INTEL Z590 MOTHERBOARDS
Feature rich motherboards built for demanding CPUs.
Feature rich motherboards built for demanding CPUs.
Intel’s 11th Generation of processors have landed! If you read our review of the i9-11900K in our previous issue, you’d have read that while it performs well for the most part, it runs hot and it consumes a lot of power. The i5-11600K and likes of the 11500 and 11400 are much more appealing and will sell well, as will Z590 motherboards. They introduce some desirable features and are built to cope with the tough demands of Rocket Lake CPUs.
Perhaps the most noteworthy inclusion is native PCIe 4.0 support, finally! This means parity with AMD and it means that the latest and greatest SSDs can reach their full potential. The Z590 chipset also includes a welcome a doubling of the CPU to chipset DMI bandwidth. This helps to alleviate any potential bottleneck that may occur if you are running several chipset connected devices including M.2 drives. Most Z590 models support much faster memory, in fact well over DDR4-5000 in some cases thanks to the inclusion of a new memory controller divider, usually referred to as Gear 1 and Gear 2.
PREMIUM BUDGET
Though of course not all boards support all features, the mid and high-end boards will include features such as WiFi 6E, native 20Gbps USB 3.2 and Thunderbolt 4. This kind of connectivity will help to keep the platform relevant for years to come. Another key characteristic is the inclusion of strong VRM circuitry, which is necessary given the peak power consumption requirements of the i7 and i9 CPUs, and particularly the latter when Adaptive Boost is enabled. CPUs that can pull 300w or more without even being considered overclocked means you need a strong foundation. Some of the cheaper Z590 boards have VRM solutions that wouldn’t have been out of place on high end boards from just a few years ago.
Given the upwards trend in motherboard pricing over the last couple of generations plus the ongoing effects of the pandemic, we had fears that we’d see another jump. Thankfully, partly due to the stronger Australia dollar and despite semi-conductor supply issues, we are happy to see that pricing is better than we expected.
There are many Z590 boards available for well under $300.
TESTING THE Z590
For our testing, we ran the motherboards under both ‘light’ and ‘heavy’ loads. We’ve done this specifically to analyse how the board performs under default conditions, as well as how it handles an 11900K with Adaptive Boost enabled and the power restrictions removed. The latter is a stern test of the motherboard, and it reveals some interesting differences in peak power consumption.
Picking the winner of a motherboard roundup is usually difficult, especially in the mid-range class. A single feature here or a percentage point benchmark win there might not make a lot of difference in the grand scheme of things. Brand loyalty will likely weigh just as much on your choice of board. We think any of these boards will serve you well. So, if you’ve made the decision to grab an 11th Gen processor, you can be assured that you’ll have a solid foundation for your new system and you’ll be getting some cuttingedge I/O features. Read on as we take a look at a selection of the best mainstream Z590 motherboards!