Products You May Like
Intel unveiled its long-awaited Core Ultra 200 “Arrow Lake” CPUs this week, and now it’s also launched compatible Z890 motherboards via its board partners. Intel Z890 motherboards can now be pre-ordered from MSI, Gigabyte, ASRock, and Asus, with prices ranging from $199 to $999. This is only for the die-hard Intel fans, though, as Arrow Lake CPUs have yet to be independently benchmarked and won’t go on sale until Oct. 24.
Intel’s Core Ultra 200 series CPUs utilize an all-new socket called LGA 1851, so it’s incompatible with its previous LGA 1700 Alder Lake and Raptor Lake CPUs. As such, there’s an all-new Z890 chipset, and now, motherboard companies are hoping people will pre-order them before the Core Ultra 200 series arrives in two weeks, as Wccftech reports. Once it’s sold enough high-end boards to early adopters, Intel will eventually launch its less-expensive B-and-H series motherboards.
Intel lowered boost clocks on Arrow Lake compared to Raptor Lake, so it’ll be interesting to see how it overclocks on Z890.
Credit: Intel
The big selling point for Z890 seems to be more I/O, support for faster memory speeds, and new overclocking functionality. Intel says it’s added fine-grained overclocking to the Core Ultra 200 series with 16MHz increments, and it now allows both P-cores and E-cores to be overclocked. There’s also a lot of talk about AI, of course, as Asus is now offering AI networking, AI cooling, and some kind of AI chatbot that can answer questions about your motherboard. That said, since an 800-series motherboard is required for the Core Ultra 200 series, it’s not like Intel’s partners had to reinvent the wheel for this round, but they appear to offer some new features.
One small piece of good news is the prices for these motherboards aren’t totally outrageous, which was an issue with AMD’s original AM5 boards and Intel’s Z690 when it launched during the pandemic. Paying $200 for a top-tier board is pretty typical these days, so at least that is an option for folks without outrageous budgets. That said, the $200 price tag only applies to two boards from ASRock, with the rest being $229 and up and the majority being $300 to $600, which is a lot of money to spend on a motherboard.
Credit: Intel
Complicating the Z890’s value equation is that Intel has yet to comment on this socket’s lifespan. Intel has been criticized for not supporting its sockets as long as AMD, which has truly raised the bar with AM4 as it launched in 2016 and is still getting new CPUs even in 2024. Intel only supported two generations with LGA 1700 (Alder Lake and Raptor Lake), which has been typical for the company, but its plans for LGA 1851 are unclear.