The Ultimate Z590 Motherboard Guide

Super Micro

Super Micro have two new boards for this launch, and while they’re still equipped to suit the needs of modern gaming rigs, they’re also a little more industrial looking. That’s hardly surprising, given Super Micro does more work in the server market. However, they also build their consumer boards to the higher standards of the enterprise market. Reliability and stability are the core of Super Micro designs, and that’s easy to see in both the C9Z590-CGW and the C9Z590-CG.

However, both these boards share many features, such as identical memory support, USB ports, and display connections. However, the CGW is the more high-end of the two, offering an additional M.2 port and WiFi 6. However, both boards come with Intel Gigabyte LAN and the mighty Marvell AQC113C 10Gb LAN, so you’re hardly left wanting for networking performance here.

Check out the SuperMicro Z590 official product page here.

C9Z590-CGW

• 11th Generation Intel® Core™ Processors (i3/i5/i7/i9), Pentium® and Celeron® Processors
• Single Socket LGA-1200 (Socket H5) supported, CPU TDP supports Up to 125W TDP
• Intel® Z590
• Up to 128GB Unbuffered non-ECC UDIMM, DDR4-3200MHz, in 4 DIMM slots
• 2 PCI-E 4.0 x16 slots (16/NA or 8/8)2 PCI-E 3.0 x1
  • M.2 Interface: 2 PCI-E 3.0 x4 and 1 PCI-E 4.0 x4
  • M.2 Form Factor: 2260/2280/22110
  • M.2 Key: M-Key
• 2 attached to PCH by PCI-E3.0x 4, 1 attached to CPU by PCI-E4.0x 4), support Raid 0,1 and 5 by RST; M.2-E1 port pre-installed one Intel Wi-Fi 6(802.11ax)+BT5.1 module
• 1 HDMI port, 1 DP (DisplayPort) port, DP version 1.4a, HDMI version 2.0b
• Single LAN with Intel® single Ethernet PHY i219V 1Gb
• Single LAN with Marvell AQC113C 10Gb

C9Z590-CG

• 11th Generation Intel® Core™ Processors (i3/i5/i7/i9), Pentium® and Celeron® Processors
• Single Socket LGA-1200 (Socket H5) supported, CPU TDP supports Up to 125W TDP
• Intel® Z590
• Up to 128GB Unbuffered non-ECC UDIMM, DDR4-3200MHz, in 4 DIMM slots
• 2 PCI-E 4.0 x16 slots (16/NA or 8/8)2 PCI-E 3.0 x1
• 2xPCI-E 4.0 x16 Slots (Slot#4 and Slot#6 can be configured as 16/NA, 8/8)
  • M.2 Interface: 1 PCI-E 4.0 x4 and 2 PCI-E 3.0 x4
  • M.2 Form Factor: 2260/2280/22110
  • M.2 Key: M-Key
• 2 attached to PCH by PCI-E3.0x 4, 1 attached to CPU by PCI-E4.0x 4), support Raid 0,1 and 5 by RSTe software raid
• 1 HDMI port, 1 DP (DisplayPort) port, DP version 1.4, HDMI version 2.0a
• Single LAN with Intel® single Ethernet PHY i219V 1Gb
• Single LAN with Marvell AQC113C 10Gb

Final Thoughts

Prices

While prices are still being confirmed, you can expect to pay around £180 – 250 for the standard boards. This includes the Gigabyte motherboards (not AORUS or VISION), MSI Tomahawk, and the entry models from BIOSTAR, to name but a few.

Moving up, the mid-range options will cost anything up to £400, and basically cost more than their Z490 versions due to the increase in materials used in their construction. This covers the AORUS and VISION boards, MSI MEG and MPG series, etc.

However, this is where things get crazy. The flagship boards are going to be North of £1000. This includes the MSI GODLIKE, the ROG Maximus XIII Extreme Glacial, the AORUS XTREME, and I bet the EVGA boards cost even more than all of them.

Check for the latest stock and prices of Z590 motherboards on Amazon here.

A full list of where to buy links and prices will be added as soon as stock is available.

Overview

There’s clearly no shortage of choices when it comes to Z590 motherboards. However, what’s clear is that they’re all fairly high-end solutions, which is actually the point. The CPU support on these motherboards is broadly identical to that of Z490. It’s certainly rare to see Intel release a new chipset that doesn’t require a new socket, but it’s certainly refreshing.

Z590 is basically everything Z490 could have been. Sure, there are some fantastic Z490 boards out there right now. Many of them will even support the new processors, and as a result, can unlock their full PCIe Gen 4 potential. However, Z590 is dialled in with massively improved power delivery on just about every board from every brand. There’s now active cooling on the VRM for most of them too. This means that the new flagship CPU will be able to hit some massive boost clocks for much longer periods than what we saw on Z490.

If you’re after a more affordable board for your new Intel CPU, then Z490 is likely the way to go. The more affordable motherboards live in that older chipset, as do many mid-range and high-end boards. In fact, many of the flagships from Z490 aren’t all that different from the Z590 variants. However, while Z590 boards have increased power delivery, it’s not like all the Z490 were lacking.

Z590 is all high-end solutions. Even the more affordable ones from BIOSTAR, Gigabyte, and a few others are still very well equipped. The VRM configurations, the motherboard heatsinks and armour, the PCB layers and overall copper content have all been boosted.

One thing is for certain, the prices of the top-end models are going to be a new level of scary, but we are really looking forward to seeing the next-gen levels of performance that they seem to promise!