Asus PRIME Z390-A
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A relatively affordable overclocker motherboard based on the flagship 2018 Intel Z390 chipset. Fully compatible with 2/4/6/8-core 8th/9th generation Intel Core i9/i7/i5/i3/Pentium/Celeron processors based on Coffee Lake Refresh (14nm) microarchitecture. Designed for assembling high-level gaming systems and workstations equipped with high-performance discrete graphics cards (there is support for Nvidia SLI and AMD CrossFire technologies).
The Asus PRIME Z390-A motherboard is equipped with a reliable 9-phase DIGI+ power subsystem with additional aluminium heatsinks, which is quite durable for reasonable overclocking experiments performed without extreme voltage increase. Thanks to support for CPU and RAM overclocking, the Asus PRIME Z390-A motherboard may be of interest to economical enthusiasts who can get maximum performance by fine-tuning the parameters of key system components. Supports two fast NVMe SSD drives and up to six SATA3 devices. Four slots for DDR4 RAM modules make it possible to install up to 128 GB (4x32 GB), which is quite enough for any current games and resource-intensive professional applications. High-speed processing of large volumes of traffic in the LAN network is provided by the Intel I219V GbE controller.
Buy Asus PRIME Z390-A
All prices 14 →ASUS Prime Z390-A Motherboard LGA1151 Intel 8th And 9th Gen ATX DDR4 DP HD | $319.00 |  | |||
ASUS PRIME Z390-A - Motherboard - ATX - LGA1151 Socket - Z390 - USB 3.1 Ge | $250.12 |  | |||
Asus Prime Z390-A Motherboard Intel Z390 Socket 1151 Corei7/I5/I3 ATX DDR4 | $169.99 |  | |||
| $179.99 |  | ||||
ASUS Prime Z390-A LGA 1151 (300 Series) ATX Intel Motherboard | $205.79 | | |||
Game board without any reservations
According to Asus' idea, the Prime line is a mid-range product whose capabilities should not exceed the solutions of the ROG series, but be slightly better than TUF Gaming.
In terms of equipment, PRIME Z390-A is a direct successor of the previous PRIME model based on the Z370 chip. From the connectivity options, you can highlight numerous USB ports (including USB 3.1 Gen2 and USB-C), a pair of M.2 interfaces, an excellent sound subsystem based on the Realtek ALC S1220A codec, reinforced graphics card slots, a high-quality network controller from Intel with the ability to prioritize traffic, as well as a heatsink for cooling an M.2 drive.
Improved power subsystem
Compared to its predecessor, the PRIME Z390-A has an improved power subsystem, which greatly improved overclocking capabilities. It is capable of overclocking the older models of the latest series of processors, and, as our tests have shown, it really succeeds — the system behaves stably and predictably. The LLC set allows you to choose the right profile for good voltage stabilization, and the overall heating level of the VRM does not require the use of additional cooling methods during strong overclocking.
Facilities for modding
Also note pleasant little things in the form of a button for turning on the LEDs of indicators of the operation of various components, which help to better understand the state of the system during overclocking. Of the possible weaknesses, one can only note the heating of the textolite between the radiators during overclocking. However this happens only with serious overclocking of chips of the Core i9-9900K caliber.
Unusual design
Finally, let's praise the design of the board — if most gaming "motherboards" are either black or red-black, then here we see an interesting combination of black, white and grey, which complement the acid LEDs on the radiators. Thanks to the Asus Aura Sync backlight synchronization, the latter look especially cool.
