ASUS accidentally publishes list of 19 upcoming Intel Z390 motherboards
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ASUS accidentally publishes list of 19 upcoming Intel Z390 motherboards
In what looks to be a slip-up, ASUS published a list of 19 upcoming Intel Z390 motherboards over the weekend. The link has since been taken down, but the sheer number of boards seems to suggest that Z390 will be more than just a token release and will replace Z370 as the flagship chipset for Coffee Lake processors.
There have been plenty of rumors about the Z390 chipset over the past months, and specifications for the chipset even leaked from Intel in May.
On ASUS’ end, the company will offer Z390 boards across five product families. The top-end boards aimed at enthusiasts and overclockers will be marketed as the ROG Maximus XI series, while the more gaming-focused boards will come under the ROG Strix series.
The TUF and Prime brands are coming back as well for more budget-conscious gamers, and there will be a single Z390 Dragon motherboard for China.
The boards will come in a range of form factors, including mini-ITX, micro-ATX, and full-sized ATX boards. The ROG Strix Z390-I Gaming looks to be the only mini-ITX Z390 board available, but there are more micro-ATX offerings in the form of the TUF Z390M-Pro Gaming, TUF Z390M-Pro Gaming Wi-Fi, and Prime Z390M-Plus.
The flagship Maximus XI line-up is stocked with familiar names as well, including Apex, Code, Extreme, Formula, Hero, and Hero Wi-Fi models.
The list of ASUS motherboards appeared in a description for a new BIOS feature introduced on 23 July. The feature lets users create profiles in BIOS for different users or scenarios and is supported on existing Intel 300-series boards from ASUS and the upcoming Z390 models.
The fully formed product family seems to suggest that the products are nearly ready to ship. However, Intel will probably only launch the Z390 chipset alongside its upcoming octa-core Coffee Lake chip, so it may be a while before we see any Z390 boards.
In fact, AnandTech also picked up on leaks that put the release of the refreshed Coffee Lake processors in the first quarter of 2019. Compared to Z370, Z390 will reportedly have native support for up to six USB 3.1 (Gen 2) ports and integrated Wi-Fi.
Source: AnandTech
