The Intel Z590 Motherboard Overview: 50+ Motherboards Detailed
by Gavin Bonshor on January 19, 2021 10:15 AM ESTMSI Z590 Pro WiFi & Z590 A Pro
Moving down to the more professional and basic Pro series, the MSI Z590 A Pro and the Z590 Pro WiFi blend basic with stylish. It uses a black ATX sized PCB, with white straight lines patterning, and black/silver accented heatsinks. The only difference between both models is the inclusion of a Wi-Fi 6E CNVi.
The MSI Z590 Pro WiFi motherboard
Dominating the lower portion of the board are two full-length PCIe slots, with the top slot operating at PCIe 4.0 x16, a second full-length slot locked down at PCIe 3.0 x4, and two PCIe 3.0 x1 slots. MSI includes plenty of storage connectivity, with one PCIe 4.0 x4 and two PCIe 3.0/SATA M.2 slots. There are also six SATA ports in total, with four straight angled with a cut-out into the PCB for better cable management and two straight-angled ports located at the bottom edge of the board. For memory, MSI includes four memory slots capable of installing up to 128 GB, with speeds of up to DDR4-5333.
On the rear panel is a single USB 3.2 G2 Type-C, one USB 3.2 G2 Type-A, two USB 3.2 G1 Type-A, and four USB 2.0 ports. The Wi-Fi variant includes an Intel AX210 Wi-Fi 6E CNVi, while both models include an Intel I225-V 2.5 GbE controller. MSI also includes a DisplayPort and HDMI video output pairing for users that intend to use Intel's integrated graphics. A PS/2 combo keyboard and mouse port and a small clear CMOS switch finish off the rear panel.
The MSI Z590 Pro WiFi has an MSRP of $209, while the Z590 A Pro has an MSRP of $189 which is currently the cheapest Z590 model we know about. Both models include a decent feature set for the price, and the Z590 Pro WiFi even includes 2.5 GbE and Wi-Fi 6E networking; the Z590 A Pro is the same board but without the Wi-Fi capability.
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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?