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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lmcd - Tuesday, January 19, 2021 - link
8 cores is plenty for this generation of memory bandwidth. The problem is that Intel's next gen will have "16" processors where 8 are full cores, while AMD will have a full 16 cores with all that bandwidth. This generation, Intel is competitive but late.rahvin - Wednesday, January 20, 2021 - link
Is this an attempt to be funny?pman6 - Tuesday, January 19, 2021 - link
meh. show me the $80 b560 boards.this is overkill for me.
Geef - Wednesday, January 20, 2021 - link
Why is Intel always behind the game with memory speeds? 3200 is just a basic speed nowadays. Its great if your running CAS 14 chips but not many are. Why haven't they set a speed up to 4000 or 5000? They can keep XMP going just fine but wouldn't it be better to have systems automatically go that fast if they can?Deicidium369 - Wednesday, January 20, 2021 - link
JEDEC tops out at 3200 - the fastest OFFICIAL speed it 3200. I have Gskill DDR4 4133 on my Gigabyte Z390 / i9900Kand JEDEC speeds are the same for AMD and Intel
Duncan Macdonald - Wednesday, January 20, 2021 - link
For most games the 5800x is the sweet spot due to only having one CPU chiplet so no communication between chiplets. The 5900 and 5950 with two chiplets lose on many games due to the cost of inter chiplet communications exceeding the benefits from the extra cores.The 5900 and 5950 are best in programs that can make good use of all the cores (eg some video editing programs). For any game player with a 5900 or 5950, it might well be possible to get higher game performance by limiting Windows to only the first chiplet (using the numproc boot parameter).
Makaveli - Wednesday, January 20, 2021 - link
I agree with you however the 5800X is really overpriced right now. So when you only have to pay abit more for the 5900X its looks like a far better deal. I think once Rocket lake is out we should see a price correction on the 5800X so the time to buy those will be in March.yeeeeman - Wednesday, January 20, 2021 - link
This....this is wasted resources IMO. There was no need to make another platform on 14nm when they have the 10th gen which is just fine. I mean, the 10900k/10700k are great CPUs still, even compared to 5000 Ryzen series, so I don't know...they should've focused the efforts on bringing Alder Lake and its successor platforms forward.Hope Pat will make a bit of order here and make the schedules and ambitions of Intel a bit more daring, cause Bob just...milked it like there is no tomorrow. Refreshes after refreshes and refreshes.
Makaveli - Wednesday, January 20, 2021 - link
That's what happens when you have a finance guy running the company he is just going to keep the wheels turning and not be aggressive. The new guy is an engineer and I believe he will push the pace which is what Intel needs now.Oxford Guy - Thursday, January 21, 2021 - link
Well, the world really needed a stack of 15 boards from just one motherboard company, too.