Closer Look
Biostar Z690A Valkyrie arrived in a retail package which is a well-described flat box. The front is the Valkyrie series logo. On the back, we can find key features and specifications of the motherboard. The package looks similar to that of the previous generation motherboards. It’s clean and straightforward, and I can say I like it.
Inside the box is a well-protected motherboard, SATA data cables, user’s manual, and driver’s DVD. It’s enough to install our new motherboard.The same as previous motherboards from the Valkyrie series, also Z690A is kept in a mix of gold and pink colors. You may like it or not, for me, there is too much happening, especially on the M.2 SSD heatsinks and IO cover.The layout is pretty good. Everything is where it should be, except maybe for the clear CMOS button, which is just above the SATA ports. Once we install any higher series graphics card, then it will be covered. Besides that, everything else is perfect.
I won’t hide that I dislike fans on the VRM heatsink. There could be a heat pipe connected to a larger heatsink under the IO cover. The IO cover is also not really optimal. Instead of a lot of plastic, could be a larger heatsink. Mentioned fans are quiet during the typical work or gaming, but our tests were performed in the Sharkoon CA700 case, which is more like an open frame with high airflow.I like the fact there is are two x16/x8 PCIe slots as some Gigabyte motherboards offer x16/x4 slots only.The motherboard also provides four M.2 sockets for storage devices and a single M.2 socket for a WiFi/Bluetooth card. I wish to see a WiFi 6E module onboard instead of a socket. It doesn’t cost much, while the Z690A Valkyrie motherboard is already considered a high-end product which also isn’t cheap. The same is recently done ASRock and some other manufacturers but rather in budget series motherboards.
The Z690A Valkyrie has a robust power design and double 8-pin CPU power connectors. There shouldn’t be an issue with any CPU support, and the motherboard itself won’t limit overclocking.On the next page, we will look at the BIOS/UEFI.
