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 Extreme4
The ASRock Z390 Extreme4 hails from a long line Extreme4 branded boards which go as far back as Intel's Z77 chipset which was released back in 2012. Fast forward to now and the new Z390 Extreme4 has a semblance of the previous Z370 Extreme4 board but with some key differences. First of all the Z390 Extreme4 now includes an M.2 heatsink for the bottom slot and the rear panel cover has classier ASRock branding across it. The RGB LED lighting zones remain in the same places from the heatsinks and audio PCB cover and that's where the differences end; aside from specifications of course and the fact that this board has the newer Z390 chipset included. ASRock advertises a 12-phase power delivery and has included a pair of 12 V ATX CPU power inputs; an 8-pin and 4-pin. The board also has support for DDR4-4300 memory with up to 64 GB of capacity across four available RAM slots.
ASRock has kept the same PCIe slot layout as the Z370 Extreme4 with a total of three full-length PCIe 3.0 slots with the top two being treated to a coat of ASRocks Steel Slot protection; bandwidth wise they operate (from top to bottom) at x16, x8 and in x4. Also included are three PCIe 3.0 x1 slots and the board has support for up to two-way CrossFire and three-way SLI multi-graphics card configurations. The board has a total of four RAM slots with support for up to a maximum of 64 GB in total. Storage wise the Z390 Extreme4 has eight SATA ports with six coming from the chipset and another two from an ASMedia SATA controller with support for 0, 1, 5 and 10 RAID arrays. The two M.2 ports do feature support for both PCIe 3.0 x4 and SATA, but it's worth pointing out that these likely that these slots will share bandwidth with other ports.
On the rear panel is two USB 3.1 Gen2 with a Type-A and Type-C port included along with a further four USB 3.0 Type-A ports. In addition to a PS/2 combo port is a trio of video outputs consisting of a DisplayPort, HDMI and a D-Sub. The Z390 Extreme4 doesn't have any wireless networking capability but there is scope to purchase an E-key PCIe adapter and the rear panel includes a bracket for it. The single wired LAN port is powered by an Intel I219V Gigabit controller while the S/PDIF and five 3.5 mm audio jacks are impelled by a good quality Realtek ALC1220 HD audio codec.
The Extreme4 motherboards usually combine a good mixture of features, specifications and for the new iteration, the ASRock Z390 Extreme4 has a recommended launch price of $180 which is reasonable all things considered. The board has everything minus integrated Wi-Fi and is aimed more at enthusiasts than gamers; plenty of Phantom Gaming boards for those. There is the added wow factor of RGB built into the heatsinks and overall the design follows a much cleaner and neutral aesthetic than the new Phantom branded boards.
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eastcoast_pete - Thursday, October 11, 2018 - link
Yes, you are correct, at least for H310c chipsets, maybe more (all?). I looked at the digitimes report on Intel outsourcing to TSMC, and that, if correct, would be about chipsets fabbed in 14nm. I wonder if Anadtech could check the 390s from the newest MoBos and sleuth out if they are also a case of "back to the future - 22 is the new 14 at Intel".peterfares - Wednesday, October 10, 2018 - link
Still waiting for someone to make a mini-ITX board with 4x SODIMM slots. The X299 one is interesting combined with a 9800X but I'd rather have the newer architecture with better IPC and clocks.gavbon - Thursday, October 11, 2018 - link
4 x SODIMMs has no performance benefit on Z370/Z390 other than a capacity increase because of the dual channel memory controller. The ASUS Z390 Maximus Gene and Strix Z390-I support the new 32GB double capacity SODIMMs to give more options for mini-ITX users needing more capacity.The X299 ASRock board put 4 x RAM slots on it so it could benefit from the quad channel memory controller
gamingkingx - Friday, October 12, 2018 - link
Gavon understands it..On ITX its all about how you use the space.. It would be sille to have 4 slots for dual channel.
BUT! It would interesting to use only 2x SO-DIMM..
cyrilp - Thursday, October 11, 2018 - link
Some of the asrock boards have 8 SATA3, 3 Ultra M.2 but it's a bit misleading as they share lanes. so you can't use 8 sata3 drivers and 3 m2 ones at the same timegavbon - Thursday, October 11, 2018 - link
Yeah, it's a bit of a pain, but one of the drawbacks of a chipset designed for the desktop. Unfortunately, in that situation, it's one or the other. If I was going to use 8 x SATA drives and 3 x M.2, I would probably be using a HEDT chipset such as X299 or TR4 anywayballsystemlord - Thursday, October 11, 2018 - link
Spelling and grammar corrections. I did not read this whole article. You 2 goofed this one up pretty badly."In the below table a question mark (?) denotes that we currently don't currently have this information available."
Too many currentlys.
"In the below table a question mark (?) denotes that we don't currently have this information available."
"My take on it is that it could be easier to mount a CPU pot for extreme overclockers for some reason, as I'm sure this board is all about the performance marbles and nothing else."
Sound bytes as a sentence (SBAAS). I've very little idea what you were trying to say. Maybe:
"My take on it is that it could be easier to mount a CPU pot for extreme overclockers. For some reason they insist on pots. Or maybe not, as I'm sure this board is all about the performance and nothing else."
"The new gaming themed naming structure consists of three different ranges which make a lot of sense when they deciphered; the MEG is the enthusiast gaming, MPG is performance gaming and the MAG is the arsenal gaming."
Missing "are".
"The new gaming themed naming structure consists of three different ranges which make a lot of sense when they're deciphered; the MEG is the enthusiast gaming, MPG is performance gaming and the MAG is the arsenal gaming."
"The MAG essentially renames the original arsenal range of boards with a name which seems fitting etc rifle mag, a happy coincidence perhaps."
Stray "etc".
"The MAG essentially renames the original arsenal range of boards with a name which seems fitting i.e. rifle mag, a happy coincidence perhaps."
gavbon - Friday, October 12, 2018 - link
Appreciated, updated :)ballsystemlord - Thursday, October 11, 2018 - link
I love your table on "Power Delivery Comparison".But how do you tell how many phases each board has from your table?
E.g. "GIGABYTE Z390 Gaming SLI" has 5+2 ISL69138 but then has 5 ISL6617A doublers leading me to the conclusion that it is a 25 + 2 phase design.
Thanks!
gavbon - Friday, October 12, 2018 - link
I've updated the table to make it more clear :) - The PPaks are dual channel MOSFETs so each of the GIGABYTE boards is running 10 phases, with 5 doublers = 2 phases per channel. This is the data we received directly from GIGABYTE.