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
ASRock Z390 Phantom Gaming SLI/ac
The ASRock Z390 Phantom Gaming SLI/ac is available with or without Wi-Fi which gives users the choice if they want to spend the extra for wireless capability or save money if wireless doesn't feature into the plan; the price variance is expected to be just $10 during launch. The Z390 Phantom Gaming SLI is a slightly different take on ASRock's own Z390 Phantom Gaming 6 and Phantom Gaming 4 boards and sits right in between them in terms of features and pricing in the current ASRock product stack. The board has a total of five 4-pin fan headers, has an advertised 10-phase power delivery and offers users a single 8-pin 12 V ATX CPU power input.
With this being an SLI supported model as the name suggests, the Z390 Phantom Gaming SLI has two full-length PCIe 3.0 slots which run at x16 and x8, with an additional four PCIe 3.0 x 1 slots. Both full-length slots are treated to ASRock's Steel Slot armor protection and the board supports up to two-way SLI and two-way CrossFire multi-graphics card setups. The board has two PCIe 3.0 x4 and SATA supported M.2 slots with the bottom slot being complemented by an M.2 heatsink, while users looking to use SATA based devices will be happy to know the board has the Z390's maximum supported allocation of six ports. The board has four RAM slots which support up to DDR4-4266 and with a total combined capacity of up to 64 GB.
On the networking front the ASRock Z390 Phantom Gaming SLI and Phantom Gaming SLI/ac models both feature a single Realtek RTL8125AG 2.5 G LAN with the latter model also including an 802.11ac Wi-Fi adapter; this is the only difference between both of the aforementioned models. Both boards have a total of six USB ports on the rear which is comprised of a single USB 3.1 Gen2 Type-A, a single USB 3.1 Gen2 Type-C and four USB 3.0 ports. The Z390 Phantom Gaming SLI also features a pair of HDMI and DVI-D display outputs, a PS/2 combo port and a single S/PDIF, with five 3.5 mm audio jacks powered by a Realtek ALC892 HD audio codec.
The ASRock Z390 Phantom Gaming SLI has an MSRP of $160 and the Z390 Phantom Gaming SLI/ac has an MSRP of $170; a price premium of $10 for the integration of 802.11ac wireless networking is fair as a decent quality USB based network adapter can cost this, and more depending on the brand. ASRock has aimed both these models primarily at gamers and with the inclusion of 2.5 G Realtek LAN and a Realtek ALC892 audio codec, I think it would have been a smarter choice to use a Gigabit LAN and use the savings to upgrade the codec to the better quality Realtek ALC1220 offering, but the inclusion of the new Realtek 2.5 G RT8125AG gaming LAN is something not to be sniffed at!
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
79 Comments
View All Comments
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.