ASUS Prime Z790-A WiFi Motherboard Review

How Much Does It Cost?

The ASUS Prime Z790-A WiFi Motherboard is available now from Scan for just £319.99, which isn’t exactly cheap, I know, but it’s very competitive looking at what you get for your investment. It’s broadly in line with what their rivals are offering too, and given the performance was closer to higher-up ASUS models that can cost more than double, it’s relatively speaking, a bit of a bargain.

Overview

Upgrading to the latest Intel 13th Gen CPUs is clearly something worthy of those seeking killer system performance. With the introduction of both DDR5 memory and the latest PCIe 5.0 for graphics and PCIe 4.0 for the latest storage, you can push your rendering times down, and FPS up quite a lot compared to the previous generation of hardware.

However, for the most part, a lot of motherboards perform broadly the same, and the main difference in price comes from connectivity. Thankfully, that’s where the PRIME really shines, as it’s designed to be a workhorse, not just a gaming motherboard. Those bigger VRM will benefit the system overall, but if you’re rendering video, or 3D scenes, or anything that will see the CPU at high usage for extended periods, cheaper boards will get hot and throttle the VRM to reduce heat. This motherboard will let the CPU run harder for longer and with greater stability; it’s also something that will also benefit overclocking too.

I love the high-speed connectivity of the rear I/O too, however, unless you really need Thunderbolt USB4, USB 3.2 Gen 2×2 and all that jazz, which really only benefits high-performance external storage, displays and notebooks, it’s actually adding a lot to the price of the motherboard. The Z790-P is a little less extreme on the I/O, but it’s only £259.98 so don’t feel you need to pay for something you’re not going to be using. However, you’ll certainly be able to enjoy both 2.5Gb LAN and WiFi 6E, especially if you have a home/office LAN and fibre internet.

Should I Buy One?

This is a gorgeous-looking motherboard, but it’s clear the huge heatsinks on the VRM, the chipset, and all those ultra-fast Gen4 M.2 mounts are doing their job, delivering consistent high-end performance during heavy workloads. It’s a good motherboard for content creators who need extensive connectivity, fast eternal storage, and multiple displays.