The Intel Z590 Motherboard Overview: 50+ Motherboards Detailed
by Gavin Bonshor on January 19, 2021 10:15 AM ESTMSI MEG Z590 Ace & Z590 Ace Gold Edition
The MSI MEG Z590 Ace and MEG Z590 Ace Gold Edition both represent its enthusiast gaming series and sits just below the Godlike in both specifications and overall presentation. MSI has opted for a primarily black design with gold accents at various points of the board, including the power delivery and top M.2 heatsink, with more gold text on the audio PCB cover. It includes a stylish illuminated RGB MSI Dragon logo built into the rear panel cover, with more RGB LED's located within the bottom mesh of the chipset heatsink.
The only difference between the Z590 Ace and Z590 Ace Gold Edition is the aesthetic, with the latter decked out in gold and aluminum instead of black. The rest of the feature and controller set remains the same.
The MSI MEG Z590 Ace is stacked with features, including three full-length PCIe slots, with two operating at PCIe 4.0 x16 and x8/x8, with the bottom full-length slot locked to PCIe 3.0 x4. MSI includes plenty of storage options, including four M.2 slots, one PCIe 4.0 x4, and three PCIe 3.0 x4/SATA, with six SATA ports with RAID 0, 1, 5, and 10 support. Going all out on memory capabilities, the Z590 Ace includes four memory slots, with support for up to DDR4-5333 and up to 128 GB.
The MSI MEG Z590 Ace Gold Edition which was announced alongside Rocket Lake
In the top right-hand corner is a two-digit LED debugger, while a power and reset button pairing is located in the bottom right-hand corner. MSI is advertising a 16+2 phase power delivery that uses doublers, with a pair of 8-pin 12 V ATX CPU power inputs.
On the rear panel are a pair of Thunderbolt 4 Type-C ports with two mini-DisplayPort passthrough inputs, two USB 3.2 G2 Type-A, four USB 3.2 G1 Type-A, and two USB 2.0 ports. A single HDMI video output allows users to utilize Intel's HD graphics, while a Realtek HD audio codec drives five 3.5 mm audio jacks and S/PDIF optical output. MSI uses Intel's I225-V 2.5 GbE controller, with the latest Intel AX210 Wi-Fi 6E CNVi, with support for BT 5.2 devices. Last but certainly not least, the Z590 Ace includes a clear CMOS button and a BIOS Flashback button to allow users an easy alternative to flash the board's firmware.
As it stands, MSI has an MSRP of $489 set for the MEG Z590 Ace, which is around $80 more than when it released the Z490 version. It does include a host of premium features and includes dual Thunderbolt 4 Type-C.
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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?