TOP 5 gaming motherboards for Intel Z390

Gigabyte Z390 GAMING X is an interesting mid—level gaming board, which in the model range is somewhere between relatively inexpensive solutions on the H370 chip and absolutely overclocker cards of the caliber of Gigabyte Z390 AORUS PRO . It has an affordable price tag in common with the first category, and from game cards there is a 10+2 phase power system, radiators on mosfets, cooling of the M.2 slot and good overclocking capabilities.

The picture of connections looks like this: two M.2 slots for solid-state drives, four DDR4 DIMM slots and six SATA, a pair of PCI-E 16x for several video cards (only AMD CrossFire is supported) and a generous set of 8 USB ports, including USB 3.1 gen2. In general, this is quite a standard layout for boards based on the Z390 and you will not be able to praise or scold something here. It can only be noted that there are 4 openings for powering coolers, which can complicate the installation of a complex cooling system. For comparison, most motherboards based on the Z390 have from 5 to 7 power outlets.

If you do not feel awe at the sight of a multi-zone RGB backlight (the board has a Gigabyte RGB Fusion backlight, but it is quite minimalistic), do not have increased requirements for the quality of the built-in audio and are not going to build a refrigerator inside, then the Gigabyte Z390 GAMING X works out every penny and is quite suitable for creating a fairly powerful Core-caliber gaming system i7 8700 and GTX 1070 Ti.

With the release of the Z390 chipset, MSI tried to simplify the life of potential buyers and introduced a new nomenclature for the line of new motherboards. So the most advanced models will be marked MEG, and the MAG and MPG models will occupy the average price range. The MSI MAG Z390 Tomahawk board belongs to the middle level and is part of the MAG line.

Upon detailed inspection, it attracts attention by the presence of two additional power outlets at once — EPS12V and ATX12V. Thus, the manufacturer strives to provide stable power to the LGA1151 socket based on powerful 8-core processors Intel Core i9 Coffee Lake Refresh i9-9900K BOX and Intel Core i7 Coffee Lake Refresh i7-9700K BOX . There are a total of nine power phases whose transistors need passive cooling. Thanks to this, Tomahawk is quite confident when overclocking "voracious" multicore Core i7 chips. Well, as always, we will praise the thoughtful and maximally friendly BIOS from MSI, which simplifies the process of overclocking to the movement of a pair of settings sliders.

In terms of connections, Tomahawk has four slots for DDR4 RAM, three PCI-E 16x slots (one of them reinforced), a pair of M.2 for connecting high-speed SSDs (one of them has a radiator for cooling), six SATA ports and six USB ports, including USB 3.1 gen2 and USB-C. Coupled with a price of $160, all this makes the MSI MAG Z390 Tomahawk one of the most balanced motherboards based on the Z390 chip.

After the presentation of the Z390 chipset, the Taiwanese company ASRock Z390 Extreme4 I did not pull the bull by the horns and released 12 diverse (but actually damn similar) motherboards at once. The hero of today's review of the ASRock Z390 Extreme4 is somewhere in the middle of this line: with a pumped power system and a rich functional set, it does not have Wi-Fi/Bluetooth modules and a heat tube between VRM radiators like the older brothers ASRock Z390 Taichi and ASRock Z390 Phantom Gaming 9 .

The chip of ASRock boards is often a close to perfect balance of price and functionality, and the ASRock Z390 Extreme4 is an excellent example of this approach. The board boasts a pair of M slots.2 with cooling, three reinforced PCI-E 16x and a set of high-speed USB 3.1 gen2 interfaces (there are both USB A and USB-C). It is also worth noting a good ASRock Polychrome Sync backlight synchronization system and excellent audio capabilities of the audio tract, which uses a pumped version of the Realtek ALC1220 codec, supports multichannel sound technology Creative Sound Blaster Cinema 5 and has an optical output.

In general, ASRock turned out to have a strong gaming board without significant flaws. Of the disadvantages, it can be noted that the DDR slots are not quite well located, which can interfere with the installation of a large cooling system.

The MSI MPG Z390 CARBON motherboard is part of the Performance Gaming line and is positioned by the manufacturer as a near-prototype product. The fee is designed for gamers with a tight wallet, who on the one hand want to get a high result like a full-fledged overclocking Intel Core i9 Coffee Lake Refresh i9-9900K BOX , but at the same time they do not want to overpay for frankly overclocking products.

Coolness is manifested in the quality of electronics that can provide the necessary acceleration. So the EPS12V and ATX12V connectors are responsible for supplying power to the processor of the board, the number of power phases has been increased to 11 pcs, and massive cooling radiators can be found on the power circuits. Thanks to this, the card supports any desktop Core processors of the 8th and 9th generations, DDR4 RAM with an operating frequency of 4400 Mhz, and is also friends with any bundles of video cards including 2-Way SLI and 3-Way CrossFire.

Among the connectivity options, you can highlight numerous USB 3.1 Gen 2 ports (including USB-C), a pair of M.2 interfaces (one and cooling), an excellent sound subsystem with a Realtek ALC1220P-VB2 codec and an optical input, enhanced graphics card slots, a high-quality network controller from Intel with the ability to prioritize traffic and a fairly advanced backlight system using the proprietary MSI Mystic Light Sync utility.

Motherboards of the ASUS ROG STRIX line are deservedly popular with gamers, overclockers and ordinary users who pay attention to the final design of the assembled system. Fortunately, the style of the latest solutions allows you to successfully fit them into almost any idea. At the same time, in ROG you can find not only extreme gaming cards for many hundreds of dollars, but also balanced solutions with affordable price tags. One of the latest options is the Asus ROG Strix Z390-F GAMING.

In its arsenal you will find almost everything that a user needs for comfortable operation of a modern high-level gaming system. Namely two interfaces M.2 (both with cooling radiators), a pack of high-speed USB 3.1 gen2 ports (including one USB-C), an excellent SupremeFX sound system, an Intel network controller with traffic prioritization, several LED strip connection slots (there is backlight synchronization Asus Aura Sync), and reinforced slots for installing video cards.

> In terms of overclocking, we have an enhanced 10-phase power subsystem for CPU and sockets for system coolers and a wide selection of BIOS settings for overclocking the processor and memory (overclocking up to 4266 MHz is supported). All this allows you to use almost any gaming hardware based on the Asus ROG Strix Z390-F GAMING, with the exception of very extreme bundles with eight-core processors. To overclock them, the power subsystem still needs more help. Considering the price and functionality, this is one of the best gaming boards based on the Z390, which is confirmed by the estimates of numerous reviews.