New motherboards for Intel Arrow Lake CPUs are announced

Asus ROG Maximus Extreme Z890 — (Image credit: Asus)

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We've put together a list of all Z890 motherboard models coming out from Gigabyte, Asus, ASRock, and MSI. For full details about Arrow Lake and Intel's new Core Ultra 200S series CPUs check out our previous coverage. But in a nutshell Z890 is Intel's new flagship chipset powering the LGA 1851 platform, which comes with updated connectivity features including Thunderbolt 4 support and built-in Wi-Fi 6E.

All four motherboard makers are going the extra mile by adding features beyond what the chipset supports, primarily for higher-tier board models. These additional features include Thunderbolt 5, Wi-Fi 7, 2.5GbE, and Bluetooth 5.4 support. A handful of board models should also come with 10GbE, just like the previous generation of Intel boards. Z890 motherboards also see a drastic improvement in memory frequency support with many supporting memory speeds of 9000MHz or faster.

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For the non-Aorus models, there is one E-ATX board, five ATX boards, and one Micro-ATX variant. General changes for the Z890 series compared to the Z790 series (beyond the obvious updates to the chipset functionality) include the introduction of AI-specific board models, such as the Z890 AI TOP and Aorus Master AI TOP. For the flagship Aorus Xtreme motherboard, Gigabyte has also gone the extra mile and included a full-blown RGB-illuminated DRAM cooler on top. A niche product aimed at improving DRAM temperatures for improved overclocking headroom.

Asus has purportedly made "sweeping changes" to the BIOS interface for its Z890 motherboards, which now render the UEFI/BIOS at a native 1920 x 1080 Full HD. Most of Asus' boards come with its new PCIe Slot Q-Release which allows you to easily remove a graphic card without releasing the PCIe latch or touching it at all. The same goes for the M.2 slots which are a latched design that doesn't require a screwdriver for installation. The primary M.2 heatsink gets a screwless Q-Release design too.

One of the most notable changes with Asrock's Z890 lineup is the Taichi series. Rather than being one or a few models as was the case in past generations, ASRock has turned the Taichi name into a full blown sub-lineup, featuring four models in total. The Taichi Aqua is the flagship board and as the name suggests is compatible with custom loops cooling for cooling the power delivery on the board. The Taichi OCF is the overclocking-specific variant and successor to the ASRock Formula series, and the Taichi Lite is a more budget-friendly version of the vanilla Taichi model.

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Aaron Klotz is a contributing writer for Tom’s Hardware, covering news related to computer hardware such as CPUs, and graphics cards.

12 Comments Comment from the forums

Notton

Did they all hire the same designer? The top end models look very similar to each other, just with a different logo slapped over the VRM/rear I/O area.
or is this Hotelling's law in action?
Reply
Jame5

Man.... This is the hole that Anandtech leaves in the tech world. They always did an actual feature comparison and detailed roundup of new chipsets/motherboards when they launched.

Here at Tom's we get... a list of names. Woo.
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James Roach

Finally! Thunderbolt 5 support on an Intel motherboard! Thanks!
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dimar

I'm not a fan of missing PCIe slots. I'd like all PCIe slots available after the gigantic 4090/5090 leaves some space on ATX motherboards. You can aways put M.2 adapters.
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vato3001

This 1851 what a scam, 8x Sata 800€ ??
4 x Sata is not enough, 6x Sata not existing yet.
Reply
thestryker

Notton said:
Did they all hire the same designer? The top end models look very similar to each other, just with a different logo slapped over the VRM/rear I/O area.
or is this Hotelling's law in action?
The top models all use screens so there's only so much that can be shifted there. Otherwise I assume it actually likely comes down to them getting the heatsinks from the same suppliers so they can increase margins by not having fully custom solutions.

dimar said:
I'm not a fan of missing PCIe slots. I'd like all PCIe slots available after the gigantic 4090/5090 leaves some space on ATX motherboards. You can aways put M.2 adapters.
Several of the boards have 3 full length slots which is all you're really going to fit when they leave the 5 slot gap for the stupid video card coolers. The Unify-X actually has 4 slots, but the 4th is an x1 above the top x16 slot.

vato3001 said:
This 1851 what a scam, 8x Sata 800€ ??
4 x Sata is not enough, 6x Sata not existing yet.
MSI Unify-X has up to 6x SATA ports, but realistically you're not going to see more than 4 in the vast majority of client boards because the intended audience wants more M.2 ports. You can always get an adapter which turns an M.2 slot into multiple SATA ports.
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thestryker

Since the article didn't list much information or include links to at least the splash pages:
MSI:
https://www.msi.com/Landing/intel-arrow-lake-core-ultra-z890-b860-h810-best-ai-pc-gaming-motherboardAsus:
https://www.asus.com/microsite/motherboard/intel-ultra-series-2-arrow-lake-s-z890-h810-b860/ASRock:
https://www.asrock.com/microsite/IntelZ890/Gigabyte didn't put together a splash page only a direct link to their board models page:
https://www.gigabyte.com/Motherboard/Intel--Chipset-Intel-Z890
The prices on these seems to be exactly where I'd expect them which is to say largely overpriced. The ASRock Taichi Lite is probably the most reasonably priced board with a good feature set. The Asus ProArt at least gives TB 5 and 10Gbe for its ~$490 pricetag which is a tangible benefit as opposed to most of the features on the $500 class boards.

I'm disappointed as usual that the 1DPC boards are only premium class feature filled overclocking boards. MSI doesn't have a price on the Unify-X yet, but if the Apex is $720 and OCF is $600 it's a safe bet it won't be cheaper.
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halfcharlie

I'm disappointed by the lack of USB ports on everything other than the top or second top boards, which are expensive. More and more devices require USB-C now, one or two of them is unacceptable. Just between the mouse, keyboard, printer etc alone is 5 USB-A ports needed as well. Most of these are bare minimum, and unusable for me. The AM5 boards are even worse. This is gonna be a rough upgrade for me and my bank account (I can't wait another gen, upgrade is overdue and needed for productivity/work). Also lol people caring about SATA ports in this day and age, it was two upgrades ago since I touched a SATA port, of course it's not a priority for motherboards anymore.
Reply
USAFRet

halfcharlie said:
Also lol people caring about SATA ports in this day and age, it was two upgrades ago since I touched a SATA port, of course it's not a priority for motherboards anymore.
My current system has 4x SATA III SSDs, in addition to the 2x NVMe.

All 4 SATA IIIs will be transplanted to the new system in a couple of months.
Reply
thestryker

halfcharlie said:
I'm disappointed by the lack of USB ports on everything other than the top or second top boards, which are expensive. More and more devices require USB-C now, one or two of them is unacceptable. Just between the mouse, keyboard, printer etc alone is 5 USB-A ports needed as well. Most of these are bare minimum, and unusable for me.
Perhaps you didn't look at MSI?

PRO Z890-A WIFI ($240 board)
4x USB 2.0 (Front)
4x USB 5Gbps Type A (Rear)
2x USB 5Gbps Type A (Front)
3x USB 10Gbps Type A (Rear)
1x USB 10Gbps Type C (Rear)
1x USB 20Gbps Type C (Front)
2x Thunderbolt4 ports (Rear)
I'm not really sure what you're plugging into your system that this isn't actually perfectly fine.
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