning two other flagship models, the Z490 Phantom Gaming X and the Z490 Aqua.

The next best motherboard in this photo dump is the Z490 Phantom Gaming Velocita, which appears to have an identical CPU VRM muscle as the Taichi, but just two M.2 slots instead of three. It still gets two wired networking interfaces. The Z490 Phantom Gaming ITX TB3 is the Mini-ITX flagship board by the company, featuring integrated Thunderbolt, an active fan-heatsink cooling the CPU VRM, and a daughterboard putting out some of the board's connectivity.The Z490 Extreme4 and Z490 Steel Legend are based on a common PCB design, with only cosmetic changes setting the two apart. You get a couple of M.2 NVMe slots, a single 2.5 GbE interface, and some RGB embellishments on both. Likewise, the Z490 Pro4 and Z490 Phantom Gaming 4 share a common PCB, featuring a basic 12-phase VRM, a single PCI-Express 3.0 x16 slot, 6-channel audio, and possibly just a 1 GbE interface.