MSI Teases Next-Gen Intel Z790 Motherboard Launch For 27th September

MSI has teased the launch of its next-generation Intel Z790 chipset-powered motherboards for 13th Gen Raptor Lake CPUs later this month.

MSI has tweeted about its next virtual product launch event "The Next Playground - Reframed" which will take place on 27th September at 9:20 AM (Pacific Daylight Time). This means we are about 10 days away from the launch of the upcoming products. The teaser image shows four upcoming motherboards that will be part of the Z790 family and will support Intel's Raptor Lake CPUs.

https://twitter.com/msigaming/status/1571484518380605445

The motherboards include the MSI MAG, MPG, and MEG series products such as the MEG Z790 ACE, MPG Z790 Carbon WiFi, MPG Z790 EDGE WiFi Force, and the MAG Z790 Tomahawk. MSI has already teased its next-gen MPG Z790 Carbon WiFi a few weeks back which we covered here. The silhouette of this motherboard reveals some interesting new design choices. Of course, the MSI Z790 motherboards will have been offering brand new features over the Z690 lineup.

Intel is sticking with its LGA 1700 platform for at least one more CPU lineup and that's Raptor Lake. Chipzilla confirmed that Raptor Lake CPUs will be compatible with the existing LGA 1700 boards based on the 600-series chipset. But like each generation, motherboard makers will be offering a brand new lineup of motherboards based on the 700-series chipset which will come with higher I/O lanes. In addition to that, Raptor Lake chips will be supporting DDR5-5600 speeds which is a nice bump over the native DDR5-5200 speeds that Alder Lake supports.

The Z790 chipset will offer 20 PCIe Gen 4 & 8 PCIe Gen 3 lanes while the CPUs will feature 16 PCIe Gen 5 and 4 PCIe Gen 4 lanes. We know that the motherboard maker will have a few products which will split the x16 discrete graphics card lanes with an x4 PCIe Gen 5 M.2 slot. Intel won't have native PCIe Gen 5 M.2 support till 14th Gen Meteor Lake chips.

This offers a nice upgrade path to users who are currently running a mainstream Core i3 or Core i5 CPU and want to upgrade to a higher-end chip. They can simply replace their existing 12th Gen CPU with a higher-end Core i7 or Core i9 SKU which will increase the overall performance of their PC.

Intel 13th Gen Raptor Lake Desktop CPUs Expected Features:

Intel is expected to introduce its 13th Gen Raptor Lake CPUs and the 700-series platform including the Z790 motherboards on the 27th of September so stay tuned for more information.