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
ASUS ROG Maximus XI Extreme
The flagship ASUS board always has been and always will be the Extreme models and the ROG Maximus XI Extreme is no different in this regard. Often considered as one of the flagship models when one does surface itself, the ROG Maximus XI Extreme offers one of the most unique aesthetical features on the Z390 chipset comes through a cleverly placed LiveDash OLED display which in the below image is displaying a 5.0 GHz overclock on the CPU. The board has tons of integrated RGB with a rear panel integrated with LEDs, with a chipset heatsink focused around the ROG logo also allowing users to customize it and an array of right-edge mounted underside RGB LEDs.
Not everything is about the aesthetic as the Extreme Z390 offers dual 8-pin 12 V ATX CPU power inputs and a dedicated ROG DIMM.2 slot for use with the included M.2 riser card which also includes a uniquely designed ROG heatsink. A total of four RAM slots with support for DDR4-4400 memory and up to a maximum capacity of 64 GB can be installed onto the board. The right-hand side of the board has an overclockers toolkit with a variety of DIP switches designed specifically for overclocking, with a dedicated start and reset switch just below the LED debug. There are rumours of a ROG Maximus XI Apex in the works which will offer much of the same in the way of extreme cooling capabilities, but with support for faster memory. Nothing is confirmed thus far and if the Apex does eventually show its X-shaped PCB on the market, expect me to jump for joy.
A total of six SATA ports and a trio of M.2 slots are present with one having support for SATA drives; all three M.2 slots are PCIe 3.0 x4 capable with one of these being directly fed into the ROG DIMM.2 slot for better cooling support. The board also has three full-length PCIe 3.0 slots which run at x16, x8 and x4 (x8/x8 or x8/x4/x4) and supports two-way SLI or three-way CrossFire multi-graphics configurations as a result.
Like all of the other Z390 Maximus XI motherboards, a Supreme-FX S1220 8-channel HD audio codec and single Intel I219V Gigabit NIC is featured and in addition to this is a high-performance Aquantia AQC111C 5 Gigabit powered LAN port. A total of ten USB ports is located on the rear panel with these being split into three different flavors; three USB 3.1 Gen2 Type-A, one USB 3.1 Gen2 Type-C and six USB 3.0 Type-A ports. The Extreme does include a standard HDMI video output and also features a BIOS Flashback button with a clear CMOS switch located next to it.
The ASUS ROG Maximus XI Extreme pricing and availablity is currently unknown, and this model represents the cream of the crop for the Z390 product stack from ASUS. The highly customizable ASUS AURA Sync RGB LED lighting is something which draws my eye and its combination of high-end components such as 5 Gigabit LAN and 2T2R Intel 9560 802.11ac Wi-Fi support as being more useful additions. Extreme overclockers will be looking around for the arrival of the Z390 Maximus XI Apex if ASUS has one in the works, primarily for the shorter memory traces to the CPU socket for unmatched memory performance when benchmarking.
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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.