FRONTPAGE Z390 Motherboard Roundup: 50+ New Releases from ASUS, GIGABYTE, MSI, and more

[Woomack]

In the day of premiere, on the supported CPU list were no processors from 9th gen. They were added 2 days later with info that BIOS 1.20 is required (like you see right now). No idea if it's required for boot or only for stable work/additional funtionality.
I also know that Intel had problems and stable BIOS was released a bit late. Actually even ASRock wasn't sure when Z390 will be released. Intel decided to release it faster than expected so I assume that other vendors have to work some more on their BIOS too.

If you decide to buy any ASRock Z390 mobo then probably I can send you beta BIOS for tests. For Z390 PG ITX there is only one on ASRock FTP + one which I got from ASRock rep in mail. Both work the same for me as I already said in my last post.

This is XMP + manual 4500, everything else, including all voltages at auto:



Memory performance is a bit better than that on MSI Z370 mobo with memory @4500 C19. Latency is about 2ns lower on ASRock.
When I finish standard tests then I will check how much I can tighten the timings.

 

[Blaylock]

Are these sticks Trident Z 4266 19-19-19?

 

[Woomack]

Are these sticks Trident Z 4266 19-19-19?

Trident Z RGB 4266 19-19-19 1.40V

max for now 4500 17-15-15-32 1.50V




Edit:
CL16-15-15 requires 1.6V but test results are about the same as on last screenshot.

 

[Desync]

Asus boards are stupid expensive on the high end. How many bloody versions do you need? EVGA dark is pretty sinister. I like the dual 22110's but kind of wasted with that chipset.

Gigabyte Aorus Master is probably my vote.

I'm torn between the Aorus Master and the Maximus XI Hero. Can't make up my mind to save my life.

 

[Woomack]

I see you have hwbot account (hwbot server is down right now so can't check anything) but I'm not sure if you wish to use this board for competitive overclocking. If yes then I wouldn't pick any of them. I had bad history with GB motherboards in last 4-5 years and all Hero motherboards were disappointing (for competitive benching at least and the same feelings share some guys from the benching team).
Since we can't say much about the BIOS and overclocking potential (mostly memory OC) then I would advice to wait 2-3 weeks and later decide.
If it's motherboard for daily work and gaming then it doesn't matter and just pick the one that has all the features you need.

 

[Desync]

I see you have hwbot account (hwbot server is down right now so can't check anything) but I'm not sure if you wish to use this board for competitive overclocking. If yes then I wouldn't pick any of them. I had bad history with GB motherboards in last 4-5 years and all Hero motherboards were disappointing (for competitive benching at least and the same feelings share some guys from the benching team).
Since we can't say much about the BIOS and overclocking potential (mostly memory OC) then I would advice to wait 2-3 weeks and later decide.
If it's motherboard for daily work and gaming then it doesn't matter and just pick the one that has all the features you need.

Its def. not for benching or anything like that. It'll be purely gaming and developing in unreal engine.

Going to put a 9900k and 16GB of 3000 in it along with a 1080 ti.

 

[ATMINSIDE]

Its def. not for benching or anything like that. It'll be purely gaming and developing in unreal engine.

Going to put a 9900k and 16GB of 3000 in it along with a 1080 ti.

Any reason for needing a board as high as the Master or MXI Hero? Seems like you could save a wad of cash with something like the AORUS Pro or Z390-H Gaming, etc.

 

[ATMINSIDE]

Update to the article, just added a lot more links

 

[Desync]

Any reason for needing a board as high as the Master or MXI Hero? Seems like you could save a wad of cash with something like the AORUS Pro or Z390-H Gaming, etc.

No special reason, other than them being high end boards in case the situation ever came around where I felt like putting a major OC on. But I am debating going with a cheaper board now that you ask that.

 

[ATMINSIDE]

No special reason, other than them being high end boards in case the situation ever came around where I felt like putting a major OC on. But I am debating going with a cheaper board now that you ask that.

Any of the mid range boards are going to overclock on ambient temperatures the same as the high end boards. Only the super cheap ones will struggle at all with higher overclocks. Grab something with the feature set you need and call it good

 

[Woomack]

The only difference is in memory overclocking but even cheaper motherboard will run up to 3600+ so it's not an issue in this case. Top OC boards will let to set 4133+ but CPU OC won't change much regardless what you pick, as ATM already said.

BTW I have Supermicro/SuperO Z390 ITX mobo for tests, so far DDR4-4000 without problems but XMP 4266 can't even boot
BTW2 ASRock released new beta for Z390 PG ITX mobo, will test it later today or tomorrow and let you know how it works

 

[Desync]

Appreciate the comments. Believe I'll go with the ASRock Taichi that I was originally going with. Newegg has them for $214 right now, $25 off, unless ASRock has a bad history, never used them.

 

[ATMINSIDE]

ASRock is typically a solid board

 

[ratbuddy]

Nice list, though I'd like to see a column for form factor, only interested in mATX boards.

 

[EarthDog]

The majority (all?) boards have an "M" for micro and "I" or just plain ITX for itx in the name.

 

[Woomack]

392.16 MHz bclk on ASRock Z390 PG-ITX/ac ... pointless result
http://valid.x86.fr/867kac

 

[Desync]

Just got my ASRock Z390 Taichi in today but looks like I'm not getting a 9900k anytime soon.

 

[Woomack]

Since Z390 supports RAID on NVMe then I decided to try it with 2x Samsung 970 EVO and results can be quite disappointing.

CrystalDiskMark looks good but bandwidth is limited by DMI so 3.5GB/s on single drive and 3.5GB/s max on 2 drives in RAID0. Writes are scaling perfectly fine so 1.5GB/s on a single drive and 3GB/s on two drives.
Deeper queues are scaling good too but Intel drivers are acting weird. Sometimes caching is not working or something else is happening as I get results like without caching.
Random low queue 4K was a surprise as in RAID it's usually lower than on a single drive. In both cases it was 65MB/s in Q1T1 4K read.

PCMark 8 and PCMark 10 were showing worse results in RAID0. ~6500(R0) vs ~6700 in PCMark10 (Standard) and ~8700(R0) vs ~9000 in PCMark 8 Creative Accelerated. Since both are based on a popular programs and simple games then here is an answer if there is a point to use RAID0 on Z370/Z390.

Simply, it's still better to buy 1 NVMe SSD at a higher capacity than 2 smaller and make a RAID0.
Just letting you know if you have that idea. 2 M.2 PCIe sockets are still nice, especially on ITX board which works in a small case.

 

[EarthDog]

That was certainly an expected result considering it was still going through the DMI.

 

[Woomack]

Expected was max bandwidth limit ... not really that in PCMarks R0 will perform worse than a single drive, especially that most synthetic storage tests were better in R0.