Asus Announces Z690 Motherboard Support for Intel Raptor Lake CPUs

Asus has announced that it will support next-gen Intel processors on its 600 Series motherboards. This is great news for enthusiasts currently using this platform with an Alder Lake CPU, and ASRock made a similar announcement in June. However, Asus appears only to be supporting Raptor Lake on its top-end Z690 chipset motherboards, at least initially.

The news release says that "Asus 600-series motherboards will receive support for these new CPUs according to the chart below." In the table it has shared, there are 23 Intel Z690 motherboards, which tally with the 23 Intel Z690 motherboards listed on Asus product pages. In other words, if you have an Asus Z690 motherboard now, from any series like ROG, TUF, ProArt or Prime, it will support Intel 13th Gen Core processors (Raptor Lake) with an appropriate BIOS update. 

With one of the above motherboards in your current build, you can head to the Asus support page and grab the newest BIOS to gain Raptor Lake CPU compatibility. Find out all we know about Raptor Lake, in our linked recently published and extensive explainer article.

If you have an Asus B660 or H610 motherboard, you might be disappointed (for now) as it looks like you won't be able to switch up to a Raptor Lake chip when they come out. With ASRock offering much wider chipset support, the limited Z690 support list shared by Asus today might end up being amended. We think it depends on what big rivals like Gigabyte and MSI do concerning this issue, as well as any vocal customer outrage.

Intel intends to release brand new 700 Series chipsets for partner motherboards when Raptor Lake comes out. We don’t have the full official details of these chipsets/boards, but we know there will be advances in connectivity – with more PCIe 4.0 lanes and USB 3.2 Gen 2x2 ports. Again you can dig through more detail in our Raptor Lake all we know article. Motherboard vendors would prefer to sell new 700 Series chipset motherboards with the 13th Gen Core CPUs, but for many PC DIYers the half-step upgrade to a faster Raptor Lake processor might be more attractive. Remember, (14th Gen) Meteor Lake is coming in 2023, delivering some big changes (and a new socket/motherboard).

We have reached out to Asus and hope to hear back about Raptor Lake support beyond its Z690 chipset motherboards and will update in due course.