The Intel Z590 Motherboard Overview: 50+ Motherboards Detailed
by Gavin Bonshor on January 19, 2021 10:15 AM ESTASUS has prepared an impressive line up of Z590 models. Starting with the flagships, ASUS has two prepared two new Extreme models, the ROG Maximus XIII Extreme Glacial and ROG Maximus XIII Extreme.
ASUS ROG Maximus XIII Extreme & Extreme Glacial
Both of these share the same core feature set with an advertised large 20-phase power delivery (18+2) with impressive 100 A teamed power stages. Interestingly, the Maximus XIII Extreme Glacial looks to include a centrally located screen, which could be customizable, but ASUS hasn't provided us any details at time of writing.
The biggest difference between both models is that the ROG Maximus XIII Extreme Glacial includes a large monoblock developed between ASUS and EK. This provides coverage of the CPU socket, power delivery, and chipset for liquid-cooled systems. ASUS includes integrated RGB LED lighting across both models, which can be found within the window of the monoblock and chipset area on the Extreme Glacial. On the Extreme, it is integrated into the rear panel cover and chipset heatsink of the Extreme, with both boards benefiting from a strip on the underside of the PCB at the right-hand side.
ASUS ROG Maximus XIII Extreme Glacial (left) and Extreme (right) motherboards
Both models include two full-length PCIe 4.0 slots that operate at x16 and x8/x8, with a half-length PCIe 3.0 x4 slot. The PCIe 3.0 x4 slot is located at the top of the PCIe slot area on the Extreme Glacial, while it's the second slot on the non-monoblock version. Storage consists of three M.2 slots with all of them operating at PCIe 4.0 x4, although two of these revert to PCIe 3.0 x4 with Comet Lake processors and the third completely disabled without an 11th Gen Rocket Lake CPU installed. The ROG Maximus XIII Extreme and Glacial version includes six SATA ports with support for RAID 0, 1, 5, and 10 arrays, with four memory slots that can accommodate up to 128 GB of DDR4-5333 memory.
Included with both models is a new ROG Clavis USB Type-C DAC, with four ESS audio converters for variable spectral audio ranges. ASUS states that this ensures the highest levels of SnR with low distortion, with isolation shielding to ensure minimal interference.
ASUS ROG Maximus XIII Extreme Glacial (top) and Extreme (bottom) rear panels
On the rear panel of both boards, the only difference is in the color of the pre-attached rear I/O shield, white on the Glacial, and black on the regular Extreme model. ASUS has a stacked USB configuration, including two Thunderbolt 4 Type-C and eight USB 3.2 G2 Type-A ports. Networking capabilities include a Marvell AQtion AQC113CS 10 GbE controller, with a second Intel I225-V 2.5 Gb Ethernet port. The board also includes an Intel AX210 Wi-Fi 6E CNVi, with five 3.5 mm audio jacks and S/PDIF optical output powered by a SupremeFX ALC4082 and ESS Sabre ES9018Q2C DAC. To the far left of the panel are a clear CMOS and BIOS Flashback button pairing, with a single HDMI video output.
The ASUS ROG Maximus XIII Extreme Glacial is set to cost a whopping $1843, which I believe is the most expensive desktop motherboard to exist outside of workstation and HEDT variations. Based on this, the target market is likely to be slim, and I don't expect ASUS to shift as many units as its other boards. It's incredibly high-end, but outside of adding an aftermarket CPU block, even at the upper end for $1000 to the ROG Maximus XIII Extreme ($1166), it's an insane price.
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worldnewsnow - Friday, March 12, 2021 - link
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itr75 - Friday, March 19, 2021 - link
There is an VERY IMPORTANT ERROR in this article about the Asus Z590 gaming series motherboards - one that has potentially just cost me a chunk of the £320 i paid for one!In the article above, it states that the Z590-F Gaming WiFi motherboard will run in either x16, x8/x8 or x8/x4/x4 modes. THIS IS WRONG! The board will actually only run x16 for PCIe slot 1, if you have a card in slot 2, it drops to x8/x4 not x8/x8. for me this is a complete deal breaker as I have an RTX3070 and an LSI SAS RAID card which runs at PCIex8 - and is now running at x4 :(
fizzbuzzbang - Monday, March 22, 2021 - link
Are there any Z590 mobos that do not have a PCIe switch between the socket and the gen4-capable slots?If not, what motherboard has the best throughput @ Gen4?
Looking to plug in something like a Mellanox ConnectX-6DX which can do 1x200GbE / 2x100GbE, and want best possible bandwidth.
gsuburban - Wednesday, April 14, 2021 - link
Only one PCIe slot is 4th gen on all of these current motherboards. The other one or two M.2 slots are 3rd gen so you don't need to bother spending more money on your other NVMe storage devices.Exotica - Wednesday, April 14, 2021 - link
Regarding your z590 Vision D description:“ Finishing off the rear panel is a pair of Intel I225-V 2.5 GbE controllers, with Intel's latest AX210 Wi-Fi 6E CNVi, which also includes support for BT 5.2 devices.”
The article is in need of a correction: this board comes with the AX200 chip, not the ax210.
Lapajgo - Saturday, June 19, 2021 - link
Yeww ... a PS/2 port? I didn't know we still live in the 90s. Every time I start shopping for desktop upgrade, my search gets halted when I see PS/2 ports, VGA port, HDMI port or USB 2.0 port - it just makes me want to puke. And what's up with the motherboards that have 5 different video outputs? Pick a standard and stick with it! If I need to switch connectors I will use an adapter.P.S. Can we for ONCE see a motherboard with a decent amount of PCIe slots(I would like to see mATX with two x16 and two x4, none of that useless x1), no old USB ports but only the latest USB-C(we know how to use USB adapters and hubs), same type of video output(preferably something that supports the latest video standards), and NO legacy ports !!! Oh and if possible at least 3 M.2 NVMe ports, to allow for a decent RAID.
Lapajgo - Saturday, June 19, 2021 - link
Ah crap, I forgot - and a dual 2.5Gb LAN please. Some of us can no longer have their workloads on legacy 1Gb connections.rosarian0007 - Saturday, August 6, 2022 - link
Does the Asus Prime Z590-A Motherboard have a Third-Party USB Controller? Gensys Logic? I have an Asus Prime Z590-A it has a Gensys Logic USB Controller. Why would they not use the Intel Z590 Chipset USB controller.