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
Supermicro C9Z390-CG-IW
The fourth and final Supermicro board from the quadruplet of Z390 motherboards is the smaller sized C9Z390-CG-IW. The C9Z390-CG-IW as the name suggests takes a lot of the important elements from the ATX sized C9Z390-CG and puts it in a mini-ITX sized frame. There is a full-length PCIe 3.0 x16 slot with steel slot reinforcement and the board also includes two PCIe 3.0 x4 M.2 slots; one on the front and one on the rear. Also included are four SATA ports which feature straight-angled connectors.
Usually with mini-ITX motherboards, one of the minor benefits is faster memory support due to the shorter tracks, but Supermicro is advertising the C9Z390-CG-IW to support up to DDR4-3866 which is the same as the other models barring the C9Z390-PGW which offers up to DDR4-4133. The C9Z390-CG-IW also looks to have just two 4-pin fan headers which are, unfortunately, one of the pitfalls with the mini-ITX form factor; less space usually means fewer features and headers.
Controller wise the board is using a Realtek ALC1220 HD audio codec to power the five 3.5 mm audio jacks and S/PDIF optical output on the rear, an Intel I219V Gigabit controller for the single LAN port and a dual-band 802.11ac wireless networking adapter is also included. The rest of the rear panel is comprised of three USB 3.1 Gen2 Type-A, one USB 3.1 Gen2 Type-C, two USB 3.0 Type-A ports, a PS/2 combo port and a pair of display outputs consisting of a DisplayPort 1.2 and HDMI 2.0 ports.
The Supermicro C9Z390-CG-IW is the smallest of the four Z390 SuperO series motherboards and is designed to retain the similar power, performance and feature characteristics of the C9Z390-CG, but in a more compact mini-ITX frame. Most of what has been said looks to be true, but the obvious pitfalls come with a smaller and seemingly lower specification power delivery. This model does however retain the single 8-pin 12 V ATX CPU power input and the specifications indicate the same TDP support with up to a maximum of 120 W officially support from the CPU. The pricing and availability of the C9Z390-CG-IW is yet to be announced.
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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.