Gigabyte Z390 UD (Socket 1151/Z390 Express/DDR4/S-ATA 600/ATX)

Product Information

MSI’s board returned excellent application results that outpaced the Gigabyte, and the MSI board was frugal. However, it was inconsistent in gaming, and often behind the Gigabyte. Since Z390 is a revision of Z370, a lot of the chipset’s upgrades are minor or evolutionary. You still get DDR4 support, for instance, but Z370’s maximum allocation of 64GB has been doubled to 128GB. In addition, while Z370 supported 10 USB 3.1 Gen 1 ports, Z390 supports those 10 along with up to six faster USB 3.1 Gen 2 ports. Intel Z390 GAMING Motherboard with 10+2 Digital PWM Design, ALC1220-VB, 2-Way SLI™ / 2-Way CrossFire™ Multi-Graphics, USB 3.1 Gen2 Type-A, M.2 Thermal Guard, Intel GbE LAN with cFosSpeed, Smart Fan 5, Dual M.2, Dual Armor with Ultra Durable™ Technology, CEC 2019 The Asus board does ensure better stability and is fine for affordable builds – but its rivals are often faster, cheaper and include similar features. The Gigabyte Z390 Aorus Pro is a better option for speed, while the MSI MAG Z390 Tomahawk is better value. Read the full review Intel Z390 AORUS Motherboard with 12 Phases IR Digital VRM, Fins-Array Heatsink, RGB Fusion 2.0, 802.11ac Wireless, Triple M.2 with Thermal Guards, ESS SABRE HIFI 9118, Intel ® GbE LAN with cFosSpeed, Front & Rear USB 3.1 Gen 2 Type-C

The MSI does have plenty of fan connectors and four on-board USB connectors, and it has reasonable USB 3.1 connectivity at the rear. Intel has added native support for 802.11ac wireless internet for Z390, but many motherboard manufacturers will add their own, better wireless chips, especially on more expensive boards.

Remember, though, that the 9th generation of Coffee Lake has better Turbo speeds, a greater number of cores, improved thermal performance and fixes for the infamous Meltdown and Spectre vulnerabilities. If you have older hardware, or just want the newest kit inside your PC, then they’re certainly worth the upgrade. This board has reasonable features, with PCI connectivity and storage being particular highlights. Other boards do sometimes offer more, though, and it couldn’t outpace rivals in either application or gaming benchmarks. This subdued board isn’t awful, especially for storage or work, but the Gigabyte is a better all-rounder. Read the full review Every motherboard will have the ability to run a single graphics card, but you’ll have to pay closer attention if you want to run two GPUs, or if you want to use a lot of M.2 or PCI-based SSDs in your machine. Some motherboards won’t have sufficient bandwidth to go around all of these components. That means their performance will be reduced. Intel Z390 AORUS Motherboard with 6 Phases Digital VRM solutions, Extended Heatsink, HDMI 2.0 & DisplayPort onboard, 802.11ac Wireless, RGB Fusion 2.0, Dual M.2 with Single Thermal Guard, Front USB 3.1 Gen 1 Type-C, Intel ® GbE LAN with cFosSpeed Intel Z390 Ultra Durable motherboard with 12+1 Phases Digital VRM, Direct Touch Heatpipe, Thunderbolt™ 3, CPU attached RAID, 802.11ac Wireless, Dual M.2 with Thermal Guards, Dual Intel ® GbE LAN with cFosSpeed, Front & Rear USB 3.1 Gen 2 Type-C

Intel Z390 Gaming motherboard with 16 Phases IR Digital VRM, Fins-Array Heatsink, RGB Fusion 2.0, 802.11ac Wireless, Intel Thunderbolt 3, ESS SABRE 9018K2M DAC, AQUANTIA ® 10GbE LAN, RGB FAN COMMANDER, OC Touch However, it’s worth remembering that Z370 builds are still perfectly fine, and that Z390 only offers an incremental upgrade over its immediate predecessor – so it may not be worth upgrading if you have a relatively modern system. SNR AMP-UP Audio with High-End ESS SABRE 9018K2M DAC, LME 49720 and OPA1622 OP-AMP, WIMA audio capacitors Intel classifications are for general, educational and planning purposes only and consist of Export Control Classification Numbers (ECCN) and Harmonized Tariff Schedule (HTS) numbers. Any use made of Intel classifications are without recourse to Intel and shall not be construed as a representation or warranty regarding the proper ECCN or HTS. Your company as an importer and/or exporter is responsible for determining the correct classification of your transaction. Intel Z390 AORUS Motherboard with 12+1 Phases Digital VRM, Direct Touch Heatpipe, RGB Fusion 2.0, 802.11ac Wireless, Triple M.2 with Thermal Guards, Intel ® GbE LAN with cFosSpeed, Front & Rear USB 3.1 Gen 2 Type-C

Intel Z390 GAMING Motherboard with 10+2 Digital PWM Design, 2-Way CrossFire™ Multi-Graphics, USB 3.1 Gen2 Type-A, M.2 Thermal Guard, Intel GbE LAN with cFosSpeed, Smart Fan 5, Dual M.2, Dual Armor with Ultra Durable™ Technology, DualBIOS, CEC 2019 Gaming audio: High-fidelity sonics that draw you deeper into the action, with SupremeFX and Sonic Studio III. Motherboards that use the older Z370 chipset support 8th-generation chips, but they’ll need firmware updates to support 9th-generation hardware. Similarly, you’ll need to use a BIOS update if you want to run an eight-generation CPU on a Z390 board. So, what can this chipset handle – and what’s changed since Z370? And then, finally, think about form factor. Most of the boards in this Z390 group test use the standard ATX form factor, which means that they’ll fit inside mid- and full-sized tower cases without issue. The motherboards are put through a demanding suite of benchmark tests. We run Geekbench 4 to test single- and multi-core application speed, and Maxon’s Cinebench R15 to test CPU and OpenGL GPU performance. We use CrystalDiskMark to test NVMe and SATA storage speeds, and SiSoft Sandra to evaluate memory performance and processor arithmetic speeds.