The Intel Z590 Motherboard Overview: 50+ Motherboards Detailed
by Gavin Bonshor on January 19, 2021 10:15 AM ESTMSI MEG Z590 Godlike
The MSI MEG Z590 Godlike is the flagship model from its premium MEG (MSI Extreme Gaming) series and is designed to target performance users and enthusiasts. It uses a new fresh metallic inspired design throughout, with a black PCB, black and silver styled armor, with its Dynamic Dashboard II dominating the aesthetic. The integrated OLED panel can display critical elements such as CPU VCore, CPU Core clock speed, among other useful information. The Godlike also benefits from subtle RGB LED lighting built into the large Dragon infused rear panel cover and the elegantly designed chipset heatsink. On the right-hand side, MSI includes its Dynamic Dashboard II OLED panel.
Among the waves of black and silver armor, the Z590 Godlike includes three full-length PCIe slots, with the top two of these operating at PCIe 4.0 x16 and x8/x8, with the third slot hidden by a strip of black armor electronically locked down to PCIe 3.0 x4. Offering the fastest memory support out of the box, users can install up to DDR4-5333 memory, with up to 128 GB of capacity across four memory slots. There's also plenty of storage input for users to sink their teeth into with four M.2 slots in total, including one PCIe 4.0 x4 and three PCIe 3.0 x4/SATA M.2 slots. This also includes six SATA ports with support for RAID 0, 1, 5, and 10 arrays. MSI is advertising one of its biggest desktop VRMs with its direct 20-phase power delivery.
The rear panel includes a generous selection of input and output, including two Thunderbolt 4 Type-C ports, each with its own mini DisplayPort passthrough port. Other USB connections include two USB 3.2 G2 10 Gbps Type-A and six USB 3.2 G1 Type-A ports. MSI uses a premium networking configuration on the Z590 Godlike, which includes two Ethernet ports, with one driven by Aquantia AQC107 10 GbE controller and the other by an Intel I225-V 2.5 GbE controller. The Godlike is also using Intel's latest Wi-Fi 6E CNVi, the Intel AX210. Finishing off the rear panel are five 3.5 mm audio jacks and S/PDIF optical output controlled by a Realtek ALC1220 HD audio codec, a Clear CMOS button, as well as a BIOS Flashback button.
For all the Godlike offers, MSI has set an MSRP of $1019, which is pretty standard for a flagship in the current climate (Ian: still very crazy). The accessories bundle includes MSI's Gen4 M.2 Xpander-Z M.2 add-on card, a set of DIY stands, and an MSI Tuning controller for overclockers hardcore enthusiasts. This also adds to the cost, but the MSI MEG Z590 Godlike has plenty of premium controllers with 10 GbE, Wi-Fi 6E, and it looks new instead of a direct refresh from the previous generation.
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Duncan Macdonald - Tuesday, January 19, 2021 - link
Why so many motherboards for a product (Rocket Lake) that is outclassed before it is even available by the Zen 3 processors from AMD.Oxford Guy - Tuesday, January 19, 2021 - link
Mindshare. Intel still means better FPS to some gamers. I also hear AMD’s CPUs are hard to get, except for the 5800x which some believe is overpriced. My local MicroCenter was out of all but that one. I just checked and it has exactly 1 in stock. That’s it for the entire line.Deicidium369 - Wednesday, January 20, 2021 - link
LOL - except it isn't - Zen 3 is nothing but more and more cache to cheese the synthetic benchmarks and impress the rubes. When you actually get a 5900X and a 5950X as I have you start to realize, that like the 6900XT - all AMD smoke and mirrors and little substance.Rocket Lake will wreck Zen 3 - and all the fanboyism won't change that - and one big plus for Rocket Lake is that it will be available in volume while TSMC scraps to get supplies - and Apple has priority - then AMD for the consoles - and whatever small crumbs that are left go to the AMD PC products. New microarch vs cache masquerading as a CPU - easy Intel win.
eva02langley - Wednesday, January 20, 2021 - link
LMAO ROXXORMYBOXXORJust look at how stupid it sounds... you sound like this.
1. ES of Rocket Lake are showing REGRESSION in performances even in games.
2. It passes from 10 cores to 8 cores.
3. The prices are still the same... way overpriced compared to AMD...
4. AMD is looking like it will retain the performances crown in ST and MT performances.
Spunjji - Wednesday, January 20, 2021 - link
"Rocket Lake will wreck Zen 3"Mate, Intel's own leaked benches are already disproving that. You're bending language so hard here that apparently a maximum 5% performance advantage in cherry-picked games at 1080p = "wrecked", and that's at nearly 1/2 the performance per watt.
It's amusing to see how literally all of the Intel shills across multiple sites have switched to banging on about stock levels. Do you have a secret site where you coordinate this, or do you just copy each other naturally? 🤣
Makaveli - Wednesday, January 20, 2021 - link
lol man this thread is pulling out all the weirdo's tonight.We got that guy stuck in 2008 and intel fan boys...
Oxford Guy - Friday, January 22, 2021 - link
Thanks for spamming the topic with your insipid arrogance.gsuburban - Wednesday, April 14, 2021 - link
Lots of folks are looking for the 4th gen NVMe speeds. Also, they are getting more USB 3 and USB C ports that many of the newer cases come with located up front. Also, for those that don't need a video card, the 11th gen CPU's, the upper level ones, support HDMI 2.0 vs. HDMI 1.4 and have a different graphics chip, the UHD750. Other than these, there are not many other benefits however, cost wise at this time, its the same cost to spend on last years hardware so it seems more reasonable to buy this years hardware for the same price. It wouldn't be much value to take a 3 year old system and upgrade to this years hardware as the gains are not worth the cost.Oxford Guy - Tuesday, January 19, 2021 - link
Does running a display via Thunderbolt add latency?croc - Tuesday, January 19, 2021 - link
The issue I see here is that Intel's first foray into PCIe 4.0 seems designed to meet, not exceed AMD's efforts. If you are behind the competition, then just meeting their specs is not the way to get ahead. Then there is Rocket Lake's max core count. Max of eight, due to the backporting of the 10nm Sunny Cove cores onto the 14nm litho. OK, AMD's 16 cores may be a bit overkill (for gaming) given the lack of PCIe lanes on their AM4 socket, but Intel is replacing a CPU that topped out at 10 cores with a CPU only allowing eight...Can't wait for the return of Gelsinger's return. I predict a large ship turning around at speed. Watch out for bow waves....