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 Z390-A PRO
The main difference between the MSI Z390-A PRO and the rest of MSI's Z390 product stack is that this board isn't specifically targeted towards gamers. The aesthetics are simple with a coffee colored PCB which does include silver patterning across it; primarily around the edges of the board and around the silver and black heatsinks. The main selling point of the MSI Z390-A PRO is in its value with a good selection of controllers including an Intel I219V Gigabit Ethernet controller and a Realtek ALC892 HD audio codec handling the onboard audio.
On the board are two full-length PCIe 3.0 slots with the top MSI Steel Slot coated slot running at x16 and the second full-length slot operating at x4. Also present is plenty of PCIe 3.0 x1 ports as the Z390-A PRO has four in total. The storage options are pretty basic on the Z390-A PRO with this being the only Z390 MSI board to feature only one PCIe/SATA M.2 slot; this is complemented by a total of six SATA ports with support for RAID 0. 1. 5 and 10 arrays. In terms of memory, the board is packing four RAM slots with support for DDR4--4400 with a maximum capacity of up to 64 GB.
Rear panel connections wise the MSI Z390-A PRO has a USB 3.1 Gen2 Type-A and Type-C port and four USB 2.0 ports; up to two USB 3.0 and four USB 2.0 ports can be made available through the use of internal headers. A total of six 3.5 mm audio jacks are powered by a Realtek ALC892 HD audio codec and a single LAN port controlled by an Intel I219V Gigabit networking chip. The Z390-A PRO is the only MSI board to include a D-Sub video output which seemingly replaces the HDMI and also included is a DisplayPort and DVI-D output.
The MSI Z390-A PRO is the cheapest Z390 motherboard from MSI at launch with a suggested retail price of $140 which all things considered is still quite expensive for chipsets entry-level model. The board makes use of a decent set of controllers which further hikes the price up and it seemingly means users are going to have to look at adding a little more cash to their budget in order to jump onto MSI's Z390 platform; especially compared with the equivalent models when the Z370 chipset debuted.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
79 Comments
View All Comments
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