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 Strix Z390-I Gaming
It seems that ASUS has retired or laid the Maximus Impact branded mini-ITX boards to stud as we haven't seen one in the wild since the Z170 chipset; the ASUS Z170 Maximus VIII Impact. While the ever-popular Impact doesn't look to feature in current or future plans for that matter, users looking for a mini-ITX option from ASUS will need to look towards the ROG Strix Z390-Gaming, which in reality doesn't seem all too dissimilar aside from the regular implemented power delivery; not the vertically mounted one feature on the Impact series.
Visual aspects to note include solid grey colored heatsinks with Edge holographic branding towards the bottom of the rear panel cover and RGB lovers will be glad to know there's a customizable LED strip located on the right-hand side; underneath the 24-pin ATX motherboard power input. As expected on a mini-ITX motherboard, there's a single full-length PCIe 3.0 x16 slot and the PCB space has been utilized well with a single M.2 slot with inclusive and combined chipset heatsink, as well as an additional M.2 slot on the rear. The Strix Z390-I Gaming also contains four SATA ports which feature straight angled connectors; arranged into two pairs on either side of the RAM slots.
Speaking of RAM, this board supports up to DDR4-4600 which is the fastest of any Z390 board which is one of the reasons extreme overclockers select two-slot ASUS boards as one of their main options in competitive benchmarking. Another highly notable difference in the memory compatibility is that the two RAM slots support up to 64 GB in capacity. This is in line with our expose from Zadak which is manufacturing a double height and double capacity DDR4 32 GB RAM modules with the specifications of the ROG Strix Z390-I Gaming stating that this new type of memory module is officially supported.
The mini-ITX sized ROG Strix Z390-I Gaming is one of only a small handful of Z390 motherboards to have an HDMI 2.0 video output and in addition to this, is a single DisplayPort. An Intel I219V Gigabit LAN port is present with antenna connectors for the included 2T2R Wave 2 802.11ac Intel 9560 Wi-Fi adapter. The USB looks a little lacklustre compared to the ASRock Z390 Phantom Gaming-ITX/ac with two USB 3.1 Gen2 Type-A, two USB 3.0 Type-A, two USB 2.0 and a single USB 3.0 Type-C port; no USB 3.1 Gen2 Type-C capabilities at all. The finishing touches to the Strix Z390-I Gaming is a Realtek based SupremeFX S1220A HD audio codec which powers the five 3.5 mm audio jacks and S/PDIF optical output.
The ASUS ROG Strix Z390-I Gaming pricing is yet to be announced but it won't be on the cheap side, while this model looks to keep most of the high spec features from the ATX sized ROG Strix Z390-E Gaming board, but with a much smaller overall footprint. The inclusion of dual M.2 is nice, but it isn't a unique feature with other mini-ITX Z390 offerings including this.
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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.