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 MAG Z390 Tomahawk
The MSI MAG or 'Arsenal' range is somewhat unchained and features the more militaristic sounding boards such as this one, the MAG Z390 Tomahawk. The Tomahawk has an overall black and silver theme throughout with a very solid looking silver grey for the heatsinks and rear panel cover. The board does utilize basic RGB LED lighting across the chipset heatsink and the underneath of the 24-pin motherboard power connector and can be customized with MSI's Mystic Light RGB software.
The board has a total of three full-length PCIe 3.0 slots with the slots running at x16, x4 and x4; only the top slot gets MSI's Steel Slot reinforcement. In addition to this is a pair of PCIe 3.0 x1 slots. The Z390 Tomahawk has four RAM slots with support for DDR4-4400 with a total capacity of up to 64 GB. Featured for storage are six SATA ports and two M.2 slots which both have support for PCIe and SATA drives; the bottom slot includes an M.2 heatshield.
On the rear panel is three USB 3.1 Gen2 Type-A ports and a single USB 3.1 Gen2 Type-C, which also includes two USB 2.0 ports. Users looking to increase the number of USB ports can do so through the use of internal headers which opens up to an additional four USB 3.0 and four USB 2.0 ports. The MAG Z390 Tomahawk has dual NIC with a pairing if Intel Gigabit controllers (I219V and I211AT), with the five 3.5 mm audio jacks and single S/PDIF optical output taking its orders from a Realtek ALC892 HD audio codec. Users looking to utilize the iGPU on the 8th and new 9th generation Intel processors can do so thanks to the inclusion of a DisplayPort and HDMI video output.
The MAG Z390 Tomahawk represents a more modest offering from MSI and while the inclusion of dual NIC is a clear intent that MSI is going all out with their low to mid-range boards at present, users looking to make use of two-way SLI configurations will have to opt for one of the more expensive MPG range boards. The MAG Z390 Tomahawk is priced at $160 which kind of defeats the purpose of an entry range of boards especially when pricing is above the model such as the MPG Z390 Gaming Plus.
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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.