The motherboards are designed for the LGA1200 contact pad – the same as the Z490 series. The new motherboards are designed for the upcoming 11th Gen Intel Core 14nm desktop processor family, codenamed Rocket Lake-S. They will finally implement support for the PCI Express 4.0 interface, expand the DMI channel between the processor and the system logic, and also use the new core architecture, which was originally created for the 7nm process technology.

Recall that high-end Z490 motherboards are already hardware compatible with PCI Express 4.0, but there may be some limitations: for example, the main M.2 slot may not work in the Gen 4 standard. However, this has not yet been fully confirmed and may differ from board to board.

ASUS Z590 Maximus XIII Extreme Glacial is the highest-end motherboard with a pre-installed all-in-one. This board looks almost identical to the Z490 Gundam, a special commemorative edition inspired by the anime series Gundam. Glacial is also an E-ATX board.

The 13th edition of the Hero series has undergone a notable design change. Unfortunately, the image does not give a clear idea of ​​the VRM, but you can immediately notice that the EATX12V connectors have been updated to two 8-pin connectors (versus the 8 + 4 bundle in the Z490 series). Interestingly, the audio chip capacitors are not noticed on both motherboards. It was previously mentioned that premium Z590 motherboards will ship with the new Realtek 4080 audio codec, and on all such boards, the capacitors seem to have been updated and hidden under a plastic cover.

This is not the case for the simpler Prime and TUF motherboards, images of which are also shared by VideoCardz. Intel will showcase its 500-series motherboards at CES 2021 tomorrow night (Intel will start streaming at 00:00 on January 12 Moscow time). ASUS and other motherboard manufacturers should soon lift their embargo on the publication of information about their new products.