Something to look forward to: Much of the talk surrounding motherboards for Intel's upcoming Raptor Lake processors has concerned their support for the latest DDR5 memory (as well as DDR4 for those who can't upgrade yet). New reports indicate some boards will also support PCIe 5.0 storage, although it's unclear how much users will need those blazing-fast speeds in the short term.
Sources have told Moore's Law is Dead that the flagship models of the upcoming Intel Z790 motherboards will feature PCIe Gen 5 M.2 SSD compatibility, but not the mainstream variants. Among AMD's approaching AM5 boards, the M.2 slots for the X670 Extreme, X670, and B650 will be PCIe 5.0.
Manufacturers have recently revealed PCIe 5.0 SSDs with read speeds around 13GB/s. However, benchmarks show that most applications people currently use don't max out the capabilities of PCIe 4.0 SSDs, and PCIe 3.0 drives are likely still good enough. Support for PCIe 5.0 SSDs this year is probably mostly future-proofing.
The sources also shared details of when Z790 will appear, which offers a clearer picture of when Intel might launch the Raptor Lake CPUs to go with them. The Z790s may first appear late this month or late August without revealing full specifications, while validation will start in August before production. Intel will almost certainly hold Raptor Lake's release back until the boards are ready, which would align with previous expectations of Q3 or Q4.