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
Z390 Power Delivery Specifications & Comparison
Prior to the launch of the new Z390 chipset, we reached out to all of the motherboard vendors to ask what power deliveries each board is equipped with. The setup and capabilities of the power delivery system on a motherboard are becoming an ever popular buying requirement, and manufacturers have taken notice of this. Especially as we have reported in a couple of our reviews now, that some boards are being embellished with claims above and beyond what they can actually support.
As it's been one of the most requested aspects of our Z390 content, we compiled as much information as we currently have in hand. This is what we've been able to pull from manufacturers in terms of specification sheets (directly from source), as well as other board information. In the below table a question mark (?) denotes that we don't currently have this information available. We don't want to speculate on what might be there, but when we get more information we will keep this table updated.
| Z390 Power Delivery Comparison | |||||
| Motherboard | Controller | H-Side | L-Side | Chokes | Doubler |
| ASRock Z390 Taichi | IR35201 (5+2) |
TI 87350D (12) ON FDPC5939SG (2) |
14 | IR3598 (6) |
|
| ASRock Z390 Taichi Ultimate | IR35201 (5+2) |
TI 87350D (12) ON FDPC5939SG (2) |
14 | IR3598 (6) |
|
| ASRock Z390 Phantom Gaming 9 | IR35201 (5+2) |
TI 87350D (12) ON FDPC5939SG (2) |
14 | IR3598 (6) |
|
| ASRock Z390 Phantom Gaming 6 | UPI9521 (?) |
SN Dual N-MOS (?) |
14 | ? (?) |
|
| ASRock Z390 Phantom Gaming 4 | UPI9521 (?) |
(?) (?) |
(?) (?) |
11 | ? (?) |
| ASRock Z390 Phantom Gaming-ITX/ac | ISL69138 (?) |
ISL Smart Power Stage (?) |
7 | ? (?) |
|
| ASRock Z390 Phantom Gaming SLI/ac | UPI9521 (?) |
(?) (?) |
(?) (?) |
11 | ? (?) |
| ASRock Z390M ITX/ac | UPI9521 (?) |
FC/SN Dual N-MOS (?) |
6 | ? (?) |
|
| ASRock Z390 Extreme4 | UPI9521 (?) |
SN Dual N-MOS (?) |
14 | ? (?) |
|
| ASRock Z390 Pro4 | UPI9521 (?) |
(?) (?) |
(?) (?) |
11 | ? (?) |
| ASRock Z390M Pro4 | ISL95866C (?) |
(?) (?) |
(?) (?) |
11 | ? (?) |
| GIGABYTE Z390 Aorus Master | IR35201 (6+2) |
IR3553 (12) |
14 | IR3599 (6) |
|
| GIGABYTE Z390 Aorus Ultra | ISL69138 (6+1) |
SiC634 (12) |
13 | ISL6617A (6) |
|
| GIGABYTE Z390 Aorus Pro WiFi | ISL69138 (6+1) |
SiC634 (12) |
13 | ISL6617A (6) |
|
| GIGABYTE Z390 Aorus Pro | ISL69138 (6+1) |
SiC634 (12) |
13 | ISL6617A (6) |
|
| GIGABYTE Z390 Aorus Elite | ISL69138 (6+1) |
SiC634 (12) |
13 | ISL6617A (6) |
|
| GIGABYTE Z390 I Aorus Pro WiFi | IR35201 (6+2) |
IR3553 (6) |
8 | - | |
| GIGABYTE Z390 Gaming SLI | ISL69138 (5+2) |
PPak (10) |
12 | ISL6617A (5) |
|
| GIGABYTE Z390 Gaming X | ISL69138 (5+2) |
PPak (10) |
12 | ISL6617A (5) |
|
| GIGABYTE Z390 UD | ISL69138 (5+2) |
PPak (10) |
12 | ISL6617A (5) |
|
| MSI MEG Z390 GODLIKE | IR35201 (?) |
TDA21462 (16) |
18 | IR3598 (8) |
|
| MSI MEG Z390 ACE | IR35201 (6+0) |
ON4C929N (12) |
ON4C024N (12) |
12 | IR3598 (6) |
| MSI MPG Z390 Gaming Pro Carbon AC | UPI9521 (?) |
ON4C929N (?) |
ON4C024N (?) |
10 | ? (?) |
| MSI MPG Z390 Gaming Pro Carbon | UPI9521 (?) |
ON4C929N (12) |
ON4C024N (?) |
10 | ? (?) |
| MSI MPG Z390 Gaming Edge AC | UPI9521 (?) |
ON4C929N (?) |
ON4C024N (?) |
10 | ? (?) |
| MSI MPG Z390M Gaming Edge AC | UPI9521 (?) |
ON4C929N (?) |
ON4C024N (?) |
8 | ? (?) |
| MSI MPG Z390I Gaming Edge AC | UPI9521 (?) |
TI87350D (6) |
6 | ? (?) |
|
| MSI MPG Z390 Gaming Plus | UPI9521 (?) |
ON4C929N (?) |
ON4C024N (?) |
8 | ? (?) |
| MSI MAG Z390 Tomahawk | UPI9521 (?) |
ON4C929N (?) |
ON4C024N (?) |
8 | ? (?) |
| MSI MAG Z390M Mortar | UPI9521 (?) |
ON4C929N (?) |
ON4C024N (?) |
? | ? (?) |
| MSI Z390-A PRO | UPI9521 (?) |
SM4337 (?) |
SM4503 (?) |
8 | ? (?) |
| Supermicro C9Z390-PGW | PXE1610C (6+1) PXM1310C (3+1) |
TDA2132 (?) |
9 |
- |
|
| Supermicro C9Z390-CG-IW | PXE1520 (5+2) |
TDA2132 (?) |
7 | - | |
| Supermicro C9Z390-CG | MP2949A (6) MP2940A (2) |
MP86945 (6) MP86908 (2) |
8 | - | |
As we get more information, we will update the table. We also have some motherboards in for review, so we can go into a deeper analysis on each individual article over the next few months.
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Valantar - Wednesday, October 10, 2018 - link
That would be pretty shocking, yeah, but the sheer size of that lump of metal still has me a bit worried. Guess that's what you get when you try to squeeze power delivery for a CPU that (likely) pulls >300W when overclocked into an ITX board (and refuse to use riser boards like before, for some reason).FXi - Monday, October 8, 2018 - link
The power feed also changed with z390 I believe at least in the Asus models it did. The power feed of the 370 was "enough" to drive the newer 9700/9900 but there is a difference there that may impact enthusiasts. I don't think it enough to warrant an upgrade but something to consider.Also people should remember that while it is still a bit of a ways off, wifi is going to change to Wifi6 or 802.11ax starting now and probably seeing much of the changeover during 2019/2020 depending on adoption choices. And there is also pci-e 4.0 to consider next year probably that should be thought about before people do "marginal" upgrades from 370 era chipsets.
FXi - Monday, October 8, 2018 - link
Silly thing posted in edit window. Sorry power delivery and other points covered by you. Would have edited if I could have found that optionDanNeely - Monday, October 8, 2018 - link
Other things to look forward to in the next few generations are: Less-hacky USB3.1 implementations (eg this articles speculation that a 10g port will need to eat 2 HSIO lanes instead of 1, and still needing an extra chip to support USB-C). Spectre/Meltdown fixes in hardware. A reduced DMI bottleneck between the CPU and chipset (either just from upgrading the link to PCIe4/5, moving some of the peripheral IO onto the CPU, or both.Valantar - Wednesday, October 10, 2018 - link
Considering that the maximum theoretical bandwidth of PCIe 3.0 x1 is 984.6MB/s, you _need_ two PCIe lanes (and thus two HSIO lanes) for a USB 3.1G2 (1.25GB/s) controller unless you want to significantly bottleneck it. That's not "hacky", that's reality, even if this leaves a lot of bandwidth "on the table" if this only powers a single port (which it rarely does, though, and given that a full load on two ports at one time is unlikely, running two 1.25GB/s ports off two .99GB/s lanes is a good solution).Moving DMI to PCIe 4.0 will be good, though, particularly for multiple NVMe SSDs and >GbE networking.
DanNeely - Wednesday, October 10, 2018 - link
Splitting the traffic over 2 HSIO lanes is a hack because it'd require something to split/combine the traffic between the chipset and usbport. That in turn has me wondering if the speculation about the implementation being done that way is correct, or if the Z390 has 6 HSIO lanes that can run 10Gbps instead of the 8 that the rest top out at for PCIe3repoman27 - Thursday, October 18, 2018 - link
The implementation is absolutely not done that way. HSIO lanes are simply differential signaling pairs connected to a PCIe switch or various controllers via a mux. The PCH has a 6-port USB 3.1 Gen 2 xHCI, which can only feed 6 HSIO muxes. The back end of that xHCI is connected to an on-die PCIe switch which in turn is connected to the DMI interface. That DMI 3.0 x4 interface is already massively oversubscribed, but it is at least equivalent to a PCIe 3.0 x4 link, which is the most bandwidth that can be allotted to a single PCH connected device.Srikzquest - Monday, October 8, 2018 - link
HDMI 2.0 is available in Asus and Gigabyte's ITX boards as well.gavbon - Tuesday, October 9, 2018 - link
Thank you Srikzquest; updated the tables, obviously missed this yesterday :) - Thanks againHickorySwitch - Monday, October 8, 2018 - link
Correction:https://www.asus.com/us/Commercial-Servers-Worksta...
It says under "Specifications" that the board sports HDMI 2.0[b?]