Intel Z390 Motherboard Overview: 50+ Motherboards Analyzed
by Ian Cutress & Gavin Bonshor on October 8, 2018 10:53 AM EST- Posted in
- Motherboards
- Intel
- MSI
- Gigabyte
- ASRock
- EVGA
- Asus
- NZXT
- Supermicro
- Z390
Since TUF went not so TUF with the disregard of waves of thermal armor on their more rugged The Ultimate Force models, the TUF range was remodelled with a focus on offering gamers on a budget an entry route onto the key chipsets such as last year with the Z370 chipset and now with the new Z390 chipset. The rebadged and reskinned TUF Gaming range focus its attention on gaming-centric features such as a slightly cheaper Realtek S1200A HD audio codec, Intel I219V Gigabit LAN and a mix of black, grey and yellow accented visuals. The TUF Gaming Z390 models occupy the entry to mid-level of ASUS's Z390 product stack and slots between the professional series Prime and Strix gaming ranges.
ASUS TUF Z390 Pro Gaming
The ASUS TUF Z390 Pro Gaming represents the best and most feature rich of The Ultimate Force branded Z390 gaming based models with a similar visual design to that from the previous Z370 TUF Gaming motherboards. The TUF Z390 Gaming has a rear panel cover which houses the TUF Gaming branding and TUF logo, with the chipset heatsink featuring a similar design. There is no integrated RGB within this model but ASUS does include RGB headers for users looking to utilize the popular technology. There are four RAM slots with support for DDR4-4266 and up to 64 GB of system memory in total.
In terms of available PCIe capabilities, the TUF Z390 Pro Gaming has a total of three full-length PCIe 3.0 slots with only the top slot getting treated to the ASUS Safe Slot protection; these operate at x16, x8 and x4, with SLI supported with two NVIDIA cards installed forcing the PCIe to run at x8/x8. Users looking for PCIe 3.0 x1 slot support will be happy to find three on this model. A total of two PCIe 3.0 x4 supported M.2 slots are present with the bottom M.2 slot being complemented with an M.2 heatshield. In addition to this is a total of six SATA ports with two right-angled ports located below the 24-pin ATX motherboard power input and four straight-angled ports placed directly below the chipset heatsink.
The rear panel on the ASUS TUF Z390 Pro Gaming is what's expected from an entry-level model, but despite this, ASUS has utilized the integrated 10 Gbps USB from the Z390 chipset as the board has two USB 3.1 Gen2 Type-A ports in addition to four USB 3.0 Type-A ports. An HDMI 1.4b and DisplayPort video output make up the onboard graphics support, while an Intel I219V Gigabit LAN and Realtek S1200A HD audio codec drive the onboard audio connectors. Last but not least, ASUS has included a PS/2 combination keyboard and mouse port.
The ASUS TUF Z390 Pro Gaming's price is as it stands unknown and this model represents the best of the entry-level range of gaming boards with support for both two-way SLI and CrossFire multi-graphics card configurations. The rear panel isn't comprehensive and the ATX Pro Gaming offers no Wi-Fi capable model opposed to the TUF Z390 Plus Gaming (Wi-Fi).
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Smell This - Tuesday, October 9, 2018 - link
Much.Of.
The.
Same.
2 HSIO lanes per Gen 2 port and WiFi. Wow (rolling I-eyeballs) ...
MadAd - Tuesday, October 9, 2018 - link
58 motherboards, only 13 of which are smaller than ATX. When on earth are we going to move off this outdated oversized format? Its just more of the same every time, so depressing.gavbon - Wednesday, October 10, 2018 - link
13 is better than 0, or 12 :DMadAd - Wednesday, October 10, 2018 - link
Considering very small form formats (ITX) are harder to build for and only 7 are uATX, a size which is the most useful to transition away from ATX then no, it feels like an afterthought from a lazy industry. I mean who uses more than 1 main video card and 2-4 sticks of ram in a gaming PC these days? Even water builds into uATX isnt that hard to accomplish.After literally decades ATX should be a choice for edge cases not a mainstream build.
shaolin95 - Monday, October 22, 2018 - link
who cares about midge boards!Edkiefer - Wednesday, October 10, 2018 - link
All these MB with 2x 8 pin power inputs, is both mandatory and if so I guess new PSU will need 2x 8pin now.entity279 - Wednesday, October 10, 2018 - link
so it's ok to just buy SM motherboards now with them being involved in a security scandal?gavbon - Thursday, October 11, 2018 - link
I currently have the Supermicro C9Z390-PGW awaiting to go on the test bench next week, so from a consumers standpoint, I could potentially shed light on that board. As far as the Chinese/Supermicro/Spy scandal goes, I don't want to speculate without the finer details.eastcoast_pete - Wednesday, October 10, 2018 - link
Ian & Gavin, thanks for the overview.@ both - Question: I've read that Intel, to deal with its bad planning/capacity problems on 14 nm, has contracted the fabbing of some of its chipsets out to TSMC, specifically in TSMC's 22 nm tech. Is that correct, and did you have a chance to confirm that the new 390s used by these boards are indeed made by Intel on their 14 nm FinFET tech, or are they made by a contractor (TSMC)?
DanNeely - Wednesday, October 10, 2018 - link
AFAIK the chipsets being reverted to 22nm are using Intel's 22nm process in old unupgraded fabs. Doing so would be far less work than porting to a process from a different company; the latter would require massive rework to follow a completely different set of design rules.