86 Motherboards Compared for Intel Z690 Alder Lake

[cst1992]

No wonder it's hard to shop for motherboards these days.

 

[AlwaysHope]

Only 2 kinds of DDR5 available from one of Australia's most popular online retailers (best service) & ALL SOLD OUT... days ago... both kits around A$550 mark!
Then there is all the alder lake cpus... ALL SOLD OUT... days ago...
Glad I setup my rocket lake platform today!

 

[Zubasa]

wtf is going on in hong kong?

btw it is true that aero d kills aorus master.

The pricing sobered up today after the reviews went live.

 

[Dammeron]

There are decent B550 MATX boards out there though.
There is not much point in X570 if the boards don't have space for the extra pcie / m.2 slots.

Not "are", but "is" - MSI Mortar wifi. The only B550 mATX board with USB c front header, wifi and a decent, fully-cooled VRM.

 

[Zubasa]

Not "are", but "is" - MSI Mortar wifi. The only B550 mATX board with USB c front header, wifi and a decent, fully-cooled VRM.

Wifi and USB-C are down to personal preference, there are other of boards that can run the 5950X no problem though.

 

[iO]

I think that was a typo and they seem to have pulled the product page for now as well.

Can't be a typo as it's impossible to achive PCIe5 speeds with a thru hole PCIe slot like they use on the Z690M:

SMT parts are mandatory as the thru hole pins act like little antennas picking up tons of interference at the 16 GHz frequency which PCIe5 runs at.

IIRC there was a paper from back when PCIe4 launched, discussing the problem in detail but unfortunately I can't seem to find it anymore.

 

[TheLostSwede]

Can't be a typo as it's impossible to achive PCIe5 speeds with a thru hole PCIe slot like they use on the Z690M:

SMT parts are mandatory as the thru hole pins act like little antennas picking up tons of interference at the 16 GHz frequency which PCIe5 runs at.

IIRC there was a paper from back when PCIe4 launched, discussing the problem in detail but unfortunately I can't seem to find it anymore.

That's indeed bizarre. Where did find that picture? The board is still missing from their website.
No argument on your reasoning here, I'm well aware of the reason for the SMT slots.

 

[iO]

That's indeed bizarre. Where did find that picture? The board is still missing from their website.
No argument on your reasoning here, I'm well aware of the reason for the SMT slots.

Picture is from geizhals.de.
Also a link to the product page.

 

[TheLostSwede]

Picture is from geizhals.de.
Also a link to the product page.

Doesn't show up for me if I filter for Z690 or LGA-1700, very odd.
Updated the article to reflect that, as I simply assumed it was PCIe 5.0 for one and the reinforced slot on the board made it look like it was PCIe 5.0.
It just made the board even worse than it already was an clearly a board to stay away from.

Also, it doesn't help that the product page claims it has PCIe 5.0 and SMT slots...

 

[chrcoluk]

86!!!

Wow pricing could surely be brought down if was less SKU's to simplify manufacturing.

Rather oddly, Intel also added support for a pair of additional SATA ports for a total of eight

Nothing odd about that, I think its sad, most vendors are now only supplying 6 SATA ports.

 

[TheLostSwede]

86!!!

Wow pricing could surely be brought down if was less SKU's to simplify manufacturing.

Rather oddly, Intel also added support for a pair of additional SATA ports for a total of eight

Nothing odd about that, I think its sad, most vendors are now only supplying 6 SATA ports.

None of their past consumer chipsets have supported more than six SATA and now that we're finally getting four or more M.2 slots on all the ATX boards, Intel decides to add two more SATA ports, I mean, that is odd. Keep in mind that a lot of things are multiplexed on boards with eight SATA ports, so you're unlikely to be able to use all of them if you want to use all the M.2 slots for example.

And yes, there are far too many similar models from every single board makers except Biostar and EVGA.

 

[chrcoluk]

None of their past consumer chipsets have supported more than six SATA and now that we're finally getting four or more M.2 slots on all the ATX boards, Intel decides to add two more SATA ports, I mean, that is odd. Keep in mind that a lot of things are multiplexed on boards with eight SATA ports, so you're unlikely to be able to use all of them if you want to use all the M.2 slots for example.

And yes, there are far too many similar models from every single board makers except Biostar and EVGA.

Ahh thank you for explaining the comment, this is the first time I have really examined a chipset since Z390.

I read the article, and these boards were what stood out to me, all have 8 ports.

ASUS ProArt Z690-Creator
ASRock Z690 PG Riptide
ASRock Z690 Steel Legend <-- my pick
ASRock Z690 Extreme

Personally I dont see the need for more than one M.2 in my system so it wouldnt bother me if using all SATA ports I lost one or two M.2 ports. ASRock probably remains my favoured brand. I am guessing at least one of the board partners requested the extra ports (probably ASRock), SSD's are still nowhere near HDD pricing per TB of storage, so there will still be people filling up cases with many spindles.

 

[asdkj1740]

86!!!

Wow pricing could surely be brought down if was less SKU's to simplify manufacturing.

Rather oddly, Intel also added support for a pair of additional SATA ports for a total of eight

Nothing odd about that, I think its sad, most vendors are now only supplying 6 SATA ports.

intel has put 8 sata controllers inside 8 pcie lanes on z series chipsets for years.
before z690, on z series like z590, mobo vendors can only enable six out of eight as sata.
started from z690 intel has removed this restriction.


z490 intel pdf

z series 8 sata controller:
0A 0B 1A 1B 2 3 4 5
so sata 2 3 4 5=4sata
pick one more between 0a and 0b
pick one more between 1a and 1b




sata 6 7 are for w series chipset, they are disabled on z series.

 

[TheLostSwede]

Ahh thank you for explaining the comment, this is the first time I have really examined a chipset since Z390.

I read the article, and these boards were what stood out to me, all have 8 ports.

ASUS ProArt Z690-Creator
ASRock Z690 PG Riptide
ASRock Z690 Steel Legend <-- my pick
ASRock Z690 Extreme

Personally I dont see the need for more than one M.2 in my system so it wouldnt bother me if using all SATA ports I lost one or two M.2 ports. ASRock probably remains my favoured brand. I am guessing at least one of the board partners requested the extra ports (probably ASRock), SSD's are still nowhere near HDD pricing per TB of storage, so there will still be people filling up cases with many spindles.

Well, some boards have a third party SATA controller to sort of work around the shared interfaces.
I think Intel simply added support for eight SATA ports to have feature parity with AMD's X570 chipset.

intel has put 8 sata controllers inside 8 pcie lanes on z series chipsets for years.
before z690, on z series like z590, mobo vendors can only enable six out of eight as sata.
started from z690 intel has removed this restriction (0A 0B 1A 1B).

Right, but this still doesn't mean you could use them, due to how HSIO works.
Now I guess they're confident that there are enough HSIO lanes that they could enable them.
They also have four Gigabit Ethernet interface options in their previous chipsets, but it doesn't mean you can use more than one.

This should be the Z690 chipset HSIO layout.

It does help to explain why some boards only has three M.2 slots in favour of six SATA slots, but I didn't have this when I wrote the article, so I couldn't draw this conclusion back then. It looks like Intel has removed one Gigabit Ethernet option as well, while rearranging things quite a bit.

 

[asdkj1740]

Well, some boards have a third party SATA controller to sort of work around the shared interfaces.
I think Intel simply added support for eight SATA ports to have feature parity with AMD's X570 chipset.


Right, but this still doesn't mean you could use them, due to how HSIO works.
Now I guess they're confident that there are enough HSIO lanes that they could enable them.
They also have four Gigabit Ethernet interfaces, but it doesn't mean you can use more than one.

View attachment 223845

on z690 the sata # is now 01234567, no more 0a0b1a1b like before.
i guess this past restriction is simply a restriction to z series, you may find 8 sata allowed to be enabled on w series.

that gbe thing is for i219v, a half controller with out mac, so chipset gbe=mac, then it is complete.
on z series , gbe is also a pcie lane //inside a pcie lane, so no big deal.
but on low end chipset like h410, gbe has is own hsio, so using that gbe controller would not make pcie lane less.

 

[TheLostSwede]

on z690 the sata # is now 01234567, no more 0a0b1a1b like before.
i guess this past restriction is simply a restriction to z series, you may find 8 sata allowed to be enabled on w series.

that gbe thing is for i219v, a half controller with out mac, so chipset gbe=mac, then it is complete.
on z series , gbe is also a pcie lane //inside a pcie lane, so no big deal.
but on low end chipset like h410, gbe has is own hsio, so using that gbe controller would not make pcie lane less.

Yeah, just updated my post above, as I found what should be the correct image for the Z690 chipset (which was apparently posted by you on a different site).

I think you mean PHY, which is used for pretty much all Gigabit Ethernet implementations these days, even in simple Arm based systems.
Only AMD decided not to go down this route, for some reason.

 

[asdkj1740]

Yeah, just updated my post above, as I found what should be the correct image for the Z690 chipset.

I think you mean PHY, which is used for pretty much all Gigabit Ethernet implementations these days, even in simple Arm based systems.

the hsio table you uploaded is not really for z590. check the above pages for true definition for each hsio lane.

eg, sata 6 7 are disabled on z590.

 

[TheLostSwede]

the hsio table you uploaded is not really for z590. check the above pages for true definition for each hsio lane.

eg, sata 6 7 are disabled on z590.

Can't find a proper one though.

 

[asdkj1740]

Can't find a proper one though.

there is none provided by intel, you have to make your own. this type of hsio table provided by intel is for w series.
and z series got something disabled, and b series got more etc.

Yeah, just updated my post above, as I found what should be the correct image for the Z690 chipset (which was apparently posted by you on a different site).

I think you mean PHY, which is used for pretty much all Gigabit Ethernet implementations these days, even in simple Arm based systems.
Only AMD decided not to go down this route, for some reason.

intel z690 product page has the pdf uploaded recently you may find that image inside.

intel gbe in hsio is for phy only ic like i219v. that's why you wont see any i219v used on amd mobo because amd has no mac built in.
gbe=mac. and phy+mac=complete controller.
recently popular 2.5g lan i225-v is a complete controller, it needs not use intel hsio gbe, thats mean i225-v can be put on every hsio pcie lanes.
but i219v cant, because it needs the gbe for mac, so only few lanes can support i219v.

 

[TheLostSwede]

intel gbe in hsio is for phy only ic like i219v.

And all the Realtek PHY's as well...
Otherwise they wouldn't be as popular as they are.

Anyhow, not disagreeing with you, just saying it's not strange to have dedicated MAC build into a chipset or SoC, as even cheap $4-5 AllWinner chips has it.

 

[asdkj1740]

And all the Realtek PHY's as well...
Otherwise they wouldn't be as popular as they are.

Anyhow, not disagreeing with you, just saying it's not strange to have dedicated MAC build into a chipset or SoC, as even cheap $4-5 AllWinner chips has it.

i am shocked to see z690 taichi has i219v used. make no sense for z series mobo to have i219v because gbe=pcie lane as well, not to mention it has much more restriction (three particular lanes only this time) when assigning hsio lanes.

what i meant "amd" are those a320 b450 etc consumer desktop market amd mobos.

 

[TheLostSwede]

i am shocked to see z690 taichi has i219v used. make no sense for z series mobo to have i219v because gbe=pcie lane as well, not to mention it has much more restriction (three particular lanes only this time) when assigning hsio lanes.

There are a lot of very strange board design decisions I have to say, especially when it comes to the higher-end models.

 

[asdkj1740]

There are a lot of very strange board design decisions I have to say, especially when it comes to the higher-end models.

mobo vendors tend to have at least one pcie controller broken down to x1+x1+x1+x1 to support like wifi and lan and some other x1 devices, so i219v is not impossible to see on z690, but yeah it is really strange as always on asrock mobos.
it should be the first time to see z690 taichi got priced more than aorus master. it is $599usd on neweggus, just like Maximus hero and meg ace. insane.
we used to see taichi priced 50~100usd lower than these flagship models.


it is fairly easy to understand most of them when hsio table is used for analysis.

 

[Honda_tpu]

Gigabyte is undercutting the competition. I like the Aero G DDR4, its the only sub 300$ board with a heatpipe.

 

[arni-gx]

so this is the only motherboard z690 series for all alder lake cpu, who has full support of DDR5...... ?? but, the other moetherboard H and B series, will only has full support of DDR4 for all alder lake cpu ??