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
Since TUF went not so TUF with the disregard of waves of thermal armor on their more rugged The Ultimate Force models, the TUF range was remodelled with a focus on offering gamers on a budget an entry route onto the key chipsets such as last year with the Z370 chipset and now with the new Z390 chipset. The rebadged and reskinned TUF Gaming range focus its attention on gaming-centric features such as a slightly cheaper Realtek S1200A HD audio codec, Intel I219V Gigabit LAN and a mix of black, grey and yellow accented visuals. The TUF Gaming Z390 models occupy the entry to mid-level of ASUS's Z390 product stack and slots between the professional series Prime and Strix gaming ranges.
ASUS TUF Z390 Pro Gaming
The ASUS TUF Z390 Pro Gaming represents the best and most feature rich of The Ultimate Force branded Z390 gaming based models with a similar visual design to that from the previous Z370 TUF Gaming motherboards. The TUF Z390 Gaming has a rear panel cover which houses the TUF Gaming branding and TUF logo, with the chipset heatsink featuring a similar design. There is no integrated RGB within this model but ASUS does include RGB headers for users looking to utilize the popular technology. There are four RAM slots with support for DDR4-4266 and up to 64 GB of system memory in total.
In terms of available PCIe capabilities, the TUF Z390 Pro Gaming has a total of three full-length PCIe 3.0 slots with only the top slot getting treated to the ASUS Safe Slot protection; these operate at x16, x8 and x4, with SLI supported with two NVIDIA cards installed forcing the PCIe to run at x8/x8. Users looking for PCIe 3.0 x1 slot support will be happy to find three on this model. A total of two PCIe 3.0 x4 supported M.2 slots are present with the bottom M.2 slot being complemented with an M.2 heatshield. In addition to this is a total of six SATA ports with two right-angled ports located below the 24-pin ATX motherboard power input and four straight-angled ports placed directly below the chipset heatsink.
The rear panel on the ASUS TUF Z390 Pro Gaming is what's expected from an entry-level model, but despite this, ASUS has utilized the integrated 10 Gbps USB from the Z390 chipset as the board has two USB 3.1 Gen2 Type-A ports in addition to four USB 3.0 Type-A ports. An HDMI 1.4b and DisplayPort video output make up the onboard graphics support, while an Intel I219V Gigabit LAN and Realtek S1200A HD audio codec drive the onboard audio connectors. Last but not least, ASUS has included a PS/2 combination keyboard and mouse port.
The ASUS TUF Z390 Pro Gaming's price is as it stands unknown and this model represents the best of the entry-level range of gaming boards with support for both two-way SLI and CrossFire multi-graphics card configurations. The rear panel isn't comprehensive and the ATX Pro Gaming offers no Wi-Fi capable model opposed to the TUF Z390 Plus Gaming (Wi-Fi).
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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.