The Z490 Mini-ITX Showdown: GIGABYTE's Z490I Aorus Ultra and MSI's MEG Z490I Unify Reviewed
by Gavin Bonshor on August 4, 2020 10:30 AM ESTTest Bed
As per our testing policy, we take a high-end CPU suitable for the motherboard that was released during the socket’s initial launch and equip the system with a suitable amount of memory running at the processor maximum supported frequency. This is also typically run at JEDEC subtimings where possible. It is noted that some users are not keen on this policy, stating that sometimes the maximum supported frequency is quite low, or faster memory is available at a similar price, or that the JEDEC speeds can be prohibitive for performance. While these comments make sense, ultimately very few users apply memory profiles (either XMP or other) as they require interaction with the BIOS, and most users will fall back on JEDEC supported speeds - this includes home users as well as industry who might want to shave off a cent or two from the cost or stay within the margins set by the manufacturer. Where possible, we will extend out testing to include faster memory modules either at the same time as the review or a later date.
| Test Setup | |||
| Processor | Intel Core i7-10700K, 125 W, $374 8 Cores, 16 Threads 3.8 GHz (5.1 GHz Turbo) |
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| Motherboard | GIGABYTE Z490I Aorus Ultra (BIOS F5c) MSI MEG Z490 Unify (BIOS 7C77v11) |
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| Cooling | NZXT Kraken Z63 280 mm AIO | ||
| Power Supply | Corsair HX850 850 W 80 PLUS Platinum | ||
| Memory | G.Skill TridentZ DDR4-2933 CL 14-14-14-34 2T (2 x 8 GB) | ||
| Video Card | MSI GTX 1080 (1178/1279 Boost) | ||
| Hard Drive | Crucial MX300 1TB | ||
| Case | Corsair Crystal 680X | ||
| Operating System | Windows 10 1909 inc. Spectre/Meltdown Patches | ||
Readers of our motherboard review section will have noted the trend in modern motherboards to implement a form of MultiCore Enhancement / Acceleration / Turbo (read our report here) on their motherboards. This does several things, including better benchmark results at stock settings (not entirely needed if overclocking is an end-user goal) at the expense of heat and temperature. It also gives, in essence, an automatic overclock which may be against what the user wants. Our testing methodology is ‘out-of-the-box’, with the latest public BIOS installed and XMP enabled, and thus subject to the whims of this feature. It is ultimately up to the motherboard manufacturer to take this risk – and manufacturers taking risks in the setup is something they do on every product (think C-state settings, USB priority, DPC Latency / monitoring priority, overriding memory sub-timings at JEDEC). Processor speed change is part of that risk, and ultimately if no overclocking is planned, some motherboards will affect how fast that shiny new processor goes and can be an important factor in the system build.
| Hardware Providers for CPU and Motherboard Reviews | |||
| Sapphire RX 460 Nitro | MSI GTX 1080 Gaming X OC | Crucial MX200 + MX500 SSDs |
Corsair AX860i + AX1200i PSUs |
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| G.Skill RipjawsV, SniperX, FlareX |
Crucial Ballistix DDR4 |
Silverstone Coolers |
Silverstone Fans |
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21 Comments
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hansip87 - Tuesday, August 4, 2020 - link
In my country these boards are just plain expensive. Instead i went with Asrock Z490M ITX AC with 10400f. which like half the price of these boards. I know VRM not as good but for actual tiny build who really cares?Beaver M. - Thursday, August 6, 2020 - link
ASRock is pretty awesome with ITX boards. Its still sad that they dont do their ITX-E series anymore, though.The much bigger problem is their 10+ year old issues with long or extended USB cables losing connection from time to time or not working at all. No other manufacturer has those issues.
Back in the day you could at least dodge it by using the extra USB chip onboard for devices that had longer or extended cables, which handled newer USB standards, but nowadays they are all integrated by Intel, and thus they all have the same issue on ASRock boards.
artifex - Friday, August 7, 2020 - link
If you're not overclocking, I'll bet it's fine.Tomatotech - Tuesday, August 4, 2020 - link
Nice review. But I’m not sure who in AnandTech’s readership is going to buy these boards. Intel sales to the DIY / home build sector are dropping off a cliff - most of the top selling CPUs on Amazon are now AMD.Showtime - Monday, August 10, 2020 - link
I'm sure lots of people at AT are into ITX . Intel hasn't fallen off that much. AMD simply has louder fans. You couldn't find a 10600k for months, and Intel sales are strong going by pricing. I noticed this article because I was looking at an i7 10700 over a 3700x. They trade blows with the 10700 being slightly better at gaming at basically the same overall price (CPU/Mobo/RAM). So AMD may have the 6 core, and lower covered, and the higher counts covered, but somehow that vanilla 10700, that AT did meh review on, ends up being a better buy than the very popular 3700x for me.Koenig168 - Tuesday, August 4, 2020 - link
Waited quite a while for this review. Gigabyte has done a really impressive job with VRM cooling recently. While I like the Unify for its aesthetics, I could have done without the VRM fan and would prefer instead a beefier passive cooler. Now if MSI could fix that and replace the Intel chipset with an X570 or B550, that would be perfect. :)Beaver M. - Thursday, August 6, 2020 - link
The first thing I look at especially ITX boards (since you cant just add an addon USB slot bracket) is the amount of USB ports.MSI fails completely at that.
Gigabyte isnt much better though, because they messed up the audio connections.
Also ITX boards shouldnt waste that much space with SATA ports anymore. 2 are more than enough.
Fixed WIFI is bad too. I know its integrated nowadays in Intel chipsets, but standards change and some people dont need WIFI at all, or need to use USB WIFI anyway, because they need to position their antennas far away. Wasted space on the backplate and PCB.
Also they are completely overpriced.
JlHADJOE - Friday, August 7, 2020 - link
All I really need to know here is how MSI treats the smaller reviewers like crap, which automatically disqualifies them in my book for the next 5-10 years.Oxford Guy - Saturday, August 8, 2020 - link
The names of these products are preposterous.saol - Sunday, August 9, 2020 - link
Hope there will be the B550 mini-ITX showdown.