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 Prime Z390-P
In comparison to the above ASUS Prime Z390-A, the aesthetically more 'out-there' Prime Z390-P has a white and black theme stretching as if a wave of triangles flew through the air and splattered across the board in what can only be described as rays. This board also features a set of basic looking heatsinks without a rear panel cover with all of the appeal coming from the onboard set of controllers and componentry, with a clear focus on the value being the ulterior motive of this particular offering.
The most basic of the ASUS Z390 range still retains impressive support for DDR4-4266 with up to a maximum of 64 GB across the four RAM slots allowed. The PCIe configuration is also basic with a full-length PCIe 3.0 x16 slot and two full-length PCIe 3.0 x4 slots and three PCIe 3.0 x1 slots offering support for two-way CrossFire multi-graphics card configurations. Storage support is offered through two M.2 slots with support for both PCIe 3.0 x4 and SATA drives, and a more basic looking set of four SATA ports which all feature cheaper straight-angled connectors.
A pair of USB 3.1 Gen2 Type-A and four USB 3.0 Type-A ports make up the boards USB connectivity with a pair of PS/2 ports and a DisplayPort and HDMI duo of video outputs on the board. The cheapest and basic of the ASUS Z390 motherboards has a Realtek RTL8111H Gigabit LAN port and Realtek ALC892 powered trio of 3.5 mm audio jacks which completes the rear panel.
The ASUS Prime Z390-P loos set to release as the cheapest Z390 board with the MSRP remainign unknown as of yet. The most basic and entry-level board offers a Realtek controller pairing which cuts down as much cost as possible, even with the use of straight-angled SATA ports to shave as much cost off as humanly possible. The Prime Z390-P is probably not the board to be considering for one of the new 8-core Intel Core i7-9900K processors, especially where overclocking is concerned due to the small and lightweight looking power delivery heatsinks.
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di4b0liko - Tuesday, November 20, 2018 - link
Asus ROG STRIX Z390-F or asrock taichi ?pradeep.ramalingam - Friday, November 23, 2018 - link
Hi,I was wondering whether "MSI MPG Z390M Gaming Edge AC" with processor "Intel i5-9600K" will it work with onboard graphics (Intel® UHD Graphics 630) without a GPU from nvidia/amd?
Tigrou - Tuesday, January 15, 2019 - link
"Z390 Motherboard Audio" panel in conclusion is incorrect. For example the MSI Z-390 A PRO has ALC892 but it is not in the list.Faslane - Wednesday, February 27, 2019 - link
Can you do a more in-depth overclocking guide for this board or is there one? if so may I please have a link to just a basic overclocking guide for this board? I have the board and loved it and I know I can go into the phantom gaming 4 app of course but I would rather do it at the BIOS level and save various profiles for testing but I'm a little new to some of the overclocking stuff but I do have a water cooled system with an 8th gen i5 9706 core so I know I can push it quite a bit :-)lb1966 - Thursday, April 11, 2019 - link
Just bought an IBuyPower with this MB init.Anybody able to hook it up to a home theater receiver?
7.1 sounds great on the headphones but I gotta take them off every once in while. Can I use the rear audio panel?
electricjedi - Thursday, January 9, 2020 - link
re: Asrock z390 gaming 4I know this does have a thunderbolt 5 pin header on the board, is this for thunderbolt 3?
Will the Asrock Thunderbolt 3 AIC R2.0 pci-e card work with this board?
or would I be smarter to get the GIGABYTE GC-ALPINE RIDGE (Rev 2.0) Thunderbolt3 Certified PCI-E Expansion card (since I know the z390 is "alpine ridge").
catminister - Saturday, November 28, 2020 - link
Also keep in mind that this board has no support for PCIe 4.0 or WIFI 6 802.11 AX in fact, it seems that Gigabyte abandons this board once purchased. If you want PCIe 4.0 to get the most out of the new Gen 4 NVMe M.2 drives or 802.11 AX support you are going to have to spend up and buy the X570 and a new CPU because socket 1151 is finished. A huge disappointment after recently upgrading to an Gigabyte Aorus Pro Wifi only this year...Turon - Saturday, December 25, 2021 - link
i can’t find the second ssd slot for the life of me, plz help.