ASUS TUF Gaming Z590-Plus WIFI Motherboard Review: Is $260 Mid-Range or High-End?
by Gavin Bonshor on August 10, 2021 10:00 AM ESTConclusion
What you get in terms of motherboard features and specifications for the money has changed wildly over the last 5-10 years. Whereas a $250-$300 motherboard would yield flagship status 'back in the day,' now you're looking at something in the mid-range. The ASUS TUF Gaming Z590-Plus WIFI represents a more 'mid-level' gaming series, and it has all the bell and whistles expected of a board in its price range.
Some of the most notable features on the ASUS TUF Gaming Z590-Plus WIFI includes triple M.2 for users looking to use fast storage capability, with one of these slots offering support for the fastest PCIe 4.0 x4 NVMe based drives; the other two are limited to PCIe 3.0 x4/SATA support from the chipset. ASUS also includes six SATA ports for conventional devices and storage, all with support for RAID 0, 1, 5, and 10 arrays offered by the Z590 chipset. For memory, ASUS allows users to install up to 128 GB of DDR4-5133 across four slots, which is around the standard for a model of this pedigree.
There's plenty of connectivity, which includes one USB 3.2 G2x2 Type-C on the rear panel, which is a benefit of going with Z590. Other connections include dual USB 3.2 G2 Type-A, two USB 3.2 G1 Type-A, and two USB 2.0 ports on the rear panel, with plenty of expansion support via front panel headers. ASUS also opts to use one of the better HD audio codecs for its onboard audio solution, with a Realtek ALC S1200A HD powering five 3.5 mm audio jacks, a S/PDIF optical output, and also drives a front panel audio header for users with a chassis that supports this. Networking support is also pretty standard, with an Intel AX200 Wi-Fi 6 CNVi and I225-V 2.5 GbE pairing providing improved connectivity over previous generations of Intel's desktop platforms.
Focusing on the bread and butter of any analysis, which is the performance, the TUF Gaming Z590-Plus WIFI performed credibly in our testing. Power efficiency is a strong point with good results in our power consumption testing and a respectable showing in our non-UEFI POST time testing. However, we found that this board isn't DPC latency optimized out of the box, and if that's a buying requirement, we recommend other Z590 models for this. In our computational and gaming tests, the ASUS held its own and showed its performance with credit compared to other Z590 models on test.
When it came to overclocking, the TUF Gaming Z590-Plus WIFI didn't perform in line with our other Z590 boards. Despite good levels of VDroop when we manually overclocked with our Core i9-11900K, we weren't able to achieve 5.2 GHz all-core stability in our testing. We know our testbed chip can do 5.3 GHz all-core on some of the better models, and this was a little disappointing that we could only achieve 5.1 GHz. That being said, regarding VRM thermal performance, the ASUS did perform very well against other models we've tested so far, especially for the price; we got similar VRM temperatures on the ASRock Z590 Taichi, and that has active cooling, not passive like the ASUS. This is a good win for ASUS as it shows efficiency in heat dissipation and an effective VRM design.
Final Thoughts: The $200-300 Z590 Market is Highly Competitive
When selecting a Z590 motherboard in the sub $300 bracket, there's perhaps more choice than other price points. The ASUS TUF Gaming Z590-Plus WIFI is available for $259 and has a solid feature set, and holds its own in our testing. Just above this model in the marketplace is the MSI MAG Z590 Tomahawk WIFI ($265), which for $6 includes Intel's latest Wi-Fi 6E CNVi. The rest of the specifications are similar, and if wireless networking isn't a buying requirement, ASUS does have a non-Wi-Fi variant of the TUF Gaming Z590-Plus for the lower price of $230. We feel there is much better value to be had for this version, as users could add their own Wi-Fi 6E CNVi module for around the cost of the model we've reviewed today.
Overall the ASUS TUF Gaming Z590-Plus WIFI offers a good package, but we feel the non-Wi-Fi model offers much better value.
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Arcadianu9 - Tuesday, August 10, 2021 - link
I would have liked to see the performance with one of the faster M.2 storage devices, and different configurations across the PCIe Gen4 and Gen3 connectors. The Crucial MX300 appears to be a SATA drive, which leaves a ton of performance on the table.Leeea - Tuesday, August 10, 2021 - link
What is weird about this is the ASUS TUF Gaming X570-PRO (WiFi 6) is both cheaper at $220 and is superior.That $40 difference also goes a long way to cover the difference in cost between
Wrs - Tuesday, August 10, 2021 - link
That’s AMD. The pins are on the CPU so the CPU is more expensive to match. Additionally Rocket Lake draws more instantaneous current so the boards need more VRMs. The AMD board’s second slot is PCIe-4, but it’s missing the third M2 slot as well as front USB-CLeeea - Tuesday, August 10, 2021 - link
The x570-Pro has the front and back USB-C ports. ( I have one sitting two feet from me )It also has 2x more SATA lines, BIOS flashback, PCIe 4 slots, multiple graphics card slots (the reviewed board indicates it only has one), and both m2 slots are PCIe 4.
The additional m2 slot on the z590 is an advantage, but cheap adaptors exist for converting PCIe 4.0 slots to m.2.
Yea, the different socket does cost more then the AMD equivalent, but ironically the CPU the board was reviewed with, the i9-11900K, costs a $150 more then its AMD equivalent 5800x.
Wrs - Tuesday, August 10, 2021 - link
Whoops, sorry about the USB-C front.For price comparisons I'd never match AMD's mid-range to Intel's top-end. The mobo+CPU comparison is far closer between 5800X/Z570 and 11700KF/Z590. The nice thing is street prices have been adjusting to relative performance & availability. Intel is obviously sweating on 14nm as they don't have any 12- or 16-core K competitor, plus they're cutting Rocket Lake below MSRP as it merely throws punches vs. a 5800x and is a bit behind in gaming and very much in power efficiency.
The PCI-e 4 lanes on x570 aren't always an advantage here, btw. See, Ryzen 3000 & 5000 only have 24 PCIe-4 lanes coming out of the SOC. In the TUF series, 16 are used for the first graphics slot and 4 for the first M2 slot, leaving 4 for the chipset to spread out between the second x16 graphics slot, second M2, and many of those USB links and Wifi. On Rocket Lake, 20 PCIe-4 lanes are used for the same graphics and M2 slots, but then 8 PCIe-3 lanes go to the chipset. The second x16 slot on both TUF boards is electrically just x4, but on the Intel version the halved bandwidth is accompanied by much less resource contention. This is primarily evident if you're using both a second M2 and multiple PCI-e cards on both boards - the simultaneous bandwidth off the chipsets is identical.
Leeea - Wednesday, August 11, 2021 - link
If I could upvote your post I would. :)supdawgwtfd - Wednesday, August 11, 2021 - link
8x gen3 lanes have the same bandwidth as 4x gen 4 lanes.Based on your comments the choosers would have the same bandwidth to the CPU?
What point we're you tryjg to make?
Threska - Tuesday, August 10, 2021 - link
"Although the aforementioned competitor's models include better onboard audio solutions, the ASUS and its lower price puts it in a solid position for users looking for a sub $300 model to build a Rocket Lake based system."But how many use the onboard audio anyway? Even the GPU has an onboard solution.
neothe0ne - Tuesday, August 10, 2021 - link
The vast majority of desktop computers use onboard sound from the motherboard. I'd guess that the market for cheap (e.g., sub-$150) DAC's/cards is just for people who buy a motherboard with a subpar Realtek audio implementation that lets them hear all their computer noise crystal clear.Operandi - Tuesday, August 10, 2021 - link
This isn't the early 00s DACs are easy these days as is evident by how many people use onboard audio (even with decent headphones or speakers) which is nearly everyone.