ASUS may not release refresh motherboards for Intel Core Ultra 200S Plus
According to a recent GGF Events video, ASUS told the reviewer it has no new boards coming specifically for Intel’s Core Ultra 200S Plus desktop refresh. The company says Core Ultra 200S Plus processors remain compatible with existing 800-series motherboards, so vendors do not need a new platform just to support the new chips.
Other board makers still used the refresh to roll out new products or fresh marketing around Z890. MSI introduced the MAG Z890 TOMAHAWK WIFI II and said more 800-series models were prepared for the new processors. GIGABYTE went further with a dedicated Z890 Plus series, led by the Z890 AORUS ELITE DUO X and Z890M FORCE DUO X WIFI7, then expanded that stack with ELITE, EAGLE, and FORCE variants.
ASUS also was not absent from LGA-1851 refreshes before this point. Back in January 2025, ASUS said it was adding the ROG Maximus Z890 Hero BTF and ROG Strix Z890-H Gaming WiFi as new high-end Z890 lineup additions. In other words, ASUS already did its extra Z890 launches last year. With that in place, and with 200S Plus staying on the same socket and chipset family, a second round of special boards would have looked redundant.
“Now I reached out to ASUS and I was like hey surely you must have some really fancy new boards coming out and they said no they have no boards coming out in or for this new refresh line of CPUs. Other brands are doing it but I thought hey why don’t I cover a board that is older or their current board that can support those CPUs cuz you don’t need a refresh motherboard. Other brands are doing it. uh they’re specifically aiming them for the new Intel refresh. You don’t need a specific board, but it’ll run fine on these.”
— GGF Events
© GGF Events What’s even the point?
As we know, the LGA-1851 platform is nearing the end of its lifecycle. Intel is not expected to launch Core Ultra 300 or 400 series desktop processors on this socket, at least based on current roadmaps. Instead, the company is preparing Nova Lake-S for the new LGA-1954 platform , which would bring LGA-1851 to a relatively early end. Considering how few Core Ultra desktop CPUs this socket received, motherboard makers have already released a large number of boards, arguably more than the platform needed.
There is also the issue of memory pricing. One of the key Arrow Lake Refresh upgrades is official support for faster memory out of the box. The problem is that official support does not automatically make it a good value upgrade. Faster DDR5 kits remain expensive, so for many buyers this looks more like an added cost than a practical benefit.
ASUS is likely already working on next-generation boards for Nova Lake. Rumors point to dual compute tile designs with up to 52 cores on desktop , along with support for Big Last Level Cache variants. If that information is accurate, the next platform could give board makers much more room to experiment with power delivery, memory tuning, and overclocking-focused designs.
Source via Uniko’s Hardware :
