The Intel Z590 Motherboard Overview: 50+ Motherboards Detailed
by Gavin Bonshor on January 19, 2021 10:15 AM ESTASUS ROG Strix Z590-A Gaming WIFI
The ASUS ROG Strix Z590-A Gaming WIFI is a four-letter distinguished Strix Z590 model, with a very subtle silver and white aesthetic on a black PCB. Some of the A's primary features include support for up to DDR4-5333 memory, three PCIe M.2 slots, six SATA ports, and an Intel 2.5 Gb Ethernet controller. Design-wise, the board uses silver, and white heatsinks, with ASUS Strix branding on the chipset heatsink and an RGB-enabled ROG logo on the rear panel cover.
Towards the board's center is three full-length PCIe 4.0 slots that operate at x16, x8/x4, and x8/x4/+x4, with a single PCIe 3.0 x4 half-length slot. For storage, the Strix Z590-A has three M.2 slots, one operating at PCIe 4.0 x4, and two with support for PCIe 3.0 x4 and SATA drives. The board also has six SATA ports arrayed in a single file along the right-hand side, with support for RAID 0, 1, 5, and 10 arrays. In the top right-hand corner is four memory slots with support for up to DDR4-5333, with a maximum combined capacity of 128 GB.
On the rear panel are a single USB 3.2 G2x2 Type-C, four USB 3.2 G2 Type-A, and five USB 2.0 ports. Included for users planning on using Intel's UHD integrated graphics are a DisplayPort and HDMI video output combination, with a single RJ45 port powered by an Intel I225-V 2.5 GbE controller. The five 3.5 mm audio jacks are powered by a ROG SupremeFX ALC4080 HD audio codec, with a USB Type-C audio port which is quite rare. ASUS doesn't specify which Wi-Fi 6 interface it is using, but it's likely an Intel AX200 or AX201. Finishing off the rear panel is a small BIOS Flashback button.
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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?