Intel Z390 Motherboard Overview: 50+ Motherboards Analyzed
by Ian Cutress & Gavin Bonshor on October 8, 2018 10:53 AM EST- Posted in
- Motherboards
- Intel
- MSI
- Gigabyte
- ASRock
- EVGA
- Asus
- NZXT
- Supermicro
- Z390
ASRock Z390 Extreme4
The ASRock Z390 Extreme4 hails from a long line Extreme4 branded boards which go as far back as Intel's Z77 chipset which was released back in 2012. Fast forward to now and the new Z390 Extreme4 has a semblance of the previous Z370 Extreme4 board but with some key differences. First of all the Z390 Extreme4 now includes an M.2 heatsink for the bottom slot and the rear panel cover has classier ASRock branding across it. The RGB LED lighting zones remain in the same places from the heatsinks and audio PCB cover and that's where the differences end; aside from specifications of course and the fact that this board has the newer Z390 chipset included. ASRock advertises a 12-phase power delivery and has included a pair of 12 V ATX CPU power inputs; an 8-pin and 4-pin. The board also has support for DDR4-4300 memory with up to 64 GB of capacity across four available RAM slots.
ASRock has kept the same PCIe slot layout as the Z370 Extreme4 with a total of three full-length PCIe 3.0 slots with the top two being treated to a coat of ASRocks Steel Slot protection; bandwidth wise they operate (from top to bottom) at x16, x8 and in x4. Also included are three PCIe 3.0 x1 slots and the board has support for up to two-way CrossFire and three-way SLI multi-graphics card configurations. The board has a total of four RAM slots with support for up to a maximum of 64 GB in total. Storage wise the Z390 Extreme4 has eight SATA ports with six coming from the chipset and another two from an ASMedia SATA controller with support for 0, 1, 5 and 10 RAID arrays. The two M.2 ports do feature support for both PCIe 3.0 x4 and SATA, but it's worth pointing out that these likely that these slots will share bandwidth with other ports.
On the rear panel is two USB 3.1 Gen2 with a Type-A and Type-C port included along with a further four USB 3.0 Type-A ports. In addition to a PS/2 combo port is a trio of video outputs consisting of a DisplayPort, HDMI and a D-Sub. The Z390 Extreme4 doesn't have any wireless networking capability but there is scope to purchase an E-key PCIe adapter and the rear panel includes a bracket for it. The single wired LAN port is powered by an Intel I219V Gigabit controller while the S/PDIF and five 3.5 mm audio jacks are impelled by a good quality Realtek ALC1220 HD audio codec.
The Extreme4 motherboards usually combine a good mixture of features, specifications and for the new iteration, the ASRock Z390 Extreme4 has a recommended launch price of $180 which is reasonable all things considered. The board has everything minus integrated Wi-Fi and is aimed more at enthusiasts than gamers; plenty of Phantom Gaming boards for those. There is the added wow factor of RGB built into the heatsinks and overall the design follows a much cleaner and neutral aesthetic than the new Phantom branded boards.
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Chaitanya - Monday, October 8, 2018 - link
That video advert on pages is stupid pain in rear side to say the least when reading through all those pages.Mr Perfect - Monday, October 8, 2018 - link
The "How to pick a CPU" video? If you pay close attention to it, it's actually Anandtech content.That being said, they'll probably be fine with you ad-blocking it. Blocking content doesn't affect ad revenue, right? ;)
leexgx - Monday, October 8, 2018 - link
I just opened the site in edge now so I could block them as very distracting and annoying (as well as the scam ads between the article and comments section that I have to scroll past )edwpang - Wednesday, October 10, 2018 - link
I tried not to block ads, but I cannot bear the sight of some pictures and videos.imaheadcase - Wednesday, October 10, 2018 - link
I don't understand how anandtech would allow the scam ads to appear on here, its prob the #1 reason i use a adblock in the first place. The only reason i know about it is from phone, when i first saw them i was like "wtf is this shit".I guess anandtech doesn't think its ads reflect its site.
Ryan Smith - Thursday, October 11, 2018 - link
If you guys are encountering issues with the ads, please reach out to me and let me know. Ads fall under a different department in Future, but if there are specific problems then I can at least pass those along to get them addressed.Ananke - Thursday, October 11, 2018 - link
The ads /the video/ are super annoying - its the same style as Tom's Hardware, apparently as business has been merged. The slotted video, or the minimized video screen upon changing the tab size for example makes me avoiding Anandtech and Tom's alltogether, after reading it for 20 years /yeah, since Anand was a teenager and started it as a blog/. I am multitasking, and I can't read when screen is smaller, and I use smaller screen at work, because you know, I work.hoohoo - Thursday, October 11, 2018 - link
Hi Ryan,The Choose a CPU video is auto-play. On a phone or mobile device this is obnoxious for two reasons: (1) it uses a lot of bandwidth and mobile plans usually have a cap on data above which the reader must pay extra; (2) when the video plays it either pauses any already playing media (mp3 player on the phone) or just plays in addition to the existing media, both are irritating.
Please explain to your ad people that auto-play video is not nice.
Valantar - Monday, October 8, 2018 - link
It's likely the camera/render angle playing tricks on me, but the VRM heatsink/rear I/O shroud on the ROG Strix Z390-I Gaming looks like it'll interfere with GPUs with backplates ...The Chill Blueberry - Monday, October 8, 2018 - link
It's most likely just the camera angle. see how the top of the rear I/O is sticking out over the board. A big company like Asus couldn't forget about such an important detail.