The Intel Z590 Motherboard Overview: 50+ Motherboards Detailed
by Gavin Bonshor on January 19, 2021 10:15 AM ESTASRock Z590 Extreme & Extreme WiFi 6E
The ASRock Z590 Extreme WiFi 6E benefits from an Intel Killer Wi-Fi 6E CNVi and looks a more clean-cut offering design-wise than the Phantom Gaming series. It uses an ATX PCB with an X-shaped cutout to provide better access to some of the SATA ports for improved cable management. It follows a black design throughout, with blue accents on the rear panel cover and chipset heatsinks, with some lighting in the rear panel. There is also a version without Intel's Wi-Fi 6E variant, which will be slightly cheaper.
Dominating the lower portion of the board are two full-length PCIe slots, including one PCIe 4.0 x16 slot with ASRock's Steel Slot Armor reinforcement, while the second operates at PCIe 3.0 x4. There is also three PCIe 3.0 x1 slots. The board includes three M.2 slots, with the top one supporting PCIe 4.0 x4 and the other two supporting PCIe 3.0 x4/SATA drives. A cut-out provides better access to four SATA ports, with two straight-angled ports for a combined total of six, including support for RAID 0, 1, 5, and 10 arrays. ASRock is also advertising the Z590 Extreme WiFi 6E to include a 14-phase power delivery.
In terms of connectivity, the ASRock Z590 Extreme WiFi 6E includes one USB 3.2 G2 Type-C, one USB 3.2 G2 Type-A, two USB 3.2 G1 Type-A, and two USB 2.0 ports. It uses dual RJ45 ports with a Realtek RTL8125 2.5 GbE and undisclosed Intel Gigabit controller pairing. It uses an undisclosed Wi-Fi 6E interface for wireless connectivity with support for BT 5.2 devices on the Wi-Fi enabled version, while the regular Z590 Extreme omits this. The onboard audio includes five 3.5 mm jacks and S/PDIF optical output powered by a Realtek ALC1220 HD audio codec. Finishing off the rear panel is a pair of video outputs, including a DisplayPort and HDMI, with a PS/2 combo keyboard and mouse port.
At the time of writing, ASRock hasn't shared details on its Z590 pricing.
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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?