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 Phantom Gaming 4
With the Z390 Phantom Gaming 4, ASRock has dropped the flashy LED lighting integrated into the heatsinks and offers users a further cut-down version at an entry-level price point ($140). The Z390 Phantom Gaming 4 keeps the same black and grey PCB theme, it removes the rear panel cover from the other Phantom Gaming boards outlined above and removes one of the power delivery heatsinks; this model is advertised as having a lower spec 10-phase power delivery. Also omitted from the Z390 Phantom Gaming 4 is Steel Slot protection. The board has two full-length PCIe 3.0 slots which run at x16 and x4 respectively, along with a total of three PCIe 3.0 x1 slots. Users looking to run SLI on a budget will need to look at ASRock's Z390 Phantom Gaming SLI board which is similar but costs $20 more.
The memory capability of the Z390 Phantom Gaming 4 consists of support for up to 64 GB of DDR4 memory and up to DDR4-4300. The board offers six SATA ports with support for RAID 0, 1, 5 and 10 arrays. Included are two PCIe 3.0 x and SATA compatible M.2 slots and on the cooling front, the Z390 Phantom Gaming 4 offers a total of four 4-pin fan headers.
On the rear panel, the Z390 Phantom Gaming 4 has two USB 3.1 Gen2 consisting of a single Type-A and Type-C port with two USB 3.0 Type-A and USB 2.0 ports. A single LAN port powered by an Intel I219V Gigabit networking controller and the three 3.5 mm audio controlled by a Realtek ALC892 HD codec are also featured. Just like the Z390 Phantom Gaming 6, the Z390 Phantom Gaming 4 has a trifecta of video outputs which are comprised of a D-sub, a DisplayPort and a single HDMI output.
With a much lower entry point into the market than the bigger Phantom Gaming 6 and 9 motherboards, the ASRock Z390 Phantom Gaming 4 has a price of $140 which makes it the third cheapest Z390 board in ASRock's current SKU list and with Intel Gigabit LAN and a mid-ranged Realtek ALC892 codec, the Gaming 4 is seemingly targeted at gamers not looking to spend allocated budget on flashy aspects such as RGB and SLI support, but instead sticks to the important core componentry with minimal fuss.
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DanTMWTMP - Thursday, October 11, 2018 - link
Are they ALL made in China? What happened to the ones made in Taiwan from a few gens ago? :/gavbon - Friday, October 12, 2018 - link
Unfortunately, I cannot confirm this. The ASRock Z390 Taichi I have in my hands says 'designed in Taipei', but that's about it.Nagorak - Sunday, October 14, 2018 - link
Gigabyte apparently has a factory in Taiwan. It seems all the rest moved production to China.WickedMONK3Y - Friday, October 12, 2018 - link
The MEG Z390 Godlike looked like such an interesting board until I checked the MSI Specifications page and realised it actually does not have the PLX chip as suspected. The PCI Express slots on the board are configured as 16x / 4x / 8x / 4x instead of 16x / 16x / 8x / 4x or 16x / 8x / 16x / 4x. It seems after PLX sold to whomever owns them now, that the price hike stopped their usage on consumer boards completely.I really really hope somebody comes out with a board that has a PLX chip on board.
gavbon - Friday, October 12, 2018 - link
The Supermicro C9Z390-PGW has a Broadcom 8747 PLX PCIe switch :)ZioTom - Friday, October 12, 2018 - link
It would be a nice touch including in next MB review what pheriferals stop funcioning when too much PCI-E lanes are used. Some motherboards disable SATA ports when M.2 slot are used; others may require limiting bandwith to one PCI-E slot... etc. Before byuing a motherboard I would like to be warned that is not possibile to use all the features they are advertising.happyfirst - Friday, October 12, 2018 - link
I wish we would get better thunderbolt support. Only one board has it built in? I'm thinking of a Taichi board and see a Thunberbolt AIC connector in the manual, but then I can't really find enough good quality posts of people having success putting it to use. I'd like to get a new external nvme ssd thunderbolt drive to run my vms off of so I can more easily take them on the road with me and use from my notebook.ddcc - Saturday, October 13, 2018 - link
Certain Gigabyte boards, e.g. Z390 Aorus Pro WiFi, seem to be using Intel's Z390 CNVi, but aren't listed in the article.gavbon - Monday, October 15, 2018 - link
I'm going to be updating tomorrow with more information; been working on getting one of the board reviews ready for the end of the week :)gavbon - Sunday, October 21, 2018 - link
Will be adding these in tomorrow (not at a PC currently) - We didn't have the information available prior to writing