Intel’s Z790 Motherboards will Support PCle Gen 5 M.2, but Existing Boards still Good to Go

Intel is set to release its 13th gen Raptor Lake CPUs and 700 series platform by the end of 2022. The Z790 motherboards are the flagship 700 series chipset. Although the current Z690 motherboard is still very good, the Z790 will have some new I/O features that will give some reason to get them over the existing 600-series products.

Intel’s 13th gen Raptor Lake CPUs will be supported on the next-gen 700 series as well as the current 600 series motherboards. The Z790 will act as the flagship motherboard along with H770 and B760 included in the 700 series. We already saw a few variants of the Z790 and H770 including DDR5 as well as DDR4 support. Now we have additional news on these motherboards.

A video posted by Moore’s Law is Dead reveals that Intel is adding support for PCIe Gen 5 M.2 SSDs for its Z790 motherboards although not all the motherboards will have it. This could be mainly because of the higher costs that come from adding more PCB layers and drivers for Gen 5 hardware. Hence only the top-tier motherboards will have PCle Gen 5.0 M.2 support.

This is similar to how AMD has planned to release its AM5 motherboards with only the premium X670E motherboard getting PCle 5.0 support whereas the X670 and B650 have a mix of PCle 5.0 and PCle 4.0 variants depending on their manufacturers. If you want to know more about PCle, you can check the description given by Intel here.

Intel plans to show off its first Z790 products by the end of July or Late August which means a Q3 2022 unveiling. This won’t be a retail launch of any sort but would be a reveal similar to what AMD did with its 600-series AM5 lineup to hype up the upcoming motherboards.

On top of that, the current 600 series motherboards will also support 13th Gen Raptor Lake CPUs since they use the same LGA 1700 and 1800 socket layout. As of now, there are no PCle 5.0 SSDs in the market but they are expected to arrive soon along with AMD’s Smart Access Storage technology.

There is also a new M.2 Module feature coming with Intel’s Raptor Lake CPUs although very less information about it has yet been released.
With some motherboard manufacturers still releasing tweaks for the current-gen motherboards, there might not be a great need to improve your motherboards unless you absolutely want Gen 5 SSDs.

Although the official pricing has not yet been released, we can hope that Intel’s partner manufacturers will give a hint of their versions of these motherboards. With AMD motherboards not being as expensive as we thought, Intel will have a tough competition rivaling the cost-effective AM5 motherboards from AMD.

Intel’s 13th gen CPUs along with the 700 series motherboards are rumored to be launching in October or November.

About Intel

Intel Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company headquartered in Santa Clara, California, in Silicon Valley. It is the world’s largest semiconductor chip manufacturer on the basis of revenue, and is the developer of the x86 series of microprocessors – the processors found in most personal computers (PCs).

Incorporated in Delaware, Intel ranked No. 46 in the 2018 Fortune 500 list of the largest United States corporations by total revenue.