If you were asked a question about what the world needs the most to make it a better place, the answer may well not be a limited-edition water-cooled gaming motherboard that will surely cost you north of $1000 (if the price of other Aqua boards is anything to go by).
Here it is then. A quick look at the images tells you you want this board. You also don’t need it. We aren’t really sure who does, apart from say, motherboard collectors if they are a thing.
I mean, it looks stunning. It’s as desirable a piece of tech I’ve ever seen, but I could comfortably spend a $1000 less and kinda get something that fundamentally does the same thing.
However, you will still always want to be one of the 999 people who own this. A Limited Edition run of a motherboard is a strange thing. Will it need its own bios to control some of the more esoteric features? If so, what level of support can it expect to get? Also, if it goes faulty a few months in, it’s unlikely you will get a replacement so what happens then?
But it is amazing to look at.
Even the press release is silky smooth. Take this for example.
“Decked in a matte black undershell, the Z490 complements what young gamers want in a machine these days, simple, refined edges encased with a metallic armor which highlights the vibrant, techno LED lighting. What sets the Z490 design apart is a bright built-in OLED display featured prominently in the motherboard for users to get status reports on CPU voltage, temperature, system fan speed, system status, and POST status. The colorful green, white and blue hues reflect a techy upgrade onto the matt black and metal finished motherboard giving it this warm, ice look.”
To be honest, that seems like just a paragraph of loosely-strung together words to me, but I would take exception to the bit about a $1000 motherboard being what young gamers want these days.
What do I know hey? Oh, it’s PCIe 4.0, has wireless internet, gigabit ethernet, and USB-C. Just in case you were thinking about buying one. Which you aren’t.
Check out the video below