by theygamesThe prices for Asus’ new lineup of Intel Arrow Lake gaming motherboards have just leaked, with the top-end ROG Maximus models apparently demanding extreme premiums. In fact, the top-end Asus ROG Maximus Z890 Extreme appears to have a price of well over $1,000, which could buy you a whole gaming PC, complete with a decent CPU and an Nvidia GeForce RTX 4060 Ti GPU right now.
The new lineup of Intel Arrow Lake CPUs is set to use the new LGA1851 socket, requiring you to buy a new motherboard, with the new Z890 chipset sitting at the top of the range. It’s likely that this new lineup will include some of the best gaming motherboard designs you can buy, but it looks as though you’re going to have to shell out a large stack of cash for the flagship Asus models.
This latest leak was flagged up by regular tech leaker momomo_us, who shared some screenshots from a retailer showing several Z890 motherboards with listed prices in a post on X (formerly Twitter). In these screenshots, the prices were listed in GBP ex VAT, but they come from US retailer HSSL, and we’ve checked the prices in dollars ourselves, as shown in the screenshot below.
If these figures are genuinely representative of the prices of these motherboards at launch, then the new Asus ROG Maximus boards look set to be extremely expensive. Let’s start with the Asus ROG Maximus Z890 Extreme, which HSSL lists at a massive price of $1,111.87. This is likely to be a very fancy board, though, if it’s anything like its predecessor. The ROG Maximus Z790 Extreme comes with a matric LED display in the shroud covering the rear I/O panel, for example, as well as an OLED screen embedded in one of the M.2 SSD heatsinks.
The other boards in the range aren’t as expensive, but they still demand a hefty premium. Even the Asus ROG Maximus Z890 Hero comes in at $780.66, and this is usually the more reasonably-priced model in the Maximus lineup. The site also lists the new Asus ROG Maximus Z890 Apex at a price of $812.29. Even the cheapest ROG Strix board, the Z890-A Gaming WiFi, is listed at a price of $445.04.
Thankfully, there are some more affordable models coming from Asus by the looks of it. With HSSL listing a price of $256.50 for the Asus Prime Z890M-Plus WiFi, although that’s still a big chunk of cash for what’s likely to be an mATX board with a stripped-down feature set.
Basically, if these prices hold up, it’s going to cost a fair bit of money if you want to upgrade to one of the new best gaming CPU options from Intel when they launch. What’s more, there are also rumors that the Arrow Lake refresh is canceled, potentially meaning the new Intel LGA1851 socket will only be around for one CPU generation, like the LGA1200 socket Intel used for its 11th-gen Rocket Lake CPUs.
If that’s the case, then you could end up spending a lot of money on a new motherboard that you won’t be able to upgrade with a next-gen CPU at a later date. Comparatively, Intel’s LGA1700 socket has lasted through three generations of processors.
If you’re thinking of putting together a new rig in the near future, then take a look at our full guide on how to build a gaming PC, where we run you through every step of the process, including installing a CPU in your motherboard.