About this deal
Taking a closer look at the top half of the board, we start by looking at the new design on the VRM heatsinks. The grooves are deeper and more numerous, increasing surface area and, in theory, cooling ability. Above the VRM heatsinks are the two EPS connections to power the CPU, a required 8-pin and optional 4-pin.
Across the bottom are several headers, including USB, SATA ports, and RGB. Here’s the complete list, from left to right:
At $289.99, the Asus Z690-Plus WIFI D4 is a well-rounded board that will let you jump into Alder Lake for a lot less money by using DDR4.
We’ll start on the left side with the audio on the bottom half of the board. We don’t find a shroud covering the entire audio section on this board, but a small Faraday cage protects the Realtek ALC1220 chip hidden below. There are a few Nichicon audio caps, but otherwise, it’s a fairly basic configuration. That said, most users will be pleased with this integrated audio solution. x DIMM, Max. 128GB, DDR4 5333(OC) / 5133(OC) / 5000(OC) / 4800(OC) / 4600(OC) / 4400(OC) / 4266(OC) / 4133(OC) / 4000(OC) / 3866(OC) / 3733(OC) / 3600(OC) / 3466(OC) / 3400(OC) / 3333(OC) / 3200 / 3000 / 2933 / 2800 / 2666 / 2400 / 2133 MHz Non-ECC, Un-buffered Memory