Gigabyte AORUS Intel Z390 Motherboard Teased, October 8th Unveil Confirmed
If you know where to look, there is much more to find on the Internet than the latest development in the ongoing Machine Gun Kelly versus Eminem dispute. Really, there is. For example, followers of Gigabyte's AORUS Twitter account will have spotted a teaser clip that appears to show off an upcoming motherboard, presumably based on Intel's Z390 chipset.
AORUS, as you might already know, is Gigabyte's "premium gaming" brand, just as ASUS maintains a Republic of Gamers (ROG) division for its enthusiast products. Based on some of the leaks we have seen so far, Gigabyte will market and sell Z390 motherboards under both its main brand and its AORUS division.
What we have here is an AORUS motherboard, teased in a YouTube video that AORUS linked to in a Twitter post. "The countdown begins...," the Twitter post reads, followed by a hashtag pointing to an October 8 unveil.
Previous rumors and leaks have pointed to Intel releasing its 9th generation Core processors and accompanying Z390 Express chipset in October. Interestingly, we've seen the date 'October 1' thrown around a few times. AORUS's tweet most likely means one of two things: (1) The actual release date will be October 8, not October 1, or (2) this particular Z390 motherboard will launch a week after Intel's Coffee Lake Refresh CPUs arrive.
It's not clear what model motherboard AORUS is teasing. We know it's not the Z390 AORUS Elite because previously leaked pressed renders shows only one of the PCI Express x16 slots being reinforced on that motherboard. While we never get a clear look of the mystery board in the teaser video, we can see that all three PCIe slots are reinforced.
We can also see three M.2 slots with heatsinks on top, and beefy heatsinks scattered around the motherboard. This could very well be Gigabyte's flagship Z390 motherboard. We'll have to wait and see.
As to the upcoming processors, it's rumored that Intel will kick off the launch with its three top shelf SKUs, the 8-core/16-thread Core i9-9900K, 8-core/8-thread Core i7-9700K, and 6-core/6-thread Core i5-9600K.
