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
MSI MPG Z390 Gaming Edge AC
Starting with the ATX sized model of a trio of Gaming Edge MSI MPG (performance) range boards, the MSI MPG Z390 Gaming Edge AC as the name suggests means it has built-in wireless networking support; this is provided by a standard Intel 9462 802.11ac Wi-Fi adapter which is compliant with the latest Bluetooth 5 connectivity. The overall design and layout looks very similar to the MPG Z390 Gaming Pro Carbon AC with near identical PCBs, but with primarily visual differences such as heatsinks.
The MPG Z390 Gaming Edge AC has three full-length PCIe 3.0 slots with the top two slots being treated to MSI's Steel Slot armor, while the bottom slot is bare. The slots operate at x16, x8 and x4 respectively meaning three-way Crossfire and two-way SLI multi-graphics card setups are supported. For the memory, the board has four RAM slots with support for DDR4-4400 with a total capacity for up to 64 GB. The storage is facilitated by a pair of M.2 PCIe 3.0 x4/SATA slots and six SATA ports capable of supporting RAID 0, 1, 5 and 10 arrays.
On the rear panel, MSI has included two USB 3.1 Gen2 ports which are comprised of a Type-A and Type-C port, two USB 3.0 Type-A ports and two USB 2.0 ports. There is expansion through internal headers to extend USB support to a further four USB 3.0, four USB 2.0 and an additional single USB 3.1 Gen2 Type-C port. The five 3.5 mm gold plated audio jacks and optical S/PDIF output are handled by a Realtek ALC1220 HD audio codec, whereas the single LAN port is powered by an Intel I219V Gigabit controller. Unlike the MEG series, the MPG models do offer video outputs with the MPG Z390 Gaming Edge AC offering a pairing consisting of an HDMI and DisplayPort.
The primary target market for the MPG Z390 Gaming Edge AC is the mid-range and with a suggested launch price of $190, it represents a more conservative approach with fewer features overall, but keeping the bulk of the premium controllers featured on the more expensive MPG Z390 Gaming Pro Carbon AC such as the Realtek ALC1220 audio codec.
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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.