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
ASUS TUF Z390M Pro Gaming & Z390M Pro Gaming Wi-Fi
The TUF Z390M Pro Gaming is the smaller mATX sibling of the above ASUS Z390 Pro Gaming and as a result, features much of the same black and grey design with yellow accents. The main differences between the ATX and mATX sized TUF Pro Gaming motherboards are the smaller model has two full-length PCIe 3.0 slots which run at x16 or x8/x4 and ASUS has only included one PCIe 3.0 x1 slot. The maximum memory the Z390M Pro Gaming supports is DDR4-4266 and the board does offer four RAM slots with a maximum support capacity of up to 64 GB.
Storage capability on the TUF Z390M Pro Gaming M.2 PCIe 3.0 x4 and SATA supported slots with one of the slots being supplemented with an M.2 heatsink. This mATX sized board keeps all six SATA ports which are split into two different sections; three straight-angled ports at the bottom right-hand edge of the board, with three right-angled ports on the right-hand side underneath the 24-pin ATX motherboard power input.
ASUS TUF Z390M Pro Gaming (WI-Fi) Rear Panel
With the only differences between the TUF Z390M Pro Gaming and Z390 Pro Gaming (Wi-Fi) being the latter has an Intel 9560 2T2R Wave 2 supported 802.11ac adapter; take this out of the equation and the rest of the rear panel and specifications are exactly the same. A total of six USB ports comprised of one USB 3.1 Gen2 Type-A, one USB 3.0 Type-C and four USB 3.0 Type-A ports is featured, as well as HDMI and DisplayPort video outputs. A pair of PS/2 ports with one for a keyboard and the other for a mouse sitting at the left-hand side of the rear panel, an Intel I219V Gigabit controlled LAN port and basic three 3.5 mm port powered Realtek S1200A HD audio codec completes the capacity of the panel.
The ASUS TUF Z390M Pro Gaming pricing us yet to be revealed but it's expected that the TUF Z390M Pro Gaming Wi-Fi will command a higher premium with an Intel 9560 MU-MIMO Wave2 Wi-Fi adapter included. The pairing of mATX form factor boards aims at the lower end of the mid-range segment and without too much going on, users looking for a more comprehensive mATX board may look to the more expensive ROG Maximus XI Gene or another competitors offering.
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DanTMWTMP - Thursday, October 11, 2018 - link
Are they ALL made in China? What happened to the ones made in Taiwan from a few gens ago? :/gavbon - Friday, October 12, 2018 - link
Unfortunately, I cannot confirm this. The ASRock Z390 Taichi I have in my hands says 'designed in Taipei', but that's about it.Nagorak - Sunday, October 14, 2018 - link
Gigabyte apparently has a factory in Taiwan. It seems all the rest moved production to China.WickedMONK3Y - Friday, October 12, 2018 - link
The MEG Z390 Godlike looked like such an interesting board until I checked the MSI Specifications page and realised it actually does not have the PLX chip as suspected. The PCI Express slots on the board are configured as 16x / 4x / 8x / 4x instead of 16x / 16x / 8x / 4x or 16x / 8x / 16x / 4x. It seems after PLX sold to whomever owns them now, that the price hike stopped their usage on consumer boards completely.I really really hope somebody comes out with a board that has a PLX chip on board.
gavbon - Friday, October 12, 2018 - link
The Supermicro C9Z390-PGW has a Broadcom 8747 PLX PCIe switch :)ZioTom - Friday, October 12, 2018 - link
It would be a nice touch including in next MB review what pheriferals stop funcioning when too much PCI-E lanes are used. Some motherboards disable SATA ports when M.2 slot are used; others may require limiting bandwith to one PCI-E slot... etc. Before byuing a motherboard I would like to be warned that is not possibile to use all the features they are advertising.happyfirst - Friday, October 12, 2018 - link
I wish we would get better thunderbolt support. Only one board has it built in? I'm thinking of a Taichi board and see a Thunberbolt AIC connector in the manual, but then I can't really find enough good quality posts of people having success putting it to use. I'd like to get a new external nvme ssd thunderbolt drive to run my vms off of so I can more easily take them on the road with me and use from my notebook.ddcc - Saturday, October 13, 2018 - link
Certain Gigabyte boards, e.g. Z390 Aorus Pro WiFi, seem to be using Intel's Z390 CNVi, but aren't listed in the article.gavbon - Monday, October 15, 2018 - link
I'm going to be updating tomorrow with more information; been working on getting one of the board reviews ready for the end of the week :)gavbon - Sunday, October 21, 2018 - link
Will be adding these in tomorrow (not at a PC currently) - We didn't have the information available prior to writing