New Chipset = New Motherboards
Intel has released new information regarding their upcoming Z390 chipset prior to launch. New chipset of course means new motherboard. However, this one will also support the current 8th Gen Intel Core processors aka Coffee Lake. Just like the previous top end mainstream Z370 chipset, the new Z390 allows for both CPU and memory overclocking. Being the second generation 300-series chipset however, it provides new featuers which the Z370 chipsets lack.
What is New in the Intel Z390 Chipset?
The new Z390 chipset improves upon the existing Z370 chipset in two main areas: USB 3.1 Gen 2 and Wireless networking.
Specifically, the Z390 chipset now supports up to 6 USB 3.1 Gen 2 ports. Plus, 10x USB 3.1 Gen 1 and 14 USB 2.0 ports. In comparison, the Z370 chipset only natively supports up to 10 USB 3.1 Gen 1 and 14 USB 2.0 ports. So basically just the latter two. Not that there were no USB 3.1 Gen 2 ports on Z370 mainboards. However, motherboard makers used up PCIe lanes with 3rd party chips to provide it. USB 3.1 Gen 2 provides significantly faster performance up to 10Gb/s in comparison the the 5Gb/s of USB 3.1 Gen 1.
The other new feature is the native wireless networking MAC for dual-band 802.11ac and Bluetooth 5 support.
Otherwise, all other features remain the same. It still has 30 HSIO lanes, 24 PCH PCIe 3.0 lanes and three maximum RST PCie storage devices.
