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 Gaming X
The GIGABYTE Z390 Gaming X looks to share a very similar PCB and design as the Z390 Gaming SLI with a black and silver design (red accents) but looks to enter the market at a lower price point. Both boards feature much of the same characteristics including power delivery, dual 8 and 4-pin CPU power inputs and PCIe slot layout, but replaces Realtek ALC1220-VB codec and instead opts for a cheaper Realtek ALC892. The Gaming X drops SLI support and features two full-length PCIe 3.0 slots which run at x16 and x4 respectively. The top slot also has a coating of metal PCIe slot protection and two-way CrossFire is officially supported; there are also three PCIe 3.0 x1 slots included on the board.
On the storage front, the Z390 Gaming X has a pair of PCIe 3.0 x4/SATA M.2 slots with the top slot being treated to an M.2 heatsink. The board also has a total of six SATA ports which allow for RAID 0, 1, 5 and 10 arrays to be used. The board also offers a maximum capacity of up to 64 GB of system memory, with the rated XMP specification currently unknown as of yet.
USB wise the board has a total of eight ports which consist of one USB 3.1 Gen2 Type-A, five USB 3.0 Type-A and two USB 2.0 ports; an additional two USB 3.0 and two USB 2.0 ports can be made available through the internal headers on the board. The rest of the rear panel consists of a single HDMI out, a PS/2 combo port, a single LAN port powered by an Intel I219V Gigabit controller and six 3.5 mm audio jacks which are controlled by a Realtek ALC892 HD audio codec.
The GIGABYTE Z390 Gaming X's pricing stands at $150 as it sits towards the bottom of GIGABYTEs Z390 product range. The board is aimed towards gamers with lower budgets and looks to make GIGABYTE competitive in the entry-level Z390 market.
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pawinda8 - Monday, October 15, 2018 - link
Still no mention of any Z390 boards with native Thunderbolt 3 (not AIC)! Has Intel given up on Thunderbolt for the PC world?gavbon - Monday, October 15, 2018 - link
If it's not integrated into the chipset, it's not really native as such. The ASRock Z390 Phantom Gaming-ITX/ac has a Thunderbolt 3 port on the rear panel, but that's the only one I'm afraidHikariWS - Monday, October 15, 2018 - link
Oculus Rift requires 3 USB3 ports and doesn't accept any of them being connected to a hub, they all need to be connected directly into a raw port. I had to buy a dedicated 3GIO USB 3 board that added 6 useful extra ports. In my (yes, old) Gigabyte z87 mobo I also had issues using keyboard and mouse on USB 3 ports inside UEFI and some recovery softwares, so I had to buy a USB 2 mirror to connect them.Because of that, having USB 2 ports on front panel and nice quantity of USB 3 is what most differs mobos for me, given that all other features are nearly the same.
ASUS Z390-A seems to be the best option. It has the important double USB2 ports, 5 USB3 ports and still has HDMI and DP for emergencies.
just4U - Monday, October 15, 2018 - link
I wish MSI had released a "godlike" board for the Ryzen series.ThugEsquire - Tuesday, October 16, 2018 - link
You list the ASRock Z390 Phantom Gaming-ITX/ac above as an ATX board, but it's actually mITX. FYIgavbon - Friday, October 19, 2018 - link
I have gone through every page where the Phantom Gaming-ITX/ac is listed, but I can't see where it says it's an ATX board? Could you please be more specific? Are you viewing on mobile or desktop?Galcobar - Tuesday, October 16, 2018 - link
It would be really helpful to break out one more criteria into a table: Type-C header for case-front ports.Helping a friend put together an i5 system and, knowing he'll keep it for a long time, am trying to get even with peripheral connectors (already has a monitor, so no using that as a hub). It's relatively easy to identify cases with a Type-C port, but that's pointless without a motherboard header. Having to go into each board's page to check is time-consuming.
jjnam - Thursday, April 18, 2019 - link
6 months later and I'm here for EXACTLY this reason. I've gone through probably 50 manuals over the past few days squinting to find this information. What a pain.Synomenon - Thursday, October 18, 2018 - link
So on the ASRock Z390 Phantom Gaming-ITX/ac, is the TB3 port on the rear using up lanes from CPU (making the only 16x slot, 8x only)?If it's not using lanes from the CPU, how will using that TB3 port (say with a USB3.1 Gen2 hub OR TB3 hub) affect all the other ports / IO on the board?
repoman27 - Thursday, October 18, 2018 - link
Going off of what TweakTown published, it's a single-port Intel JHL6240 "Alpine Ridge" controller with a PCI 3.0 x2 connection to the PCH. So it won't affect the PEG lanes from the CPU. I'm amazed it's not Titan Ridge at this point though.