Gigabyte Z490 Motherboards will (Mostly) Support PCIe 4.0

Given that the AMD X570 motherboards saw us make our first transition to PCIe 4.0, it was always a matter of curiosity as to what would happen with Intel’s Z490 platform. Why? Well, despite the numerous leaks we’ve seen (which you can check out here), we’ve not heard much concrete (one way or the other) regarding support for the faster bandwidth PCIe design.

In a report via Videocardz, however, leaked information from Gigabyte would appear to confirm that (at least in part) all of their upcoming Z490 motherboard will include PCIe 4.0 support. That is, however, with a notable caveat!

Gigabyte Z490 Motherboards

In details that have leaked from Gigabyte, while the compatibility is confirmed, there are still more than a few question marks surrounding it. Specifically, because Gigabyte currently lists it as ‘limited support’.

The main features noted in this leak include:

• 2x PCIE 4.0 Slot (Reinforced PCIe 4.0 x16 or x8/x8 with lower impedance)
• M.2 PCIe 4.0 Slot (M.2 PCIe 4.0 x4 slot with lower impedance)
• PCIE 4.0 Turbo B-Clock (External clock generator for PCIe 4.0 overclocking)
• PCIE 4.0 Switches (Switch PCIe 4.0 x16 into PCIe x8/x8)
• PCIe 4.0 Re-driver (Boost & strengthen PCIe 4.0 signals to longer lengths)
• 3.3x Slot Signal Stability
• 4x Lower Low Signal Loss PCB

What Do We Think?

A lot of the speculation seems to suggest that while Comet Lake-S will offer ‘partial’ support of PCIe 4.0, it will not be fully implemented until the launch of their Rocket Lake-S platform. A factor which, in itself, would suggest that Intel’s next CPU releases will work on the Z490 platform!

In a nutshell, its a confusing situation and we hope that this will be clarified further in the coming weeks as more leaks slip out!

What we can take from this, however, is that Gigabyte’s Z490 motherboards will support PCIe 4.0. Just probably not as well (or as widely) as the Rocket Lake-S platform will!

What do you think? – Let us know in the comments!