The Intel Z590 Motherboard Overview: 50+ Motherboards Detailed
by Gavin Bonshor on January 19, 2021 10:15 AM ESTASUS ROG Strix Z590-E Gaming WIFI
The ASUS ROG Strix Z590-E Gaming WIFI represents the mid-range and includes an advertised 14+2 phase power delivery, with four PCIe M.2 slots, dual Intel 2.5 GbE, and Intel's latest Wi-Fi 6E CNVi. It follows an all-black design, with ASUS's holographic logo embossed onto the rear panel cover, the top M.2 heatsink, and in the bottom left-hand corner of the chipset heatsink. ASUS includes its Optimem III memory technology and has four memory slots with support for up to 128 GB of memory.
ASUS includes three full-length PCIe slots, with the top two of these featuring support for PCIe 4.0 x16 and x8/x8, with the bottom slot electronically locked at PCIe 3.0 x4. There are four PCIe M.2 slots for storage, two with support for PCIe 4.0 x4 and two PCIe 3.0 x4/SATA M.2 slots. Six SATA ports are located at the right-hand side, with support for RAID 0, 1, 5, and 10 arrays. Onto the memory and the Z590-E Gaming WIFI has support for up to 128 GB and can run with speeds of up to DDR4-5333. Other notable features include a two-digit LED debugger in the top right-hand corner and a 16-phase (14+2) power delivery, which is powered by an 8-pin and 4-pin 12 V ATX CPU power input pairing.
The rear panel includes one USB 3.2 G2x2 Type-C, one USB 3.2 G2 Type-C, two USB 3.2 G2 Type-A, four USB 3.2 G1 Type-A, and two USB 2.0 ports. ASUS includes a pair of video outputs, including DisplayPort 1.4 and HDMI 2.0, with five 3.5 mm audio jacks and S/PDIF optical output powered by a Realtek ALC4080 HD audio codec and a Savitech SV3H712 amplifier. There's a pair of Intel I225-V 2.5 GbE controllers for networking, with an Intel AX210 Wi-Fi 6E CNVi with support for BT 5.2 devices. ASUS also includes a small clear CMOS switch and a BIOS Flashback button with a designated USB 2.0 port, which is highlighted on the pre-attached rear I/O shield.
Preliminary pricing suggests the ASUS ROG Strix Z590-E Gaming WIFI will retail for around $380, which isn't a bad price considering all the board has to offer. The Strix series typically targets the mid-range, but with ASUS opting to bolsters most of its main ranges with premium controllers, the ROG Strix Z590-E Gaming WIFI sits directly below the ROG Maximus XIII Hero in ASUS's stack.
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James5mith - Wednesday, January 20, 2021 - link
Awesome, Multi-GbE this generation! Remind me again which company sells Multi-GbE switches for less than $20/port?Tilmitt - Wednesday, January 20, 2021 - link
We live in joyful hope.dtexo - Wednesday, January 20, 2021 - link
https://ark.intel.com/content/www/us/en/ark/compar...AX210 doesn’t seem to be CNVi, but PCIe+USB
dtexo - Wednesday, January 20, 2021 - link
Same with Killer Wi-Fi card(s)https://ark.intel.com/content/www/us/en/ark/produc...
Oxford Guy - Thursday, January 21, 2021 - link
So Intel can marry its "Killer" ethernet port to its skull-bearing SSDs for maximum performance in Edge.Harry Lloyd - Thursday, January 21, 2021 - link
The price of the PRIME Z590-A cannot be right. That has always been the fully-featured variant of an entry-level Z-chipset model. The Z490-A costs just over 200 $ now. Is this because of the VRM setup? Who needs 16 phases on a board like this? You will not buy this for extreme overclocking anyway.All these ASUS prices seem ridiculous.
Targon - Thursday, January 21, 2021 - link
And I thought the X570 chipset boards were a bit crazy when it comes to prices, these are off the rails on the crazy train! I am all for having a POST code display, but OLED screens to see on the motherboard what this or that is also seems like a waste of money. If you can get the machine to POST in the first place, going to the BIOS to get data about what is going on with this or that is enough. A waterblock for those who plan to use liquid cooling will also add to the price, no question, and it isn't a bad idea, but some of these other things that just add to the price without adding functionality is what I have a problem with.PaulHoule - Friday, January 22, 2021 - link
Ugh.I've never found motherboard reviews that helpful and the last article I read on this site makes me feel worse about it because now I know the performance of a system I build might depend more on the turbo behavior of the motherboard than on the CPU.
I've often found that getting a motherboard is a crap shoot and frequently you find that a particular motherboard has limitations on what you can do with the PCI lanes, or a component that had 35 db of noise for the reviewer has 50 db of noise for me and so forth. I see that $1800 motherboard and I ask myself, "do they make enough of these that they really know that the analog audio path is clean?" and such.
Last time I built a system I had to replace about half of the components at least once to get something I was happy with.
These days I'm inclined to go to a system builder just to have somebody to RMA it to, but if reviews were useful I might go back to building a system myself.
Ghostline91 - Tuesday, January 26, 2021 - link
How's the Biostar Z590 board? It looks like they're going back to more high-end specs and this one might be a good one to try out. When will we see reviews?vinicici22 - Wednesday, January 27, 2021 - link
do you guys know if the z590-a rog strix out yet? or it's just already sold out on every sites?