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
MSI MPG Z390 Gaming Pro Carbon AC
The MSI MPG Z390 Gaming Pro Carbon AC as it stands is the premier model from the MPG (performance gaming) range and as such, encompasses some of the higher end controllers such as an Intel I219V Gigabit LAN and 2T2R supported Intel 9560 802.11ac wireless networking adapter. The aesthetic has that famed carbon styled look across the board's heatsinks and rear IO cover, which also has built-in RGB LED lighting too. The board has an all-black PCB and the bottom M.2 slot has an integrated heatsink which lines up alongside the chipset heatsink.
With a very similar PCB layout to the MPG Z390 Gaming Edge AC, the MPG Z390 Gaming Pro Carbon AC has a total of three PCIe 3.0 full-length slots which operates (top to bottom) at x16, x8 and x4. This means that 3-way CrossFire and two-way SLI multi-graphics card configurations; also present is three PCIe 3.0 x1 slots. Storage wise the top MPG model has a pair of PCIe and SATA compatible M.2 slots, while the bottom slot gets paired up with a heatsink which integrates itself into the chipset heatsink. As with all of MSI's Z390 launch ATX motherboard lineup, MSI has opted to use all of the available six SATA ports provided from the Z390 chipset itself. Memory support is limited to DDR4-4400 and has the capacity for a total of up to 64 GB across all of the four available memory slots.
The rear panel as expected accommodates a larger number of USB real estate than other MPG series models with the Z390 Gaming Pro Carbon AC making the most of the USB 3.1 Gen2 integration with the chipset as three Type-A and a single Type-C are present. Rounding off the rear panel USB is two USB 2.0 ports while an additional four USB 3.0 and four USB 2.0 ports through the use of internal headers. Also present is a pair of video outputs which consist of a single HDMI and DisplayPort. The onboard audio and five 3.5 mm audio jacks take their direction from a Realtek ALC1220 HD audio codec while the single LAN port is controlled by an Intel I219V Gigabit networking chip.
MSI's suggested pricing of the MPG Z390 Gaming Pro Carbon is $230 which seems very reasonable considering this is basically a cut-down version of the MEG Z390 ACE. Users looking to make use of the super fast 1.73 Gbps wireless network can do so thanks to the inclusion of an Intel 9560 2T2R Wave 2 capable WiFi adapter. Users who don't want to spend extra money on the wireless networking can save themselves $30 as MSI also lists a non-AC version of this board, the MPG Z390 Gaming Pro Carbon for $200.
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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.