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
GIGABYTE Z390 UD (Ultra Durable)
The GIGABYTE Z390 UD or Z390 Ultra Durable motherboard is ATX in size and drops all of the gaming branding and fluff associated with that for a cleaner and basic looking board. The black PCB has grey side sweeping straight patterning across the majority and combines it with the chipset heatsink. The board has a total of three full-length PCIe 3.0 slots with the top slot which is covered in metal slot protection supporting x16 and the two other bare full-length slots operating at x4; the board also features three PCIe 3.0 x1 slots. The board also has the same 8 and 4-pin 12V ATX power inputs as the Z390 Gaming SLI, Z390 Gaming X and Z390M Gaming models.
Storage wise the Z390 UD has a total of six SATA ports which are comprised of two right-angled connectors, with another bank of four featuring straight-angle connectors sitting just below. Above the PCIe slots is a single M.2 slot which supports both PCIe 3.0 x4 and SATA drives. For the memory up to a total of 64 GB can be installed across the four available RAM slots, with official XMP profiling currently being unannounced.
On the rear panel of the Z390 UD is a total of six USB 3.0 Type-A ports, a pair of PS/2 ports for a keyboard and mouse and an HDMI video output. This board drops any USB 3.1 Gen2 connectivity to shave on costs and isn't just the only GIGABYTE board to do so, but it's also using a cheaper Realtek ALC887 audio codec and Realtek RTL8111H Gigabit networking controller to power three 3.5 mm audio jacks and the single LAN port.
Without much pizazz and the gaming designed feature set, the Z390 UD (Ultra Durable) is targeted more towards budget systems and more professional users who aren't looking to spend extra budget on features deemed unnecessary which may for all intents and purposes remain unused. The Z390 UD costs $130 and as it stands, is the cheapest offering from GIGABYTE on Z390 as it represents one of the more modest entry-level Z390 offerings from any of the motherboard vendors at launch.
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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