Images of the Z690 chipset first appeared on the Chinese tech forum, Chiphell. According to Videocardz, these motherboards were just several of thousands that have already been made, with some having ended up on the black market. For that matter, it is likely that the pictures obtained by the Chiphell user belonged to older motherboard revisions that no longer needed to be tested. Based on the die shot, the Z690 chipset clearly appears to be larger than the current Z590 chipset, looking more in line with the LGA1700 rectangular design that leaked several months prior.
— HXL (@9550pro) September 13, 2021 Furthermore, reports suggest Intel’s Z690 motherboards is expected to make its debut on 19 November, which is also when the chipmaker is expected to officially launch its new Alder Lake-S desktop CPUs. In terms of specs, the Z690 chipset will support 28 PCIe lanes, made up from 12x PCIe Gen4 and 16x PCIe Gen3 lanes. This also on top of the 16 lanes of PCIe Gen5 and four PCIe Gen4 lanes that are already supported by Alder Lake CPUs. (Source: Chiphell via Videocardz, Twitter // Image: Chiphell)
