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
MAXSUN iCraft Z390
MAXSUN is a Chinese manufacturer and focuses its attention primarily on the Chinese and South Korean Asian markets. Only one of their models has been leaked as such and images of the iCraft Z390 motherboard are starting to surface across the internet. The most notable thing to note on this board is that it features a PCB cover around the PCIe slot area which resembles that of the ASUS ROG Maximus XI Code.
Although there are no official specifications as of yet, we do the MAXSUN iCraft Z390 looks to have plenty of RGB LED lighting with four seemingly dedicated zones available for customization. These include the PCB cover across the bottom half of the board, the rear panel cover, along with the four available RAM slots and along the right-hand side of the board. The board has three metal reinforced full-length PCIe 3.0 slots which will most likely operate at x16, x8 and x4; with two-way SLI support likely with probable three-way CrossFire multi-graphics card configuration support too. Also on the PCB is three PCIe 3.0 x1 slots and at the bottom right-hand corner of the board, a LED debug is present along with a total of six SATA ports.
As it stands from the images, no M.2 slots can be visually seen, but there could be a slot or two underneath the PCB cover which surrounds the PCIe slots and gives the board a cleaner look overall. Pricing is as of yet unknown and the retail availability of the MAXSUN iCraft Z390 ATX motherboard is likely to remain limited to the Chinese and South Korean markets.
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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 When on earth are we going to move off this outdated oversized format?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.