GIGABYTE Technology, one of the top global manufacturers of motherboards, graphics cards, and hardware solutions, today announced the launch of its revolutionary Z890 motherboards. These next-generation motherboards are set to redefine the standards in performance, AI integration, and user experience for enthusiasts and professionals alike. Powered by state-of-the-art artificial intelligence, these motherboards push the boundaries of what's possible in computing.⁠

Infinite Memory Performance
GIGABYTE Z890 lineup equips the D5 Bionic Corsa technology to create phenomenal new peaks in memory performance to DDR5 XMP 9500 and above. A true marvel of AI-enhanced overclocking technology for DDR5 memory, D5 Bionic Corsa boasts four key technologies from software, hardware to firmware side. The AORUS AI SNATCH and AI SNATCH Engine present AI-overclocking for ultimate performance, while AI-Driven PCB Design and HyperTune BIOS deliver AI-design for signal enhancement on motherboards. The AORUS AI SNATCH is an auto-overclocking software by AI model, and enables users to unleash utmost performance with one-click activation. The AI SNATCH Engine is the AI model served as the core of AORUS AI SNATCH software, trained by AI TOP on diverse overclocking datasets to improve precision and optimize performance with stability. The AI-Driven PCB Technology employs AI algorithms to optimize vias, routing and stackups, while the Hypertune BIOS uses AI to optimize MRC and adapt to signals for peak efficiency, significant memory clock boost, and enhanced overall performance.

ASRock has a pretty comprehensive lineup of upcoming Socket LGA1851 motherboards based on the top Intel Z890 chipset, which the company will launch alongside the new Intel Core Ultra 2-series "Arrow Lake-S" desktop processors later this month. The company's Z890 lineup has been leaked to the web by VideoCardz. The lineup covers nearly every brand extension by ASRock, addressing a wide category of PC users, from the entry level that just wants an office desktop to harness the CPU power of the new processors, to the two distinct classes of the enthusiast segment—one which overclocks, and the other that needs every possible premium I/O from this platform, with the bulk of the lineup targeting gaming PC builders across price-segments.

At the very top are ASRock Z890 Taichi OCF and the ASRock Z890 Taichi. The Taichi OCF is the spiritual successor to the OC Formula series by ASRock targeting professional overclockers. It has the strongest possible CPU VRM solution from the company, the largest selection of overclocker-friendly features, and a 1 DIMM per channel (1DPC) memory configuration, for the highest possible memory overclocks. The Taichi OCF has most if not all of the I/O goodies ASRock has to offer. For this, you'll have to seek out the regular ASRock Z890 Taichi, with its four DDR5 memory slots, nearly the same overclocking feature-set as the Taichi OCF, but some added toys, such as Thunderbolt 4. The Z890 Taichi Lite is an interesting product—it has nearly all features that place it into the high-end segment, such as that 8-layer PCB, a strong CPU VRM, and premium onboard audio, among others; but skips on the bulk of the dramatic flair of the Z890 Taichi.

Yesterday, we got a leak about Intel's "Arrow Lake" Core Ultra 200 series CPUs official public announcement on October 10 and the review embargo and official retail launch on October 24. However, today, we are able to look at some of the upcoming motherboards powering Core Ultra 200 CPUs, based on the Z890 chipset. Thanks to VideoCardz, we can look at ASUS high-end motherboard pictures and decipher some of the common features that will be present on high-end boards, like a hefty VRM configuration, along with some new color schemes. We notice that there are new GPU slot reinforcement and M.2 release mechanisms, alongside WiFi 7 and Thunderbolt 4. Some leaked pricing also suggests that ASUS ROG Maximus boards could be retailing for more than the highest-end Core Ultra 9 285K SKU, while there are more budget "Prime" series of motherboards present as well. Here are all leaked ASUS boards:

ASUS ROG Maximus Z890 Extreme:

The leaks and rumors surrounding Intel's upcoming Arrow Lake desktop CPU line-up are starting to heat up, with recent rumors tipping the existence of the Core Ultra 9 285K as the top-end chip in the upcoming launch. A new set of Geekbench 6 scores spotted by BenchLeaks on X, however, suggests the Core Ultra 9 285 non-K variant of this CPU might lag its Ryzen 9 counterparts significantly.

The Geekbench 6 test results, which were apparently achieved on an ASUS Prime Z890-P motherboard, reveal performance that falls short of even the current-generation AMD Ryzen 7 9700X, never mind any of the Ryzen 9 variants. The Geekbench 6 multicore score came in at an unimpressive 14,150, while the single-core score was a mere 3,081, falling short of the likes of the AMD Ryzen 7 9700X, which scored up to 19,381 and 3,624 in multi- and single-core tests, respectively. However, there appears to be more to this story—namely an odd test configuration that could heavily skew the test results, since the "stock" Intel Core Ultra 9 285K scores significantly higher in the Geekbench 6 charts than this particular 285 seems to.

Canadian online retailer ShopRBC put up listings of unreleased Intel Core Ultra 200-series "Arrow Lake-S" desktop processors. While the availability listed is zero, you can backorder these chips at the prices listed, so they are shipped when available. The flagship Intel Core Ultra 9 285K (8P+16E) processor is listed at CAD $852 (around USD $628). There is no "KF" variant of this part unlike with past generations of Intel flagship SKUs. The Core Ultra 7 265K (8P+12E) is next up, at CAD $589 (USD $435). Its KF variant, which lacks integrated graphics, is up for CAD $22 less than that (CAD $567 or USD $418).

Intel's middle-of-the-market part for this generation, the Core Ultra 5 245K (6P+8E) is next up, listed at CAD $450, or USD $331. You can back-order its KF variant for CA $23 less, at CA $427 (USD $315). The Core Ultra 200 "Arrow Lake-S" introduces the new Socket LGA1851, and so online retailers around the world should begin putting up compatible motherboards based on the Intel Z890 chipset, which is rumored to be the only chipset option available with these chips until Q1-2025, when Intel fleshes out the series with non-K SKUs and value chipsets such as the B860.

Detailed specifications and a somewhat blurry slide showing off all the details of MSI's upcoming high-end MEG Z890 Unify-X motherboard have leaked courtesy of @ChamberTech_ on X/Twitter. The motherboard is likely to appeal to those looking to squeeze every extra bit of performance out of their new Ultra 200K series CPU when they launch next month. You get support for memory speeds of up to 10,000 MT/s and with only two DIMM slots, it might be able to go even higher with the latest DDR5 CUDIMMs. The board also sports a 110 Ampere 20+1+1+1 VRM design on an eight layer PCB, and it also ships with what MSI calls an OC Tuning Controller, suggesting the board is targeting overclockers.

MSI has included a pair of PCIe 5.0 x16 slots for GPUs that presumably operate in dual x8 mode when both slots are in use, and a third PCIe 4.0 x16 slot that operates in x4 mode, as well as a single PCIe 4.0 x1 slot. There's also no less than six M.2 slots, of which two are PCIe 5.0 and one PCIe 4.0, as well as six SATA ports. Where things get a bit interesting is in the network connectivity, as the slide claims that the board features a 5 Gbps Intel Killer Ethernet interface, which is the first we've heard of such a thing, as well as an Intel Killer Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 5.4 module for wireless connectivity.

Intel is set to launch its Arrow Lake processors on October 24th, likely alongside the official release of the Z890 motherboards. Meanwhile, AMD is expected to launch its new X870 and X870E motherboards on September 30th. Ahead of these dates, we've already seen many of them showcased at Computex, however, today an Australian retailer listed several MSI motherboards, including one Z890 model (MSI Z890 Carbon WiFi) and three X870/X870E models (MSI MPG X870E Carbon WiFi, MSI MAG X870 Tomahawk WiFi, and MSI PRO X870-P WiFi).

MSI Z890 Carbon WiFi
This is a mid-range motherboard, however without an official spec sheet, we're left trying to decipher details from the pictures. From what we can see, it offers a solid set of features, including USB 3.2, USB Type-C ports, BIOS Flash, Clear CMOS, and Smart Buttons. The board itself includes an 8-pin PCI-E connector and at least three M.2 slots. Currently, there is no information about its retail price.

There is only a month left before the official launch of Intel new "Arrow Lake" CPUs. Now, we have a new leak revealing what appear to be the final specs for Intel's Core Ultra 200 'Arrow Lake' desktop CPUs series. According to Benchlife, Intel is preparing to release five SKUs. Although there is no KF version of the Core Ultra 9 285K yet, the new CPUs include: Intel Core Ultra 9 285K, Core Ultra 7 265K, Core Ultra 7 265KF, Core Ultra 5 245K, and Core Ultra 5 245KF. These processors will also be accompanied by new Z890 chipset motherboards.

The "K" model will have Xe-LPG-based integrated graphics, while the "KF" model will require a discrete GPU. Intel plans to expand its Arrow Lake lineup in early 2025 with non-K models. These new CPUs are expected to offer increased performance compared to their 13th and 14th generation predecessors. The new architecture aims to eliminate stability issues and reduce real-world power consumption.

Intel's upcoming Core Ultra 200 "Arrow Lake-S" desktop processors will herald a new wave of overclocking memory kits as the architecture is expected to support even higher memory speeds than the current 14th Gen Core. The product page of an ASRock Z890 motherboard lists out maximum memory speeds for various DIMM configurations. The most overclocker-friendly config—1 single-rank DIMM per channel—sees ASRock mention support for DDR5-9200+ (OC). The fastest DDR5 OC memory kits in the market are DDR5-8600, and over the Summer, JEDEC announced standardization of high frequency DDR5 configurations, including the likes of DDR5-8800. Such high frequencies require the DIMM to feature a clock driver.

Those looking for high capacity memory configurations have big reason to cheer. For two single-rank DIMMs per channel, or one dual-rank DIMM per channel, the motherboard's product page mentions an OC speed of DDR5-6800+. This should be a boon for those wanting large memory capacities such as 96 GB or 128 GB using dual-rank DIMMs at reasonably high speeds. Even the densest memory configuration, two dual-rank DIMMs per channel, has a maximum OC speed of DDR5-5800+. This should allow users to approach the platform's maximum memory capacity, such as 256 GB using four 64 GB dual-rank DIMMs, or 192 GB using four 48 GB DIMMs, but at much higher speeds that what the current platforms are capable of.

ASUS and GIGABYTE have registered a large number of Intel Z890 motherboards with the Eurasian Economic Commission (EEC). For ASUS, the registrations suggest that these will be released on October 10, followed by an official market launch on October 24. ASUS has added no less than 29 Z890 motherboards to its ROG MAXIMUS, ROG STRIX, TUF GAMING, PRIME, and other series, while GIGABYTE has added 18 models to both its AORUS and non-AORUS series.

ASUS Z890 Motherboards

• ROG MAXIMUS Series
  • ROG MAXIMUS Z890 EXTREME
  • ROG MAXIMUS Z890 FORMULA
  • ROG MAXIMUS Z890 APEX
  • ROG MAXIMUS Z890 APEX ENCORE
  • ROG MAXIMUS Z890 HERO
  • ROG MAXIMUS Z890 DARK HERO
  • ROG MAXIMUS Z890 HERO BTF

Intel is expected to launch its next-generation Core Ultra 200 "Arrow Lake-S" desktop processors on October 24, 2024, and since these chips introduce the new Socket LGA1851, they launch alongside new motherboards. The first wave of Core Ultra 200 series processors will be "K" or "KF" SKUs targeting gamers and enthusiasts, and the first compatible motherboards will be based on the premium Intel Z890 chipset. Intel is reportedly being extra careful not to repeat the "Raptor Lake" fiasco that saw motherboards power its 13th- and 14th Gen Core "Raptor Lake" processors with elevated voltages, causing their irreversible physical degradation over time. To this effect, Intel is reportedly getting its motherboard partners to ship their Intel Z890 chipset motherboards with Intel Default Power Profile out of the box.

A motherboard-level Power Profile dictates the processor base power (PL1), maximum turbo power (PL2), and IccMax values. We don't know these values for "Arrow Lake-S," particularly its top Core Ultra 9 285K part; but to illustrate what Default Power Profile out of the box means, we have to look at "Raptor Lake-S." For a Core i9-14900K, the Performance Power Profile—which is what Intel Z690 and Z790 motherboards enable out of the box—provide a PL1 of 125 W, PL2 of 253 W, and IccMax of 307 W, which is what Intel considers stock for this processor model.

Intel has reportedly delayed the launch of its next-generation Core Ultra 200K series "Arrow Lake-S" desktop processors by a week. Originally slated for an October 17, 2024 launch, these chips are now releasing on October 24, according to HKEPC. There's no reason cited for the delay, it probably has to do with retailer stocking. The delay isn't significant. The Core Ultra 200K introduce a new CPU socket, the LGA1851, which means these chips need to launch alongside new motherboards based on the Intel 800-series.

The initial wave of processors is expected to include only SKUs targeting overclockers and enthusiasts. These include the Core Ultra 9 285K (8P+16E), the Core Ultra 7 265K (8P+12E), and the Core Ultra 5 245K (6P+8E), and their "KF" variants that lack integrated graphics. It's also expected that the first wave of compatible motherboards will only come with the premium Intel Z890 chipset, which supports CPU overclocking. Intel will likely expand its processor model selection, along with more affordable chipsets, such as the B860, around the 2025 International CES.

A CPU-Z screenshot of an alleged Intel Core Ultra 9 285K "Arrow Lake-S" desktop processor engineering sample is doing rounds on social media, thanks to wxnod. CPU-Z identifies the chip with an Intel Core Ultra case badge with the deep shade of blue associated with the Core Ultra 9 brand extension, which hints at this being the top Core Ultra 9 285K processor model, we know it's the "K" or "KF" SKU looking at its processor base power reading of 125 W. The chip is built in the upcoming Intel Socket LGA1851. CPU-Z displays the process node as 7 nm, which corresponds with the Intel 4 foundry node.

Intel is using the same Intel 4 foundry node for "Arrow Lake-S" as the compute tile of its "Meteor Lake" processor. Intel 4 offers power efficiency and performance comparable to 4 nm nodes from TSMC, although it is physically a 7 nm node. Likewise, the Intel 3 node is physically 5 nm. If you recall, the main logic tile of "Lunar Lake" is being built on the TSMC N3P (3 nm) node. This means that Intel is really gunning for performance/Watt with "Lunar Lake," to get as close to the Apple M3 Pro as possible.

A picture of a bare PCB of an upcoming GIGABYTE Z890 AORUS Pro Ice motherboard confirms that Intel will use the Core Ultra branding for its next-generation desktop processors based on the "Arrow Lake-S" microarchitecture. The picture reveals the CPU socket area, where the Socket LGA1851 will be installed, besides the CPU VRM component, the BIOS ROM, and the DDR5 DIMM slots, among other minor components. Although incompatible with LGA1700, the new LGA1851 socket has an identical cooler mount layout to it, and retains cooler compatibility, much like LGA1200 did with LGA1151. The AORUS Pro Ice comes with four DDR5 DIMM slots, as that's the only memory standard supported by "Arrow Lake" (no DDR4 support); and the CPU VRM solution uses DrMOS.

Our older article details the I/O aspects of "Arrow Lake-S." It is almost identical to the LGA1700, except it has four additional PCIe Gen 5 lanes from the CPU, for a total of 20 Gen 5 lanes, and 12 Gen 4 lanes. All Z890 motherboards will come with an M.2 Gen 5 NVMe slot that doesn't eat into the PCI-Express 5.0 x16 PEG slot's bandwidth; and an additional Gen 4 x4 that can either be wired out as an M.2 slot, or be used to drive bandwidth-hungry onboard devices, such as discrete Thunderbolt 4 or USB4 controllers. The chipset bus continues to be DMI 4.0 x8, or 128 Gbps per direction.

Intel is preparing a complete refresh of its desktop platform this year, with the introduction of the Core Ultra 200 series processors based on the "Arrow Lake" microarchitecture. The company skipped a desktop processor based on "Meteor Lake," probably because it didn't meet the desired multithreaded performance targets for Intel as it maxed out at 6P+8E+2LP, forcing Intel to come up with the 14th Gen Core "Raptor Lake Refresh" generation to see it through 2H-2023 and at least three quarters of 2024. The company, in all likelihood, will launch the new "Arrow Lake-S" Core Ultra 200 series toward late-Q3 or early-Q4 2024 (September-October). The first wave will include the overclocker-friendly K- and KF SKUs, alongside motherboards based on the top Intel Z890 chipset. 2025 will see the series ramp to more affordable processor models, and mainstream chipsets, such as the B860. These processors require a new motherboard, as Intel is introducing the new Socket LGA1851 with them.

Core configurations of the "Arrow Lake-S" chip surfaced on the web thanks to Jaykihn, a reliable source with Intel leaks. In its maximum configuration, the chip is confirmed to feature 8 P-cores, and 16 E-cores. There are no low-power island E-cores. Each of the 8 P-cores is a "Lion Cove" featuring 3 MB of dedicated L2 cache; while each the E-cores are "Skymont," arranged in 4-core modules that share 4 MB L2 caches among them. Intel claims that the "Lion Cove" P-core offers a 14% IPC increase over the "Redwood Cove" P-core powering "Meteor Lake," which in turn had either equal or a 1% IPC regression compared to "Raptor Cove." This would put "Lion Cove" at a 13-14% IPC advantage over the "Raptor Cove" cores. It's important to note here, that the "Lion Cove" P-cores lack HyperThreading, so Intel will be banking heavily on the "Skymont" E-cores to shore up generational multithreaded performance increase. "Skymont" was a show-stopper at Intel's Computex event, with a nearly 50% IPC gain over previous generations of Intel E-cores, which puts it at par with the "Raptor Cove" cores in single-thread performance.

What appears to be the full details of all of Intel's upcoming 800-series chipsets have leaked and although we've already seen what the Z890 chipset will offer, no details of the other SKUs have leaked to date. Maybe the biggest news is that there won't be an H870 chipset this time around, according to the leaker @jaykihn0 over at X/Twitter. The full range appears to be Z890, B860 and H810 for consumers, W880 for workstations and Q870 for corporate desktops. That said, the Z890 and W880 are identical in terms of slots and ports, but whereas the W880 gains full ECC support and Intel vPro and remote management, it loses the CPU and bus overclocking features of the Z890. The Q870 loses four chipset PCIe 4.0 lanes, one 20 Gbps or two 10 Gbps USB 3.2 ports, but is otherwise similar to the Z890, minus all the overclocking features, but with Intel vPro and remote management.

The B860 ends up on the chopping block as always and loses not only 10 chipset PCIe lanes compared to the Z890 chipset, but also four lanes from the CPU and four lanes on the DMI interface to the chipset. On top of that bifurcation goes out the window toigether with PCIe RAID and the chipset is only capable of having two 20 Gbps or four 10 Gbps USB 3.2 ports, but at least memory overclocking is still on the table. Finally, the H810 chipset is as basic as it gets, with no extra CPU PCIe lanes beyond the 16 lanes for a graphics card, but they are at least PCIe 5.0 this time around. The chipset itself is only equipped with a mere eight PCIe 4.0 lanes and it gets zero 20 Gbps and two 10 Gbps USB 3.2 ports. Note that all platforms support one or two Thunderbolt 4 / USB4 ports, but it's unclear if this is native support or via an add-on chip. Also note that the USB ports are shared and the maximum count is that for the 5 Gbps ports in the details below, so the Z890 for example, doesn't have 25 USB 3.2 ports in total, but rather only 10. All in all, we'll see a migration to PCIe 5.0 for the x16 slot across the entire 800-series chipset range and from the B860 and up, all chipsets will have a dedicated PCIe 5.0 x4 interface that will most likely be used for an M.2 slot. Also, the PCIe lane count is the maximum, but due to Intel's HSIO layout, some resources will be shared with SATA and Ethernet, which means not all PCIe lanes will be accessible.

Intel's upcoming Core Ultra "Arrow Lake-S" desktop processor introduces a new socket, the LGA1851, alongside the new Intel 800-series desktop chipset. We now have some idea what the 151 additional pins on the new socket are used for, thanks to a leaked platform map on the ChipHell forums, discovered by HXL. Intel is expanding the number of PCIe lanes from the processor. It now puts out a total of 32 PCIe lanes.

From the 32 PCIe lanes put out by the "Arrow Lake-S" processor's system agent, 16 are meant for the PCI-Express 5.0 x16 PEG slot to be used for discrete graphics. Eight are used as chipset bus, technically DMI 4.0 x8 (these are eight lanes that operate at Gen 4 speed for 128 Gbps per direction of bandwidth). There are now not one, but two CPU-attached M.2 NVMe slots possible, just like on the AMD "Raphael" and "Granite Ridge" processors. What's interesting, though, is that not both are Gen 5. One of these is Gen 5 x4, while the other is Gen 4 x4.

Intel, in its Computex 2024 event unveiled its Core Ultra 300 "Lunar Lake" processor, along with a Q3 2024 date for the processors. It now turns out that the processors won't arrive until Fall 2024, specifically September, when the various notebook OEMs will merely announce their products based on the chips, followed by market availability of these notebooks through Holiday 2024, according to a DigiTimes report. The report also says that Intel's Core Ultra "Arrow Lake-S" desktop processors could see an October 2024 announcement and availability for at least the Unlocked K- and KF SKUs, along with compatible Socket LGA1851 motherboards based on the top Intel Z890 chipset.

The DigiTimes report invited a clarification from Intel through Digital Trends. The company in a statement reaffirmed that the chips will be available "starting in Q3 2024, as noted at Computex." This statement aligns with the timeline that the company would commence shipments of "Lunar Lake" processors to OEMs starting in June, followed by product announcements and market availability in the following months.

ASRock at the 2024 Computex presented a massive lineup of gaming and overclocking motherboards based on the Intel Z890 chipset. The company is not allowed to use the term "Z890," and refers to it as "next-gen Intel," but for convenience's sake, we will use Z890 in this article. Z890 is the highest tier desktop chipset for Socket LGA1851, which will power the Core Ultra "Arrow Lake-S" desktop processors that launch in Q4 2024. With the Z890 generation, ASRock stratified its coveted Taichi brand of high-end motherboards further up, clubbing its enthusiast-grade OC Formula brand along with it.

There are now Taichi OCF motherboards with either 1-DIMM per channel memory configurations (best dual-channel topology for memory overclocking), or with a new CAMM2 slot. There's also a mainline Taichi Lite, which is a no-frills variant with less bling, and essential high-end features such as a strong VRM and good onboard audio; and there's also the new Taichi Aqua, targeting the creator crowd, with its liquid-cooled VRM+SSD heatsink setup.

At the BIOSTAR booth at Computex, we found two new Intel Socket LGA1851 motherboards built around the Intel Z890 chipset, both ready to receive the new Core Ultra "Arrow Lake-S" processors. The two motherboards in question are the Z890 Valkyrie and Z890A-Silver. They use the ATX form factor (305 x 244 mm) and have 4x DDR5 slots, DP, HDMI, and SATA 3 connectors. Both motherboards use the same Realtek ALC 1220 7.1 channels HD for audio and come equipped with 1x 12 V RGB and 4x 5 V ARGB LED headers.

BIOSTAR Z890 Valkyrie sports 23 phases VRD, features 3x PCIe 5.0 x16 slots, USB 4 40 Gbps ports, 6x M.2 (M Key), 1x PCIe Gen 5 and 5x PCIe Gen 4 slots, and also dual Realtek 5 GbE + 2.5 GbE LAN ports. The slightly more common model, Z890A-Silver features 15 phases VRD, 1x PCIe 5.0 x16, 1 (x4) PCIe 4.0 x16, and 2x PCIe x1 slots, plenty of USB 3.2 Gen 2, Gen 1, and USB 2.0 ports but no USB 4. Also on the connectivity side, it has a single Realtek 2.5 GbE port.

During Computex 2024, GIGABYTE unveiled its new "AI TOP" series designed to empower users to develop and run AI applications locally on their systems. The AI TOP lineup includes AI-optimized motherboards, graphics cards, and complete system solutions. The flagship motherboard is called TRX50 AI TOP, which boasts support for AMD's Ryzen Threadripper 7000 PRO and a regular series of CPUs. The flagship TRX50 AI TOP motherboard features a special VRM design with beefy heatsinks, four PCIe 5.0 x16 slots for quad-GPU setup, eight-channel DDR5 memory with room for eight DIMMs, and a few M.2 PCIe Gen 5 slots. Next in the AI TOP line is the GIGABYTE GeForce RTX 4070 Ti SUPER AI TOP edition. Formed as a blower-style cooler, the RTX 4070 Ti SUPER AI TOP is envisioned for tight spaces and parallel installation with other GPUs to accelerate local AI development and inference.

Supposedly, there will be more AI TOP motherboards and GPUs than what is showcased. GIGABYTE may have an AI TOP makeover for Intel's upcoming Z890 AORUS Xtreme, and there could be more GPUs in the future with the blower-style AI TOP design. The goal of AI TOP series is optimization for AI workloads, which require lots of GPUs and lots of memory, like the TRX50 AI TOP motherboard shows.

GIGABYTE in its Computex 2027 booth showcased a huge lineup of next-generation Socket LGA1851 motherboards based on the top Intel Z890 chipset, which are ready for Intel's Core Ultra "Arrow Lake-S" desktop processors. GIGABYTE has taped out the motherboard model names, so all mentions of Z890 in this article are based on our assumption that it's the name of the next-gen Intel chipset. These chips are expected to bring generational IPC increases from their "Lion Cove" P-cores, "Skymont" E-cores, a more complete PCIe Gen 5 I/O (including for the CPU-attached NVMe slots), and other innovations. If the socket looks similar to the LGA1700, it's because it's identical in physical dimensions, and you can use your LGA1700 cooler on the LGA1851, but the processors are not inter-compatible. The company also showcased a few AMD Socket AM5 motherboards based on the new AMD X870E chipset.

The first motherboard to catch our eye is the Z890 AORUS Tachyon. This board is geared for record-seeking CPU overclocking. The processor is wired to just two DDR5 memory slots (1 DIMM per channel, the best configuration for memory OC); and the CPU-attached NVMe slots being close to the socket, with a combined heatsink. The only expansion slots are a PCI-Express 5.0 x16, and what could be a Gen 4 x8. There are plenty of overclocker-friendly controls, voltage measurement points, diagnostic LEDs, and status displays, scattered all over the board.

We've known for a while that the Z890 will be Intel's next-generation high-end desktop motherboard chipset for the Core Ultra "Arrow Lake-S" desktop processors in the LGA1851 package, and that Intel's first wave of processors and motherboards will target PC enthusiasts like they usually do—with just the unlocked K/KF processor SKUs and motherboards based on the Z890. We are now learning that the B860 will indeed be the company's mid-tier chipset for the processor. MSI has registered at least four motherboard models based on the B860, which showed up on Device Report.

These four motherboard models are the MPG B860M Edge Ti WiFi, the MPG B860I Edge WiFi, the MAG B860 Tomahawk WiFi, and the MAG B860M Mortar WiFi, with MSI internal product numbers 7E38, 7E39, 7E40, and 7E43, respectively. There's no word on whether B860 will even be available when the processors debut. Going by past trends, the mid-tier chipset and 65 W-class processor SKUs usually come out in the Q1 following a new processor generation launch, which means we could see these sometime early-2025. The B860 will lack CPU overclocking capabilities, and probably feature a narrower chipset bus, and fewer PCIe general purpose lanes than the Z890. As for MSI's Z890 motherboard lineup, there are at least eight models recorded—the MEG Z890 GODLIKE, the MEG Z890 Ace, MEG Z890 Unify-X, MPG Z890 Carbon WiFi, MPG Z890 Edge Ti WiFi, MPG Z890I Edge Ti WiFi, MAG Z890 Tomahawk WiFi, and the PRO Z890-P WiFi.