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 MPG Z390I Gaming Edge AC
The MSI MPG Z390I Gaming Edge AC isn't just the smallest form factored board of the MPG range, but it also represents the only mini-ITX sized motherboard in their Z390 product range. Like the other Gaming Edge AC boards on this page, this board features integrated Wi-Fi with an Intel 9462 802.11ac adapter which also includes support for the latest Bluetooth 5 standard.
As with other mini-ITX motherboards, the MSI MPG Z390I Gaming Edge AC has a single full-length PCIe 3.0 x16 slot which is surrounded in MSI's Steel Slot armor protection. The board has two M.2 slots with one slot only supporting PCIe and the other having support for both PCIe and SATA drives; one slot is located on the front which has a small inclusive heatsink, whereas the other slot is located on the rear of the PCB. The board also has of a total of four straight angled SATA ports with the ports split into pairs on either side of the two memory slots. The two memory slots have support for DDR4-4600 and with a maximum capacity of up to 32 GB.
With certain sacrifices usually being a necessity on mini-ITX motherboards, MSI has cut down the networking and audio support down to a pair of slightly lower quality (compared to the Z390/Z390M Gaming Edge AC boards) with a Realtek RTL8111H Gigabit controller and Realtek ALC892 HD audio codec pairing respectively. The mini-ITX offering has a total of two USB 3.1 Gen2 Type-A ports with MSI disregarding Type-C connectivity; MSI has also included two USB 3.0 Type-A and two USB 2.0 ports. The front panel headers also allow for a further two USB 3.0 and two USB 2.0 ports to be utilized if required. Like the other Z390 Gaming Edge AC boards, this board also makes use of a DisplayPort and HDMI video outputs.
The MSI MPG Z390I Gaming Edge AC mini-ITX motherboard is expected to retail for $165 at launch and is an all-around decent offering which has been subjected to penalization due to the form factor. This is prevalent on the HD audio and networking aspect and unlike the mATX sized Gaming Edge AC doesn't feature 2T2R Wave2 Wi-Fi support to make up for the lesser quality pairing of Realtek controllers (audio and networking) included.
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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.