Gigabyte Says Intel Z490 Chipset Motherboards Will Support

Maybe it is laborious to fathom an Intel chipset that really helps greater than a single era of CPU designs; and if that’s the case, you are forgiven, as a result of it appears the blue big has principally forgotten of fascinated with platform longevity and upgradeability. However, we is likely to be in for a uncommon deal with, if the phrases from a Gigabyte consultant are to be taken significantly. In a Q&A relating to Gigabyte’s newest era Z490 motherboards, a person questioned the Gigabyte representatives whether or not their Z490-based platforms would assist upcoming Rocket Lake designs. The reply, which got here with a caveat of “I don’t know if this should be made public”, was that sure: Z490 will assist Rocket Lake-S.

If true, this may occasionally shed some mild on why motherboard producers have given a lot significance to PCIe 4.zero advertising on their Z490 motherboards… Whose chipset does not assist PCIe 4.zero from the get-go. However, with next-generation Rocket Lake-S expectedly sporting the identical 14 nm fabrication course of albeit with a brand new microarchitecture, a wider DMI 3.zero 8x band, Intel’s high-performance Xe graphics structure design and PCIe 4.zero assist on a platform stage, it does start to make sense that producers would point out PCIe 4.zero assist on the present Z490. Because if CPU compatibility is maintained, that implies that customers trying to drop-in a Rocket Lake-S CPU will on the very least be capable to get pleasure from 20 lanes of PCIe 4.zero in these ready-made motherboards.