The EVGA Z690 CLASSIFIED motherboard was introduced on January 18th, 2022. It is being touted as a highly respectable gaming motherboard for 12th generation Intel Alder Lake processors. This motherboard will not work with AMD processors, as it has the Z690 chipset. It is considered a step down from the EVGA DARK motherboard series, but still an overall high-performance motherboard capable of meeting high demand requirements and highly adaptable to various needs.
EVGA Z690 CLASSIFIED – Cooling
This motherboard has several cooling features including thermal pads under the heatsink for the NVMe SSD drives. It has 19-phase VRM and a 10-layer PCB. VRM stands for Voltage Regulator Module and is responsible for delivering clean, stable power from the power supply to the processor, memory and other components. It helps prevent overheating issues. The 10-layer PCB feature is also a cooling feature. It basically provides 10 layers of printed circuit board in order to more effectively dissipate heat between higher temperature components and connections. It also has twin fans in its heatsink to support CPU cooling.
EVGA Z690 CLASSIFIED – RAM (Memory)
The EVGA Z690 CLASSIFIED supports up to 128GB of 6400 MHz DDR5 memory. Whether or not any gamers out there will actually need that amount of RAM at that speed is another question. Most standard gamers will opt for 16GB or 32GB of RAM at 3200 – 3600 MHz memory. That being said, 128GB does future proof this board for any change in needs down the road. This board comes with 4 banks of memory slots.
EVGA Z690 CLASSIFIED – Network and Peripheral Ports
Out of the box, this board comes with hardware monitoring cables, which is good for monitoring temperatures of specific components. It also includes Wi-Fi antennas, as this board natively supports Wi-Fi 6E. It also features two 2.5Gbps Network Interfaces, BlueTooth 5.2, 7.1 HD audio and multiple USB port options.
EVGA Z690 CLASSIFIED – Storage
The EVGA Z690 Classified comes with three slots for NVMe SSD drives. These drives run through a PCIe gen 4 channel. The 4th generation of PCIe provides more lanes from storage to the CPU, which increases performance. That being said, the 5th generation of PCIe (PCIe 5) has been released, but is not commonly found as a native interface for NVMe SSD drives yet. PCIe gen 4 will be the most common standard found on motherboards for the next year or two.
EVGA Z690 CLASSIFIED
This motherboard is really designed for the gamer who is between middle-of-the-road and bleeding edge when it comes to technology advancements. It provides advanced features and technology, future-proof for the next five years, and is a good all-around robust motherboard. It is a good competitor to the ASUS ROG HERO, which recently saw a huge issue with melting MOSFET transistors.
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