ASRock launched a new Z690 Steel Legend WiFi 6E motherboard, the motherboard connection and expansion functions remain unchanged, only reduce the number of power supply materials, using 12 + 1 + 2 phase 50A DrMOS digital power supply module, support 3 groups of M.2 NVMe SSD, WiFi 6E wireless network module, 2.5G LAN network module, to provide more affordable price positioning, while with silver and gray color matching and RGB lighting effects and other attractive design.
ASRock Z690 Steel Legend WiFi 6E motherboard
ASRock launches Z690 Steel Legend WiFi 6E motherboard, positioned as entry-level Z690 DDR4 rating, using 12 + 1 + 2 phase 50A DrMOS power supply module, with 60A metal inductors and 12K Japanese capacitors, enough to cope with the 12th generation Intel Core processor platform, support the latest PCIe 5.0 transmission, 3 sets of M.2 NVMe SSD slots, WiFi 6E wireless network module, 2.5G LAN network module, Provides basic and sufficient motherboard connectivity and expansion functions to meet the needs of most users.
ASRock launched the new Z690 Steel Legend WiFi 6E motherboard for THE ATX Form Factor specifications, measuring 30.5cm x 24.4cm, with 6 layers of 2oz Copper PCB, this generation of Z690 Steel Legends still maintains the same design of the Steel Legend series, VRM radiator, M.2 radiator, PCH radiator and I/O Cover are all used in silver and white color matching, with the PCB of the off-white black digital camouflage layer, Tough military industrial style, more highlight the motherboard rugged image, the motherboard running will also emit gorgeous ARGB lighting effects, quite stylish.
The motherboard has added a wealth of ARGB lighting effects
ASRock's new Z690 Steel Legend WiFi 6E motherboard has a wide range of RGB lighting effects, including ARGB light particles in the I/O Cover, PCH heatsink and the right part of the motherboard, which can highlight the steel legend when the lights are lit up, and can use ASRock Polychrome SYNC software to adjust the lighting effects.
Supports 12th Generation Core processors and the new LGA 1700 Socket interface
The new generation of Z690 chipset motherboard switched to the new LGA 1700 processor interface, the appearance of the previous generation of LGA 115X, 1200 has a considerable difference, not only from the square type to the rectangular type, the size of 37.5mm x 45.0mm, the anti-dull groove moved to the upper and lower two instead of the left and right sides of each, the bigger change is that the socket processor buckle opened to replace with a structure similar to LGA 1366, the socket lever and the direction of the snap-in opposite direction.
New LGA 1700 Socket interface slot
Although this generation of processor interfaces is called the LGA 1700, the number of LGA Pins is actually 1800 pins, and 100 pins have not yet been defined, and will be reserved for future CPUs for additional power or I/O pins, similar to the LGA 2011 of that year.
The new 12th generation Core Series Alder Lake processors have been upgraded from the previous 14nm process to the latest "Intel 7" 10nm Enhanced SuperFin process, using a hybrid architecture of large and small cores (P-Core) for high-performance Golden Cove microarchitecture, small core (E-Core) for high energy efficiency Gracemont microarchitecture, the maximum number of cores is 16 cores, 24 threads design, the highest The PL2 consumes 241W of power, which is up to 19% faster than the previous generation rocket lake. Supports both new DDR5 and DDR4 memory, with native DDR5-4800 and DDR4-3200 memory frequencies. And added a new PCIe 5.0 transmission technology, providing 16 PCIe 5.0 and 4 PCIe 4.0 lines.
PCH radiator
Intel Z690 System-on-Chip
The DMI channel for transmission between the new Intel Z690 chip and the CPU has been upgraded from the previous DMI 3.0 to DMI 4.0, while the number of channels has been maintained at x8, and the bandwidth has doubled to 15.75GB/s compared with the previous generation, making the expansion device and the surrounding I/O bandwidth more sufficient, further reducing the chance of DMI bandwidth bottlenecks. As DMI channels increase, the next-generation chipset will be able to offer more PCIe channels, including 12 PCIe 4.0 and 16 PCIe 3.0 channels. The total number of SATA and USB interfaces remains the same, but the maximum number of USB 3.2 Gen 2x2 20Gbps interfaces has been increased to 4.
Supports 4 sets of DDR4 memory slots
In terms of memory, ASRock Z690 Steel Legend WiFi 6E motherboard is DDR4 memory version, with 4 sets of memory slots, supporting Dual Channel dual channel memory technology, 2 groups of memory per Channel configuration, configurable un-buffered, non-ECC memory module, each set of memory slots supports a maximum capacity of 32GB, and the maximum capacity of system memory is 128GB. In terms of memory frequency, the motherboard's official specifications indicate that it supports up to DDR4-500+ OC speeds.
13 + 2 phase digital power supply module design
In terms of VRM power supply module, ASRock Z690 Steel Legend WiFi 6E motherboard adopts 12 +1 +2 phase digital power supply module design, of which 12 phases power CPU vCore, 1 phase power supply VCCGT, and 2 phases power VCCAUX.
RAA229131 PWM controller
Vishay SiC654 50A DrMOS chip
To meet the IMVP9 power specification for 12th Generation Intel Core CPUs, the board uses the Richtek RT3609BE PWM controller, which supports up to 8 + 1 phase dual outputs, drives both CPU vCore and VCCGT outputs, and operates in a 12 (6x2) + 1-phase parallel configuration. Cpu vCore power supply section using 12-phase Vishay SiC654 50A DrMOS chip, each with 2 phases in parallel is true 1 phase, so the CPU vCore true phase number is 6 phases, although parallel 12 phases does not increase the total current carrying capacity, but can improve transient response and effectively reduce the Vdrop amplitude, while the VCCGT power supply part uses 1-phase Vishay SiC654 50A DrMOS chip.
uP1674P PWM Controller & SM4508 + SM4SM4373 MOSFET
The new VCCAUX power supply section, combined with the previous VCCSA and VCCIO power supply, handles the power supply of the CPU's internal memory controller and PCIe controller, using the uPI Semi uP1674P PWM controller, direct out driving 2-phase VCCAUX power supply, with SM4SM4373 70A MOSFET configuration on 2 sets 1 on SM4508 48A + 1.
60A high efficiency inductor with Nichicon 12K capacitors
The use of 60A Premium high efficiency inductor to effectively increase the saturation current by up to 3 times, in the high load or large overclocking to improve the Vcore voltage supply stability, the whole board using the top specifications of the Japanese Nichicon 12K black gold capacitor, in the 105 C extreme environment can have at least 12,000 hours of service life, compared to many mainstream motherboards on the market only use Taiwan 5K or 10K capacitors better.
8+8pin CPU power slot
THE ASROCK Z690 STEEL LEGEND WIFI 6E MOTHERBOARD FEATUREs 2 sets of ATX 8-pin CPU power slots to provide sufficient CPU power consumption requirements.
Large aluminum extruded fin radiator
VRM radiator part, ASRock Z690 steel legend WiFi 6E motherboard uses 2 sets of large aluminum extruded fin radiators, with aluminum extruded fins and pit design, which can increase more heat dissipation area to enhance heat dissipation performance and ensure that the system can provide stable high-performance output.
3 pcIe x16 slots
ASRock Z690 Steel Legend WiFi 6E offers 3 pcIe x16 slots, supporting PCIe 5.0 x16, PCle 4.0 x4 and PCle 3.0 x4 from top to bottom, with the top PCIE2 slot provided by the CPU channel, while the middle PCIE3 slot and the bottom PCIE5 slot are both provided by the Z690 chipset. In addition, the Z690 chipset provides two PCIe 3.0 x1 slots, making it easy for users to plug and remove hardware devices such as graphics cards and sound cards.
PCIE2 slots feature a metal housing rugged design and reinforced earrings with embedded metal brackets to enhance socket support and reduce the risk of slot being ripped open. In addition, in order to cope with pcie 5.0 transmission speeds of up to 128GB/s, PCIE1 changed the slot design with SMT surface sticking technology, which provides more stable signal transmission and reduces the chance of signal attenuation than traditional DIP PCIe slots.
Video card holder
In addition, the motherboard comes with a graphics card bracket of its own design, which can be installed on the motherboard to support the tail of the graphics card, which is of considerable help for the graphics card products that are now getting thicker and heavier.
PCIe slot configuration
3 sets of M.2 SSD interface configurations
ASRock Z690 Steel Legend WiFi 6E provides 3 sets of M.2 SSD interfaces, supporting up to PCle 4.0 x4, PCIe 3.0 x4 and PCIe 4.0 x4 from top to bottom, with the top M2_1 slot provided by CPU channels, while the middle M2_2 slot and the bottom M2_3 slot are both provided by the Z690 chipset and support RAID 0, RAID 1, RAID5 operating modes.
Equipped with metal heat sink
In order to meet the heat dissipation needs of high-speed M.2 SSD products, both the M2_1 and M2_3 slots have metal heat sinks to avoid overheating and downscaling, and to ensure that high-speed M.2 SSDs can stably provide the best read and write speeds, but unfortunately the M2_2 slots are missing metal heatsinks, which are inferior.
M.2 SSD slot configuration
Provides 8 sets of SATA 6Gbps hard drive expansion interfaces
In addition, the motherboard is equipped with 8 sets of SATA3 6Gbps interfaces provided by the Intel Z690 System Chipset, which supports RAID 0, RAID 1, RAID5, and RAID 10 operating modes to meet the user's requirements for storage eyeshadow disk scalability.
ASRock Z690 Steel Legend WiFi 6E motherboard adds elastic I/O bezel design, compared to the general pre-installed I/O bezel, the flexible I/O baffle reserves more flexible adjustment space, perfectly corresponding to the tolerances of different styles of chassis, can accurately fit the chassis, but also improves the motherboard screw hole position is not on the chassis of the problem.
The motherboard's rear I/O panel provides a set of HDMI 2.1 (TMDS) with a set of DisplayPort 2.1 supporting resolution up to 4096x2160@60 Hz and a set of DisplayPort 1.4 video output interfaces supporting up to 8192x4320@60Hz resolution for HDCP 2.3, HDR, and 4K Ultra HD playback. It also provides 4 sets of USB 3.2 Gen 1 5Gbps Type-A interface, 1 set of USB 3.2 Gen 2x1 10Gbps Type-A interface, and 1 set of USB 3.2 Gen 2x1 10Gbps Type-C interface.
Front USB Type-C port
In addition, the motherboard provides a set of USB 3.2 Gen 2x2 20Gbps front USB Type-C ports.
BIOS Flashback button
THE ASROCK Z690 Steel Legend WiFi 6E features a BIOS Flashback button that is useful to update the BIOS version by pressing the BIOS Flashback button when connected to a 24pin ATX power supply (no CPU and memory installation required).
Realtek RTL8125BG network chip
In terms of wired network, ASRock Z690 Steel Legend WiFi 6E motherboard has a Dual LAN design, using Realtek RTL8125BG 2.5G network chip, supporting 10/100/1000/2500 Mbps network connection speed, network transmission performance up to 2.5 times, can download games and transfer files at higher speeds, and has lower network latency values, bringing a smooth connection experience, although providing 2Gbps on a single line Fiber broadband services for speed are still not widespread, but they are ideal for connecting to storage devices such as NAS and DAS, which are now quite popular.
Intel AX211 CNVi WiFi Card
ASRock Z690 Steel Legend WiFi 6E uses the latest Intel Wi-Fi 6E AX211 wireless network module, supports 802.11ax dual band 2x2 160MHz Wi-Fi technology, and supports IEEE 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac wireless network protocol downwards, the highest frequency band is upgraded from 5GHz to 6GHz, the highest wireless connection speed can be up to 3Gbps, and the short distance transmission speed is higher and lower latency. Bluetooth 5.2 also supports next-generation smartphones, wearables, and smart home products.
Included Wi-Fi receive antenna
The motherboard comes with a set of Wi-Fi receiving antennas and a vertical base that enhances Wi-Fi retraction performance and secures to the appropriate location via a 3M double-sided patch.
Realtek ALC897 sound chip
In terms of sound, asrock Z690 steel legend WiFi 6E motherboard adopts Realtek ALC897 sound chip, supports up to 7.1 channel theater surround sound, S/PDIF fiber output, with left and right channel line isolation design, and with ELNA TONEREX series of high-quality sound capacitors, is now a common sound chip configuration for low-end motherboards.
In order to meet the needs of users, the motherboard also provides a set of 4-pin RGB LED interface, support standard 5050 RGB LED strip, output of 12V 3A 36W, and 3 groups of 3-pin programmable ARGB interface, output of 5V 3A 15W, allowing users to arrange more ARGB lighting effects for the computer.
Xiao Yang summary: ASRock newly launched Z690 steel legend WiFi 6E motherboard, the main civilian mid-range Z690 DDR4 motherboard, compared to Z690 extreme player WiFi 6E, only delete the reduction of power supply materials but still have basic sufficient motherboard connection and expansion functions, cheaper price can attract users to choose, the motherboard uses silver white gray and other white themes with RGB lighting effects of the design, I believe it can attract more users to love.