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
MSI MEG Z390 ACE
The MSI MEG Z390 ACE doesn't quite have as many features available as the bigger MEG Z390 GODLIKE, but the ACE variant of MSI's Enthusiast range is still pretty comprehensive all things considered. The overall design is neutral like all of MSIs MPG, MEG and MAG Z390 offerings and has an all-black matte PCB with silvery heatsinks and the board itself conforms to the standard ATX form factor. Like the GODLIKE the ACE has a total of four available RGB headers with integrated RGB LEDs within the rear IO cover being the most prominent.
There is a total of three full-length PCIe 3.0 slots which all feature MSI Steel Slot reinforcement and each slot from top to bottom operates at x16, x8 and x4. This means three-way CrossFire is supported as well as two-way SLI; the board also has three PCIe 3.0 x1 slots. Memory support comes through four RAM slots with maximum capacity allowed for 64 GB and the MEG Z390 ACE has compatibility out of the box for up to DDR4-4500.
Looking at storage support, MSI has included a total of three M.2 slots with one having support for just PCIe drives, with the other two having support for both PCIe and SATA drives. The board also makes use of six SATA ports with support for RAID 0, 1, 5 and 10 arrays.
On the rear panel, MSI has included three USB 3.1 Gen2 Type-A ports as well as a single USB 3.1 Gen2 Type-C. In addition to this is a further four USB 2.0 ports with the board disregarding any USB 3.0 from the rear panel, but there is the capacity to extend the USB through the use of front panel headers (four USB 3.0 and four USB 2.0. The 8-channel audio is handled by a single Realtek ALC1220 HD audio codec and the single LAN port on the rear is controlled by a Killer E2500 Gigabit chip. MSI has included Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 5 capability on the Z390 ACE thanks to an integrated Intel 9560 2T2R 802.11ac wireless adapter.
The MSI MEG Z390 ACE is set to retail for $290 at launch which is reasonable given what MSI has included in terms of premium controllers such as the Realtek ALC1220, Killer E2500 Gigabit and Intel 9560 2T2R networking controllers. Like the Z390 GODLIKE, the ACE also includes an integrated rear panel IO cover.
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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.