How can I justify spending $600 on a motherboard alone?" Most people wouldn't think so, but for those willing to pay such a premium, EVGA's Z490 Dark Kingpin (I refuse to type "K|NGP|N" ) is trying to earn its high price by hitting users over the head with overclocking amenities for the Intel Comet Lake setup, like triple BIOS and dual DDR4 memory slots.

Wait, only two memory slots?" (This is the last question I will ask, I promise. Are you cool with this?) While only two DIMM slots usually indicates a small form factor (SFF) motherboard, this product is actually larger than a standard ATX mobo and falls into the extended ATX (E-ATX) category, measuring 12 inches long by 10.89 inches (304.8 x 276.6 mm).

EVGA has not skimped on memory support to save money. In most cases, overclockers in pursuit of world records use one, sometimes two, but rarely more than one memory. In this case, the Z490 Kingpin Edition supports up to 64GB of DDR4-5000+ memory, not the 128GB of DDR4-4400+ memory of the regular model. Therefore, fewer DIMM slots are available, but the board is adjusted to support higher frequencies.

Other overclocking aids include two debug LEDs in the upper right corner, in-BIOS stress test, PCIe disable switch, 10-layer PCB and 18-phase digital VRM, high-quality capacitors, onboard temperature and voltage monitoring, dual probe-it connectors, on-board clear CMOS, power and reset buttons, etc. There is also a "slow mode" switch that locks the CPU multiplier to the lowest setting, allowing users to switch between maximum OC and slow speed in real time.

For general use, there are eight SATA 6Gbps ports (six of which are native, the remaining two use ASMedia controllers) supporting RAID 0/1/5/10, two M.2 slots, four PCIe slots, dual LAN ports (Intel 1Gbe and Intel 2.5GbE), onboard 7.1 channel audio, onboard Wi-Fi 6 and Bluetooth 5.0 connectivity.

Users will also find five USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-A ports, one USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-C port, two USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type-A ports, a mini DisplayPort, PS/2 combo port and various USB headers.

The Z490 Dark Kinpin Edition is available directly from EVGA.