With Intel’s Alder Lake-S processors expected to be released later this year (probably around October), with a brand new socket design, there inevitably will come brand new motherboards. While the news surrounding the Z690 top-spec platform has so far remained reasonably quiet, however, following a post by BiliBili user ‘Brother One‘ we have our first (completely unconfirmed) image of what is claiming to be an early engineering sample of a Z690 motherboard.
Intel Z690 Motherboard
Now, I think it goes without saying that the above image is entirely unconfirmed and, as such, should be taken with a huge grain of salt. – If this is proven to be legitimate, however, then this would possibly represent our first look at the new Intel LGA1700 socket. – The leak source claims that they have broken some form of NDA in releasing this image, and in terms of what we can see (which is admittedly limited) it does appear to indicate that this is from an exceptionally powerful motherboard design (note the 23 power stages surrounding the CPU socket).
In what has likely been a little lost in translation, however, the rest of the comments made with the image post doesn’t make much sense to me. You can check it out below if you think you’ll have any better luck in deciphering its meaning.
When Will We Know More?
Intel’s Alder Lake-S processors are expected to be officially unveiled in late October and following a recent leak, it is being suggested that the initial launch will only encompass the K and KF model CPUs, and in terms of motherboards, solely the Z690 platform with everything else set to (apparently) be launched at CES 2022. – Given the timeframes we’re looking at right now, it is undoubtedly true that some Z690 motherboard engineering samples are already out in the wild. If this is truly one of them though, well, I guess we’re going to have to wait and see.
What do you think? – Let us know in the comments!
