News MSI Z690-A Pro DDR4 Alder Lake Motherboard Already On Sale At Newegg

[Admin]

The Z690-A Pro DDR4 motherboard is on sale and in stock at Newegg Canada right now for $279.99 plus $7.99 shipping.

MSI Z690-A Pro DDR4 Alder Lake Motherboard Already On Sale At Newegg : Read more

 

[BX4096]

My biggest problem is that I have 8 sticks of 16GB RAM (I needed an insane amount of it for work), and none of these new DDR4 boards are providing more than 4 slots for it. I still might be willing to upgrade, but obviously not if I'd have to cut my RAM capacity in half. Hopefully some other manufacturer will step in to fill the void.

 

[spongiemaster]

My biggest problem is that I have 8 sticks of 16GB RAM (I needed an insane amount of it for work), and none of these new DDR4 boards are providing more than 4 slots for it. I still might be willing to upgrade, but obviously not if I'd have to cut my RAM capacity in half. Hopefully some other manufacturer will step in to fill the void.

Do mainstream boards with 8 dimm slots exist any more? If you need that many slots, you should be using an HEDT platform.

 

[JamesJones44]

For the love of all that is goodness, can we please start replacing those USB-A ports? I haven't bought a product in 2 years that needs USB-A.

Also, why do we need so many of them? What percentage of users use more than two of the ports? Let alone 7 of them.

 

[BX4096]

Do mainstream boards with 8 dimm slots exist any more?

I just checked and looks like they don't. Seeing as a lot of popular media editors and other programs like UE4 require tons of RAM and how many people use extra memory for convenient RAM disks , I haven't even realized that it was such a problem. I guess I'll have to wait, either for 32GB DDR5 sticks to become affordable or for Intel's next year's HEDT lineup. Thanks for pointing it out.

 

[TJ Hooker]

Did maintsream CPUs/motherboards ever support >4 DIMMs?

As an aside, AMD's threadripper lineup supports also supports 8 DIMMs. It hasn't been updated for ~2 years, similar to Intel's HEDT lineup, but there are some rumours/leaks suggesting it won't be too much longer for Zen 3-based threadripper chips to come out.

 

[deadsmiley]

For the love of all that is goodness, can we please start replacing those USB-A ports? I haven't bought a product in 2 years that needs USB-A.

Also, why do we need so many of them? What percentage of users use more than two of the ports? Let alone 7 of them.

I use a lot of them. I even use add-in cards to get more.

Mouse - USB-A
Keyboard - USB-A
Webcam - USB-A
HOTAS - USB-A
VR System - up to 4 USB-A (yes, I am looking at YOU Oculus Rift
Scanner - USB-A
External SATA HDD/SSD dock - USB-A
External DVD R/W (rarely) - USB-A

 

[cbdeakin]

The idea of any Z690 boards being entry level is a joke (especially given the top tier prices). DDR4 has been shown to outperform DDR5 in gaming, even when running at lower RAM frequency, because of the poor memory controller support on Alder Lake CPUs, which requires the 'Gear' to be set above 1, which will reduce memory controller speed by half at best.

Sorry, but poorly researched article. We've already seen the negative effects of increasing gear ratios with Rocket Lake CPUs.

Edit- what we don't know yet is the gear ratios possible on DDR4 with Alder Lake, at different RAM speeds, but I doubt it would be lower than Comet Lake CPUs.

 

[TJ Hooker]

DDR4 has been shown to outperform DDR5 in gaming, even when running at lower RAM frequency,

Source?

 

[Viking2121]

My biggest problem is that I have 8 sticks of 16GB RAM (I needed an insane amount of it for work), and none of these new DDR4 boards are providing more than 4 slots for it. I still might be willing to upgrade, but obviously not if I'd have to cut my RAM capacity in half. Hopefully some other manufacturer will step in to fill the void.

Well DDR5 will have higher capacity sticks anyway, But then again Main stream never have more than 4 slots, you'd have to wait for the extreme platforms or Threadripper stuff if 8 slots are that important. Or continue to use what you have for a while longer.