Intel Z490 motherboards – How much? Release Date and Where To Buy

UPDATE: May 6th – Pre-orders added for some boards in USA and UK.

The war continues as Intel and AMD continue to trade new CPUs and motherboards. Arriving on virtually the same day (well a day before by the looks of things are Intel’s new Z490 chipset motherboards. We are expecting the first models to go on sale on May 20th but they are already available for pre-order at certain retailers now. Other variants are bound to follow in the days following

See the list of retailers below.

Well for starters we have a new CPU socket for the 10th generation Intel chips launching at the same time – the LGA 1200. Last-gen processors will not be compatible with this new set up. Anything with an LGA 1151 format will need the older socket to work.

While the boards, or more accurately, the 10th gen CPUs can’t handle PCI Express 4.0, the boards from some manufacturers have been built to a specification that could handle it in the future. It’s all ifs, buts and maybe but there is hope for the faster standard in the future when INtel gets round to baking it into their processors.

Prices are starting to emerge ahead of launch and it seems as though they will range in price between $150 to $1300 depending on the manufacturer and feature set you go for. That top price in the Gigabyte Z490 Aorus Xtreme Waterforce – presumably you are paying extra for all the letters used in the name.

You will be able to pick them up from the regular major retailers when they go on sale in the next few weeks.

When information starts to arrive about availability, we will update this page and list the best places to get hold of them. As soon as preorders go up, check back here for the best deal.

We will make the links below live as soon as they become available so check back regularly.