So I know this is the "Asus Z490i" thread, maybe we should start a new thread on the Hardware forum for ITX Z490 boards, but looks like pricing is out for at least three of the boards:
Gigabyte Z490i Aorus Ultra: $270
AsRock Z490 PG ITX/TB3: $280
ASUS ROG Strix Z490-I Gaming: $300
This is a massive price increase from Z390. At launch, each of these boards' predecessors was ~$90-100 cheaper. That's a 50% price increase in some cases, similar to the price premium on X570 over X470. This tells me that two very similar things happened:
* Massively Overbuilt VRMs. For example, the AsRock Z390 board which was considered the best VRM was a 5-phase with 60A power stages. The new one is a 6-phase with 90A power stages.
* PCIe Gen4 compatibility. This is half speculation, half confirmed but a lot of these boards say they will do PCIe Gen4 with Rocket Lake CPUs in the future. This means Intel's next platform will be PCIe 4.0 on this same socket, explaining the need for LGA1200 and new motherboards. We know PCIe 4.0 traces and wiring is not cheap, often requiring more PCB layers, but I suspect this is adding a lot to cost.
The truth then is that the VRMs are way overbuilt for this generation of chips, except maybe the i9-10900K, and the motherboards are built to support a PCIe standard the chips don't support either. So you can spend $100 less on a motherboard and get a 9th gen chip, and it will be roughly equivalent in performance unless you really really need 10 (Intel) cores. Assuming the 9th gen chip prices go down (not a guarantee) I don't see how going Comet Lake makes any sense. Better to wait for Rocket Lake, because once those chips launch I doubt anyone will want your 6-month-old Comet Lake part.
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