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
ASRock Z390 Phantom Gaming-ITX/ac
One of two mini-ITX offerings from ASRock for the launch of the Z390 includes the gaming-centric Z390 Phantom Gaming-ITX/ac. The ASRock Z390 Phantom Gaming-ITX/ac follows an all-black design with speckly metallic heatsinks which includes RGB LED lighting at the bottom of the board. The main features include an Intel-based Gigabit LAN (I219V) and 2T2R Wave 2 802.11ac capable wi-fi adapter pairing and this board is one of the only Z390 motherboards to include a Thunderbolt 3Type-C port on the rear panel. The cooling capabilities are hindered slightly due to the form factor with a total of three 4-pin fan headers with two-thirds located along the top. There is an 8-pin 12 V ATX CPU power input and ASRock advertises an 8-phase power delivery; the SoC area of the power delivery is without a heatsink.
As the Z390 Phantom Gaming-ITX/ac is smaller it makes use of a single ASRock Steel Slot clad full-length PCIe 3.0 x16 slot with an M.2 slot located just above which offers support for PCIe 3.0 x4/SATA, while ASRock combines the chipset and M.2 heatsink as one to save space, but still offer the heat dissipation quality for hot running NVMe based drives. A second PCIe 3.0 x4/SATA slot is located on the rear of the boards PCB, while a total of four SATA ports with straight-angled connectors are located towards the bottom right of the board. Memory support consists of two slots with a maximum capacity of up to 32 GB and support for up to DDR4-4266.
The rear panel of the Z390 Phantom Gaming-ITX/ac motherboard offers a quality range of connections which puts a lot of boards to shame in this regard. Included is a Thunderbolt 3 Type-C ports with a total of four USB 3.1 Gen2 Type-A and two USB 3.0 Type-A ports. A single LAN port powered by an Intel I219V Gigabit networking chip is present along with five 3.5 mm audio jacks and a single S/PDIF optical output which is controlled by a Realtek ALC1220 HD audio codec. For users looking to use this board with integrated graphics, the Z390 Phantom Gaming-ITX/ac has two video outputs consisting of a DVI-D and an HDMI 2.0 outputFinishing off the rear panel is two connectors for the 2T2R Wave 2 802.11ac capable Wi-Fi antenna, a PS/2 combo port and a conveniently placed reset CMOS button.
In terms of pricing, the ASRock Z390 Phantom Gaming-ITX/ac has an MSRP of $190 which is cheaper than I was expecting given the sheer amount of high-end features have been packed onto the PCB. The inclusion of a Thunderbolt 3 Type-C along with four USB 3.1 Gen2 Type-A ports shows that where space has been used, it's been used to good effect; one of the benefits of the Z390 chipset is native USB 3.1 Gen2. A solid looking (visually) power delivery and with 2T2R Wave 2 802.11ac wireless capability marks another mini-ITX ASRock board aimed at the high-end enthusiast; I am personally very interested in seeing how this board performs as I'm a big fan of mini-ITX boards.
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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.