ASUS Z490 motherboards tested with Intel Rocket Lake Desktop CPU, lack of PCIe Gen 4.0 support

ASUS Z490 motherboards tested with Intel Rocket Lake Desktop CPU, lack of PCIe Gen 4.0 support

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ASUS Z490 Motherboards _ Intel Rocket Lake Desktop CPU PCIe Gen 4.0 Support _1

In July, we reported that ASUS PCIe Gen 4.0 support was severely lacking on its Z490 series motherboards, a highlight in the Intel Rocket Lake Desktop CPUs. Fast forward to 2021 and we can finally confirm that, as our sources got the chance to test several ASUS Z490 boards with a Rocket Lake CPU.

ASUS Z490 motherboard buyers cannot take full advantage of PCIe Gen 4.0 NVMe SSDs, even if they use an Intel Rocket Lake Desktop CPU.

You can certainly gain more insight into ASUS ‘dire situation in this detailed message, but in short, ASUS missed the PCIe Gen 4.0 wagon big with its Z490 motherboard setup, while all other major AIBs have proper Gen 4.0 support on their Z490 motherboards implemented. Our source got hold of several ASUS Z490 motherboards and tested them with Intel’s Rocket Lake CPU. The motherboards contain:

Intel does not support 11th generation Rocket Lake Desktop CPUs on B460 & H410 Chipset Motherboards

  • ASUS ROG Maximus XII HERO (Wi-Fi)
  • ASUS TUF Gaming Z490-PLUS (Wi-Fi)

For testing purposes, a Samsung 980 PRO 1 TB SSD was used, and during the tests, the drive could only operate at half its maximum potential. At the same time, the PCIe Gen 4.0 functionality for GPUs worked normally and was confirmed by ASUS itself. The tests can be compared to the MSI Z490 Gen 4 implementation we reported last month. You can see that the MSI Z490 motherboard, when paired with an Intel Rocket Lake processor, unlocks the full potential of the NVMe drive, offering insane speeds that are faster than the custom NVMe drive found on Sony’s PS5 console found.

With that said, ASUS has introduced their Z590 motherboard range, which is more finely tuned to Intel Rocket Lake Desktop CPUs and should offer full PCIe Gen 4.0 support (not limited to just GPUs like Z490). ASUS also officially lists the 11th generation CPU and PCIe Gen 4.0 support, but it is limited to a single PCIe x16 slot.

But users who purchased ASUS’s Z490 motherboards to pair them with Intel Rocket Lake CPUs for Gen 4.0 compatibility will be disappointed because they will not be able to take full advantage of their brand new CPUs and will have to purchase a brand new platform to to get proper support.

Source