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
GIGABYTE Z390 Gaming SLI
Not all of GIGABYTE's gaming range is underneath the Aorus banner and the primary example on the Z390 chipset is the Z390 Gaming SLI. In regards to the design, the board has a black color scheme throughout with slim red accents on both the power delivery and chipset heatsinks. The board makes use of three full-length PCIe 3.0 slots with the top slot operating at x16, the middle slot at x8 and the bottom at x4. The top and middle slot have a coating of metallic slot protection and due to the middle slot operating at x8 and as the name suggests, this model does support two-way SLI graphics configurations. The onboard Realtek ALC1220-VB codec has EMI shielding and the power delivery looks to be running in an 8+4 or 10+2 configuration; this is supplemented by a pair of 12 V ATX CPU power inputs which consists of an 8-pin and a 4-pin.
Memory support on the Z390 Gaming SLI consists of four RAM slots with a maximum capacity of up to 64 GB; the maximum rated XMP profile is currently unknown as of yet. The onboard audio is provided by a Realtek ALC1220-VB audio codec which offers six 3.5 mm audio jacks on the rear panel; the single LAN port is controlled by an Intel I219V Gigabit networking chip. A total of eight USB Type-A ports are present which are split into two USB 3.1 Gen2 and six USB 3.0, with a combo PS/2 port and a single HDMI video output also present.
While this board is similar in spec to the Z390 Aorus Elite, it currently costs just $160 and represents one of GIGABYTEs cheapest Z390 models at launch. Based on this the targetted segment is likely to be budget gaming with certain cost-cutting measures in place such as rear panel connections, but without sacrificing on support and componentry such as power delivery needed to run Intel's top 9th generation processor the Core i9-9900K.
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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.