EVGA has taken the wraps off a limited-edition of their Z490 Dark motherboard. The Z490 Dark K|NGP|N Edition, which is named after overclocking legend Vince "K|NGP|N" Lucido, arrives with Lucido's hand-signed signature on the packaging and improved memory support.
Although the Z490 Dark K|NGP|N Edition sports an unorthodox look, the motherboard belongs to the E-ATX category. EVGA produces the motherboard on a 10-layer PCB, which improves overclocking and PCB cooling. The power delivery subsystem adheres to a 18-phase design and a pair of 8-pin EPS connectors make sure that your 10th Generation Comet Lake-S processor will never starve for power.
The motherboard targets the overclocking crowd so it comes with a bunch of notable attributes, such as triple BIOS support, dual debug LEDs, onboard clear CMOS, power and reset buttons, switches to disable PCIe slots, among other overclocking-oriented features. A total of eight 4-pin fan headers are positioned strategically over the motherboard.
Similar to the vanilla version, the K|NGP|N Edition only has two DDR4 memory slots so the motherboard is limited to 64GB of memory. Memory support, however, is off the roof. While the Z490 Dark supports DDR4-4800 memory modules and beyond, the K|NGP|N Edition does DDR4-5000 and higher. Details on how EVGA managed to get enhanced memory support on the K|NGP|N Edition are unknown for the moment.
Conventional storage options include six native SATA III ports from the Z490 chipset with RAID 0, 1, 5 and 10 support. Two additional SATA III ports are available from the ASMedia ASM1061 controller. One U.2 port is present as well. For housing high-speed SSDs, the Z490 Dark K|NGP|N Edition provides two M.2 Key-M slots that accommodate M.2 drives up to 110mm.
The motherboard has three PCIe x16 reinforced expansion slots in a 1x16/8, 1x8/4 and 1x4 arrangement. The Z490 Dark K|NGP|N Edition supports Nvidia SLI configurations up to two graphics cards. There's also one PCIe x4 expansion slot for your other devices.
The Z490 Dark K|NGP|N Edition incorporates two Ethernet controllers for networking. The Intel I225-V provides the 2.5 Gigabit Ethernet port, while the Intel I219V delivers the Gigabit Ethernet port. For added connectivity, EVGA added the Intel Wi-Fi 6 AX201 module to offer Wi-Fi 6 and Bluetooth 5.1.
The Realtek ALC1220 audio codec is in charge of the audio on the Z490 Dark K|NGP|N Edition. It's not alone though. EVGA pairs the ALC1220 with the brand's proprietary SV3H615 3D headphone amplifier.
The Z490 Dark K|NGP|N Edition offers a PS/2 combo port, two USB 3.2 Gen 1 ports, five USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-A ports, one USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-C port for connecting peripherals. The combination of three USB 2.0 header, one USB 3.2 Gen 1 header and one USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-C header helps boost the number of USB ports. Unfortunately, the motherboard only has one video output, which comes in the shape of a single mini-DisplayPort.
The Z490 Dark K|NGP|N Edition retails for $599.99 and comes with a limited three-year warranty. It's $100 more expensive than the Z490 Dark. You can pick up the Z490 Dark K|NGP|N Edition on EVGA's online store.
