Likely not all Z490 motherboard will support Rocket Lake-S processors

Admittedly, this is getting a little confusing, isn't it? Earlier this week you have been able to read here that Intel will not support H410 and B460 motherboards for their eleventh-generation desktop processors. However, it now seems that several Z490 motherboards won't get compatible either. 

New knowledge turned up in a Chinese forum, with pretty distinct details explained as to why that is. First off, the chipset, the bios of the Z490 motherboard determine which processors are supported. If the SKU is not recognized, the system cannot boot. However, if the power delivery does not meet requirements, a BIOS update simply might not get supported for Rockert Lake-S.

The information is this; According to user 民 绘 边 怪, author of the post, Intel recently changed Rocket Lake's power supply design requirements. The diagram listed below indicates that the VCCIO voltage (Processor Power for I/O it is the voltage for the integrated memory controller as well as the PCI-E controllers). On a Z590 board this is divided into three parts: VVCIO_0, 1, and 2. B460 boards only use VCCIO_0. Also, the operation of the system agent voltage (VCCSA) has been adjusted. These two combined are the reason why Rocket Lake is not supported by certain chipsets. 

民 绘 边 怪, mentions that not all Z490 motherboards will be compatible with the new generation of Intel chips. Why that precisely is is not clearly explained, but given what we just told you this has to be related to VCCIO  power delivery not being sufficient enough and not matching the requirements.  At least the following Z490 boards are mentioned:

• MSI Z490 S01
• MSI Z490M S01
• ASRock Z490 Phantom Gaming 4 (all variants)
• ASRock Z490 Pro4
• ASRock Z490M Pro4
• ASRock Z490M-ITX / ac