MSI's upcoming Z690 Godlike might be the wildest motherboard ever

(Image credit: MSI)

MSI’s upcoming Z690 Godlike motherboard has been awarded with two CES Innovation Honoree awards. The two categories are 'High-Performance Home Audio/Video', and 'Gaming'. Though the motherboard has yet to be announced, PC Gamer has obtained two images of the board. We don’t think we’re going out on a limb in saying that this will be a contender for the most over-the-top consumer motherboard ever.

The Z690 Godlike, when released, will take its place atop the MSI Z690 range. Its sheer size gives you some idea as to the amount of hardware that the motherboard will include. You'll also need a very large case to fit it in. Wccftech revealed a lot of information about the board, including PCB schematics and further details on the I/O and connectivity options of the board.

It’s safe to say that the Z690 Godlike has pretty much every conceivable feature that you’d expect on a 2022 flagship motherboard. Think 10GbE, six M.2 slots with an add-in card for future PCIe 5.0 drives, more USB than you can count, Thunderbolt 4 and a premium audio solution. Add to that a VRM that won’t be stressed even under an all-out liquid nitrogen OC with heatsinks and M.2 cooling to match, and you might be about half way to describing its key features.

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The real eye-catching feature is the 3.5” touch screen adjacent to the memory slots. This screen will be able to do a lot of the things that AIO pump head screens can, but we’re sure it will be capable of a lot more than that. We can’t wait to see what MSI reveals about it. The rest of the board is covered with heatsinks and shielding, and of course it wouldn’t be a gaming motherboard without a good splash of RGB lighting.

Pricing and availability are yet to be revealed. But we believe the launch is not yet imminent. As for pricing, well, it's going to be a lot. It won't be alone though, with Asus, Asrock and Gigabyte all releasing stupendously high end Z690 boards. But if you’re looking for the ultimate motherboard to go with your overclocked Core i9 12900K processor, the MSI Z690 Godlike is worth keeping an eye out for.

It’s important to note that our pictures of the board are rendered images. The final motherboard may well end up looking different to this. Whether the final product looks like this or not, we’re sure that this is going to be one very desirable, if financially unobtainable motherboard.

Chris' gaming experiences go back to the mid-nineties when he conned his parents into buying an 'educational PC' that was conveniently overpowered to play Doom and Tie Fighter. He developed a love of extreme overclocking that destroyed his savings despite the cheaper hardware on offer via his job at a PC store. To afford more LN2 he began moonlighting as a reviewer for VR-Zone before jumping the fence to work for MSI Australia. Since then, he's gone back to journalism, enthusiastically reviewing the latest and greatest components for PC & Tech Authority, PC Powerplay and currently Australian Personal Computer magazine and PC Gamer. Chris still puts far too many hours into Borderlands 3, always striving to become a more efficient killer.