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 Plus
The MSI MPG Z390 Gaming Plus is the ATX sized entry model to the new MPG performance gaming range and as a result, still boasts some good quality controllers such as a Realtek ALC892 HD audio codec which does omit the S/PDIF optical output from other boards in MSI's gaming range, but it also includes the higher spec Intel I219V Gigabit networking chip. Visually the MPG Z390 Gaming Plus follows a completely different approach to the other MPG boards as this is the only red and black gaming themed board in their line-up and as a result, has no onboard RGB LED lighting and instead is equipped with only red LEDs.
On the rear panel is two USB 3.1 Gen2 connections with a Type-A and Type-C both present and is complemented by two USB 3.0 Type-A and two USB 2.0 ports. Like other models in the range, users can extend the USB to by a further four USB 3.0 and four USB 2.0 through the use of internal headers. For the onboard graphics, MSI removes a DisplayPort and instead opts to use a single dual-link DVI-D along with an HDMI output. There is a single LAN port powered by an Intel I219V Gigabit controller and the six 3.5 mm audio jacks are taken care of by a Realtek ALC892 HD audio codec.
Due to the lower end nature of the Z390 Gaming Plus, there's only two available full-length PCIe 3.0 slots with the top slot which has a coating of MSI's Steel Armor slot protection running at x16 and the bottom slot operating at x4; two-way CrossFire is supported by SLI isn't due to bandwidth restraints on the second slot. Due to this, the board uses the available PCB space up with a total of four PCIe 3.0 x1 slots. For storage, the board has a total of six SATA ports available and also features two M.2 PCIe/SATA slots. There are four RAM slots with support for DDR4-4400 with a total capacity of up to 64 GB.
With the cut-down nature of this board in comparison to other MPG ATX sized models, the MSI MPG Z390 Gaming Plus has a suggested launch price of $149 which makes this the cheapest MPG series motherboard in MSI's MPG current SKU list. It's also the cheapest ATX board on the Z390 chipset from MSI outside of their non-gaming themed models with the cheaper price to be expected due to the lack of integrated RGB LEDs and slightly lower spec feature set.
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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.