Intel

BIOSTAR Announces Z490 Motherboard Support for 11th Gen Rocket Lake-S Processors

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March 11th, 2021, Taipei, Taiwan – BIOSTAR, a leading manufacturer of motherboards, graphics cards, and storage devices today, announces that their Z490 series motherboards are ready to support the latest Intel 11th gen Rocket Lake processors.

In anticipation of the imminent launch of Intel’s 11th gen processors, BIOSTAR has wasted no time in preparing their products to support the new chips. The Z490 series motherboards, which consists of 5 models (RACING Z490GTA EVO, RACING Z490GTA, RACING Z490GTN, Z490A-SILVER and Z490T-SILVER) have received optimized BIOS updates (ME 14.1) to support the 11th gen Intel processors and can be easily updated just by downloading and installing the new BIOS patch from the official product page.

Gamers and content creators will enjoy the combination of BIOSTAR motherboards with the new Intel processors greatly as BIOSTAR’s products are highly optimized to extract the maximum performance out of the new Intel processors in a stable, reliable way. 

To learn more about the Z490 series click here: https://www.biostar.com.tw/event/biostar_Z490_intel11/

ASRock Z590 Steel Legend WiFi 6E – TechPowerUp

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First, Z590 offers native PCIe 4.0 support from the CPU, which means the PCIe and M.2 slots powered off the CPU will offer PCIe 4.0 connectivity when an 11th Gen CPU is installed. The PCIe and M.2 slots controlled by the Z590 chipset are still PCI 3.0. While many high-end Z490 motherboards advertised this capability, it was not a standard feature for the platform. In addition to PCIe 4.0 support, Z590 offers USB 3.2 Gen 2×2 from the chipset. The USB 3.2 Gen 2×2 standard offers speeds of up to 20 Gb/s. Finally, Z590 boasts native support for 3200 MHz DDR4 memory. With these upgrades, Intel’s Z series platform has feature parity with AMD’s B550. On paper, Intel is catching up to AMD, but only testing will tell if these new Z590 motherboards are up to the challenge.

Read more @ TechPowerUp

Intel Rocket Lake-S Specs, Performance Leaks

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Over at VideoCardz, several slides of information detailing the full specifications along with high level performance numbers have been posted, courtesy of a Weibo user. As we’ve already seen several early reviews hit the web thus far, most of this is none to surprising. The slides claim 8-14% gains in gaming between the 11900K and 10900K, allowing them to surpass the AMD Ryzen 5 5900X by single digits overall. We’ll see if these pan out, but if we’re talking low to mid single digit gains, I’d still lean towards the Ryzen processor from a power efficiency perspective. We’ll see how the reviews pan out at the end of the month with, hopefully, better production BIOS’ for these new chips.

ASRock Z490 Phantom Gaming-ITX/TB3 – KitGuru

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With Intel’s 10th Gen processors becoming increasingly competitive thanks to price and availability improvements, there’s still plenty of life left in the LGA 1200 mainstream platform. That point is especially true with BIOS updates likely to permit for support of Intel’s upcoming 11th Gen CPUs. As such, the ASRock Z490 Phantom Gaming-ITX/TB3 remains an interesting choice for SFF gamers, especially as it sits atop ASRock’s hierarchy of LGA 1200 Mini-ITX offerings.

Read more @ KitGuru

Intel Core i7-11700K Reviewed – AnandTech

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Now that some etailers have decided to start shipping Rocket lake-S chips early, AnandTech has taken a bit of an unconventional approach to get around the Intel NDA and purchased a retail unit for review. This chip goes head-to-head with the AMD Ryzen 7 5800X, and comes up…somewhat lacking it would appear. AnandTech details the performance of the chip against the Core i7-10700K as well as the Ryzen 7 5800X. The new Rocket lake-S chips are hot, power hungry beasts. From the looks of it, if you have a choice go with the Zen 3 option. But, in today’s market of “take what you can get”, the Core i7-10700K may be the more attractive option overall. We’ll see more later this month when the NDA lifts for launch on the 30th. Until then, take a look at AnandTech’s coverage.

GIGABYTE Z590 AORUS MASTER – TechPowerUp

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The Gigabyte Z590 AORUS Master features a monster 19-phase VRM utilizing 90 A power stages and Gigabyte’s signature finned cooling solution. Both Q-Flash and a dual BIOS have been included, providing a redundant safety net for ambitious overclocking. The Gigabyte Z590 AORUS Master also offers a full-coverage aluminium backplate for added rigidity and additional VRM cooling. Additionally, Gigabyte has included a 10 Gb/s LAN controller from Aquantia. All of the features are in order, so let’s see how the Gigabyte Z590 AORUS Master stacks up against the competition.

Read more @ TechPowerUp

MSI MEG Z590 ACE – Tom’s Hardware

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MSI’s current Z590 product stack consists of 11 models, with most falling into the MEG (high-end) MPG (mid-range) and MAG (budget) lineups. We’re greeted by several familiar SKUs and a couple of new ones.  Starting at the top is the flagship MEG Z590 Godlike, the Ace we’re looking at now, and a Mini ITX MEG Z590I Unify. The mid-range MPG line consists of four boards (Carbon EK X, Gaming Edge WiFi, Gaming Carbon WiFi and Gaming Force), while the less expensive MAG lineup consists of two boards (Z590 Tomahawk WiFi, and Torpedo). Wrapping up the current product stack are two ‘Pro’ boards in the Z590 Pro WiFi and Z590-A Pro.

Read more @ Tom’s Hardware

ASRock B460 Steel Legend – PC Magazine

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The B460 Steel Legend comes decorated with a camouflage aesthetic that’s a mixture of white, gray, and black. Far from helping the board to blend into the background, this actually helps the board to stand out in a windowed PC chassis. Though it’s not the only board we’ve seen with this kind of digital-camouflage PCB pattern, the Asrock manages to present its own look and feel.

Read more @ PC Magazine

ASRock Z490 Taichi – PC Magazine

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This specific Taichi board is special, though. It looks and feels well made, and while small subsets of buyers might gripe about a few minor aspects, it nonetheless offers excellent value—it may not quite topple our Editors’ Choice pick for best overall Z490 motherboard on sheer audacity, the Asus Z490 ROG Maximus XII Extreme, but the Z490 Taichi costs only about half as much. If you’re looking for a motherboard for extreme gaming and overclocking, and don’t want to pay flagship-class prices, this Asrock platform is a perfect choice for upper-end 10th Generation Core CPUs.

Read more @ PC Magazine

MSI Adds PCIe 4.0 Support to Z490 Motherboards

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[Taipei, Taiwan] All of the MSI Z490 motherboards will be supporting PCIe 4.0 with the coming Intel 11th Gen Intel Processors. Through an update to the latest BIOS, MSI Z490 motherboards offer great bandwidth and performance for PCIe 4.0 M.2 SSDs and graphics cards.

To be PCIe 4.0 compatible, several components on the motherboards are necessary, including PCIe 4.0 ready clock generator, lane switch, redriver, PCIe slots, and M.2 connectors. Thanks to the complete PCIe 4.0 solutions, MSI Z490 motherboards provide the most stable design for PCIe 4.0 and unlock the full performance of PCIe 4.0 devices.

To enjoy the unlocked performance of PICe 4.0, please update the Z490 motherboards with the latest BIOSes optimized for PCIe 4.0.
MSI Z490 BIOSes optimized for PCIe 4.0 performance:

Find more details @ MSI