FRONTPAGE EVGA Announces Z690 Classified

[Overclockers.com]

Yesterday, EVGA introduced the Z690 Classified. Designed to support Intel's latest 12th generation Core series processors, the always overbuilt motherboard includes a 19-phase VRM, dual 2.5 GbE NICs and EVGA's unique style on this EATX SKU. You'll find several USB ports on the rear IO including two 20 Gbps Type-C ports among a slew of other features. You can find this board at a wallet-emptying $629.99. You can read more information on this board at the EVGA website.

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[Janus67]

Good lord that's expensive

 

[BugFreak]

Wow you aren't kidding! The write-up doesn't mention the small bar of gold it comes with so you might need to revise that.

 

[Woomack]

Highest ASUS, ASRock, MSI or Gigabyte mobos cost even more. ASUS has 3 or even 4 more expensive ones. I'm not saying it's cheap but they are adjusting prices to the competition.
I only wonder what with availability out of the NA. Z490 and Z590 Dark/Classifieds were impossible to get in the EU and X299 Dark appeared in stores as a sale/promo a long time after the premiere. We can again see the next chipset out before these mobos will be in stores.

 

[Blaylock]

At this price, I wouldn't care less if I couldn't find it in the store. While I love the look and the feature set of the Classified, it's effectively priced out of my league. It's not that I couldn't afford it, it's that I won't.

 

[Woomack]

If I knew I will keep it for ~3 years then probably I would spend that money on a very good mobo. However, EVGA doesn't have so great history, and let's say not all their mobos were perfect. There was already news about Z790 on the way so we can expect the same story as with Z590 which lost additional support not long after the premiere.
Btw. ASUS Z690 Hero costs more in many stores and somehow it sells When people show manufacturers that they can pay so much then why not raise prices? The same story as with graphics cards but at least EVGA has the lowest prices (in their store).

 

[BugFreak]

I'd buy a Hero because of the proven track record and ASUS reliability over this. It's not like any of us will get the chance to buy it. I'm eVGA Elite and still didn't get a chance to buy the Z590 when it was released even with the 24 hour Elite buying period.

 

[Woomack]

Hero used to be mid-shelf gaming series. Somehow, ASUS made it high-end and bumped prices to the roof. Also, Z690 Hero has design flaws. If I had to pick something then I would faster get MSI Z690 Unify which is cheaper and simply better. Gigabyte Z690 Master is significantly cheaper than both of them and I actually bought it 2 months ago. It was about $270 cheaper than Hero ... and after 7 BIOS updates, it works fine

 

[BugFreak]

Well at least they finally got it right.

Hero was bumped up when they started releasing all the ROG boards and sadly the TUF was bumped down. Personally I haven't seen a reason to go past the ROG-E because it has done great with a reasonable price three times now. It only took 2 BIOS updates to function right lol.

 

[EarthDog]

+1 on the Z690 Master over the Hero and Unify... if only on price.

The Hero was bumped up the product stack because of all the ROG Strix [insert letter here]-Gaming boards they've come up with. TUF, back in the day, was more high-end, now, it's budget and not TUF at all.

 

[Blaylock]

Huh, and I always thought TUF stood for This Ultimately Fails. I could be wrong though.

 

[EarthDog]

TUF used to be the **** back in the Phenom days... but since then, lack of TUFness (TUF features) and it just slowly crept down the product stack. Now it's literally their budget board. There isn't much below it.

 

[BugFreak]

I think my Z170 was the last good TUF board. Other than memory clocks I was able to keep up with or get real close to overclocks done on the more expensive boards. After that I switched to the Strix-E boards and accomplished the same results with less $$ than the crazy expensive ones. I was real close to getting the Hero with Z590 but couldn't justify the increase for the little gain I would probably get.

 

[Woomack]

I always saw TUF as a budget and pretty bad motherboard series. It was never working as well as marketing was claiming. At least has a longer warranty. Many mobos had delayed BIOS support or no support at all. On the other hand, TUF graphics cards are great and besides less RGB, I haven't noticed any significant difference between TUF and Strix, when Strix costs much more.

If you compare CPU OC, then for some years already, many budget motherboards OC as well as these top and highly overpriced ones. I mean on ambient temps, not LN2. In most cases, you pay a premium for additional controllers and higher RAM support but also better BIOS support as higher series have updates more often and for much longer. One good thing about the EVGA is that all their motherboards have long BIOS support. It's easier for them as there are not many models.
There were pretty good RAM OC results on the last 2 generations of EVGA motherboards so I guess that the Z690 series will be fine too. I'm just not sure if availability and prices will be good enough.